The effect of home learning activities as a part of an educational unit in solid waste management education on fifth-grade student and parent knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of home learning activities, as a part of an educational unit in solid waste management, on changes in knowledge of students, as well as attitudes and actions of students and parents in relation to solid waste management. In addition, the study compared the differences in knowledge mean gain scores between male and female students.;The data for this study were obtained from 26 fifth-grade classrooms in a school district in the southwestern part of the United States and their parents. Volunteer teachers were divided into two experimental groups, one that taught the solid waste management educational unit and a second that taught the same unit with the addition of home learning activities. A control group did not implement the educational unit. A pretest and posttest of knowledge, consisting of 18 questions each, were given to the students, and mean gain scores were analyzed by treatment and gender. Post surveys on attitudes and actions toward solid waste management were completed by students and their parents. Mean scores for the surveys were used to analyze the difference among treatment groups of students and parents in relation to attitudes and actions toward solid waste management. Action and attitude scores were also used to compare students to parents.;An analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. The results of this study concluded there were no significant differences among treatment or gender for students related to gain scores of knowledge. There were also no significant differences among treatment group scores for attitudes or actions related to solid waste management for either the parents or students. The only significant finding was the difference between parents and students in their actions toward solid waste management. Parents are more active in relation to solid waste management.