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Originally appears in the Spring 2020 issue.
By Melanie P. Master
Now more than ever, teachers are in a position to empower students to solve pressing environmental issues that threaten the health of our planet. Standard ESS3-3 of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for K–12 classes in the United States calls on students to design a solution to an environmental problem, but why stop at just designing a solution? This standard can be leveraged to actually have students change environmental behaviors in their community through a process known as Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM). CBSM is a research-based method created by social psychologist Dr. McKenzie-Mohr that creates behavior changes within a community by combining social psychology and environmental science principles.1 In essence, CBSM influences the collective mindset of a community to condition them into changing their behaviors.
Before using evidence-based CBSM to solve behavioral problems, my students’ environmental solutions were often based on best guesses for which strategies would change behaviors of students, such as implementing informational poster campaigns about the effects of litter or installing basketball hoops over trash cans to encourage the throwing away of trash. These types of solutions that ‘feel right’ often don’t work, and students know it. But once my students began using CBSM to solve environmental issues, there was a rise in their feelings of competence, a key factor that increases the likelihood environmental problems will actually be solved.2
A student-driven CBSM campaign consists of five sequential steps: 1) selecting the target behavior; 2) determining barriers and benefits of doing the behavior; 3) choosing strategies to encourage the behavior; 4) collecting stakeholder feedback on strategies, piloting; and finally, 5) broadscale implementation. To carry out a successful CBSM campaign from start to finish is an ambitious challenge for both the teacher and students, and it can take multiple months to complete depending on the depth and complexity of the campaign. The process was originally designed to be carried out by professionals, so it requires some tweaking to be executed with middle school students.
Behavior change steps
Step 1: Choose a target behavior
To narrow down and select one target behavior to promote, students first choose an overarching goal such as reducing waste on campus. Then, students brainstorm all the different ways waste could be reduced (increasing recycling, increasing use of reusable water bottles, increasing the amount of trash that actually makes it in a receptacle, etc.). From there, students use observational evidence to argue which behaviors students would be likely to do and would also make a large environmental impact. A target behavior that is appropriate for one school may not be appropriate for another based on unique school situations. For example, if students want to increase recycling but the school doesn’t already have a recycling program, that would be too hefty of a goal. But if the school already has recycling infrastructure in place and the goal is to increase the number of people who choose to recycle, that would be appropriate because it only requires a change in behavior, not infrastructure. For a school that wants to reduce waste but doesn’t have a recycling program and also suffers from littering, the most appropriate target behavior might be for students to always throw trash in cans rather than the ground.
Step 2: Determine barriers and benefits
Once the target behavior is selected, the second step is to determine the student community’s perception of the barriers and benefits to doing the behavior. For example, if the target behavior is to always throw trash in a trash can rather than the ground, students should ask student community members about their perceived barriers and benefits to doing the behavior. In order to formulate barrier questions in a non-accusatory tone, CBSM researcher Jennifer Tabanico from Action Research Inc. suggests wording the barrier question in a hypothetical sense such as, “If there ever were a time when you didn’t throw trash in a trash can, what would the reason be?” Due to the hypothetical nature of this question, the interviewee is less likely to feel accused and therefore more likely to give an honest response.
After students survey the student body about the barriers and benefits to the behavior, they discard extraneous answers and identify patterns which help with grouping responses into common themes. Students may find that people don’t throw trash in the trash can because they are too lazy and that trash cans are too far away. They may also find the perceived benefits of throwing trash away to be that the environment would be protected or that their campus would be cleaner and more beautiful. These barrier and benefit data are crucial to inform the next step: developing strategies to encourage the behavior.
Step 3: Develop strategies
The goal of developing strategies is to lower the perceived barriers while leveraging the benefits. In developing these strategies, students are designing a solution to minimize a human impact on the environment, as required in MS-ESS-3 of the NGSS. For each potential barrier there is a specific, evidence-based strategy that can be utilized to overcome the barrier. For example, if a barrier to throwing away trash is that people are too lazy, one could implement the strategies of commitment, norming, or convenience to get people to change behavior. See Table 1 for a complete list of strategies used to overcome specific barriers.
Each strategy serves its own purpose. For example, the commitment strategy should be utilized if the barrier to carrying out a behavior is lack of motivation. If people commit to doing a behavior, they are more statistically likely to do the behavior.3
If the barrier to enacting a behavior change is that people forget to do it, the best strategy is to use a prompt which has been proven to help people remember.4 The purpose of a prompt isn’t to change attitudes; it’s simply to help people remember to do something they already believe is worthwhile by putting a reminder in a prominent place.1
The convenience strategy works when the barrier is laziness, because the more convenient the target behavior is, the more likely people are to engage in it. If there are physical barriers to carrying out the behavior, these barriers need to be lowered or taken away to make it more convenient.1
Social norming is a powerful strategy because people subconsciously want to conform to what the group is doing.5 Social norming is done by diffusing the norm throughout the community to make it seem like everybody does a behavior. This can be done by prominently posting how many individuals do the target action, such as in a large visual display on campus.
Students first learn about and then teach each other the different strategies in order to select a strategy or multiple strategies that could be used to overcome the barriers while leveraging the benefits. If the strategies chosen to combat laziness are commitment, norming, and convenience, examples of specific strategies could be to…
Create a mural to act as a commitment to throw trash in a trash can as well as to create the social perception of a norm. Students can commit to throwing trash in the can by signing it with a handprint, and it acts as a norm because it shows that many students do this behavior. If the perceived benefits are that throwing trash would help protect the environment, a picture and phrase about protecting the environment should be included.
To overcome the laziness barrier, increase the number of trash cans available to students to make throwing away trash more convenient.
Add a norming phrase to the morning announcements to encourage the social belief that everyone put their trash in a proper receptacle. For example, “Our planet thanks all students on our campus for always putting trash where it belongs.”
Step 4: Stakeholder feedback and pilot test
After the strategies are developed, students meet with stakeholders to provide feedback on the strategies. For example, the principal and custodians would need to be met with, as well as a small group of students outside the focus group. Gaining this feedback is valuable for two reasons: to make sure that the logistics of the project can actually be carried out and to gain support of the people involved.
Once stakeholders support the strategies, a pilot test needs to be planned and carried out in order to know if the strategies will be successful for broad implementation. For example, if students want to increase the number of trash cans, a pilot test would need to be conducted in a small area to measure whether adding more trash cans really does increase the amount of trash that ends up in a trash can rather than the ground. This test relies on data collection and needs to include a control group to which results can be compared. If pilot tests on all strategies are deemed successful, the last step is broadscale implementation.
Step 5: Broadscale implementation
Before tested strategies are implemented on a broad scale, another evaluation tool needs to be created to determine if the implementation has been effective.1 This evaluation is not only crucial to know if the strategies have worked; it ensures that students are monitoring environmental impacts, as required in MS-ESS3-3. Finally, the strategies are broadly implemented, and effectiveness is evaluated. If the strategies are deemed effective, then they should continue to be implemented, meaning positive behavior change has been accomplished.
Your turn!
This process could either be completed with a small group of students in an environmental club or adapted for whole classes. Regardless, a detailed lesson plan can be found in the resources list below. If this were conducted with an environmental club, the whole would work together as one cohesive unit and only break into subgroups to collect data and brainstorm strategies. If this were done in a traditional classroom setting, it would be ideal to break the class into smaller groups of 4–5 and then have them conduct the steps on their own to develop strategies, but stop before pilot testing. After the groups create strategies based on their barrier/benefit data, each group presents its strategies to the class and the class votes on which strategy to pilot together. Voting serves as a form of community feedback and it also ensures that there is at least a classroom full of students who largely support the pilot test strategies. Together, the class would implement the pilot test as well as broadscale implementation.
If funding for materials isn’t readily available, asking the community is a great way to find what you need. For example, if the school needs more trash cans, teachers and parents can donate them. If materials for a mural are needed, ask the art department if they have supplies. An alternative is to apply for an environment-related grant such as Planet Stewards Education Project by NOAA.
The hard work from both the teacher and students is worth it in the end; the success gives everyone a sense of competence in solving environmental issues that they may carry throughout their lives.
Melanie P. Master is a middle school science teacher at Rancho Minerva Middle School in Vista, California, USA and a Master’s of Biology degree candidate through the University of Miami’s Advanced Inquiry Program.
Resources:
CBSM Lesson Sequence: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gt4XjAK3LmLdFDzWXD0tzyTbREwDJaWZJtM9xu8Scm4/edit?usp=sharing
Environmental Education Grant List: https://www.eeai.net/additional-grant-opportunities.html
Information on CBSM: https://www.cbsm.com/
Endnotes:
1. McKenzie-Mohr, D. (2011). Fostering sustainable behavior: An introduction to community-based social marketing. Gabriola Island, BC. New Society Publishers.
2. Chawla, L., & Cushing, D. F. (2007). Education for strategic environmental behavior. Environmental Education Research, 13, 437–452. Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/50908/
3. Werner, C. M., Turner, J., Shipman, K., Twitchell, F. S. (1995). Commitment, behavior, and attitude change: An analysis of voluntary recycling. Special Issue: Green psychology. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 197-208.
4. Kurz, T., Donaghue, N., & Walker, I. (2005). Utilizing a social-ecological framework to promote water and energy conservation: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35(6): 1281-1300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2005.tb02171.x
5. Asch, S. E., & Guetzkow, H. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments. Groups, Leadership and Men, Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Press, 177-190.