Ohio Students' Knowledge and Attitudes about the Oceans and Great Lakes

A program to develop instructional materials for implementing marine and aquatic education in Ohio middle schools was begun by Ohio Sea Grant in 1977. This was followed 3 years later by a grant to disseminate the materials to schools in Ohio. To determine the effectiveness of the dissemination process a baseline study was conducted in the autumn of 1980. The survey obtained information on attitudes and knowledge of the Great Lakes and oceans from fifth and ninth grade students in randomly selected schools within 3 arbitrarily determined zones: the lake region, the central region and the Ohio River region. In addition, students responded to items to determine their perceptions of the sources of their knowledge. Students exhibited low levels of knowledge of marine and aquatic topics, with the poorest performance in those topics related to the humanities. The ninth graders scored significantly higher on all topics. Knowledge scores were related to attitudes and high scorers had more positive attitudes than low scorers. Students in the lake region did not have appreciably more water related experiences than those students in the other 2 regions. In both grades television was rated the most important source of aquatic information. A similar survey was begun in September of 1983 upon completion of the dissemination project. Any changes in ninth graders' knowledge and attitudes can in part be attributed to the program, provided fifth graders' behaviors have not changed appreciably. OHIOJ. SCI. 83 (5): 218-224, 1983