| 4.2 Baseline questionnaires – Students
A baseline questionnaire has been completed by the pupils in the class to investigate the pupils’ voice. The questionnaire covered the same categories as the parents’ questionnaire.
The part of the questionnaire exploring the access to the local outdoors and the frequency in which the students have access to the local outdoor spaces has shown that despite the parents’ statements 40% of the student experience the local outdoor spaces one a week, 12% daily, 8% once a month and 40% rarely. Moreover, 20% of the students expressed that they are aware of the local outdoor areas that they can have access to. The reasons that the pupils expressed cause the limited access to outdoor spaces in their local area are the following:
“maybe there are cars”,
“maybe there will be strangers”,
“maybe it is dangerous (it might have rocks)”,
“you need to be with an adult”,
“they are far away in the countryside”,
“your parents might not have money”,
“your mum wants to raise money, doesn’t want to pay”.
Only one pupil in the class has heard the term of sustainability and most pupils were able to express ways in which they can protect the environment. They have expressed ideas that derived from their learning for example, recycling, reduce the amount of carbon dioxide by walking to school, always put rubbish in the bins.
The findings of the baseline questionnaires have formed the focus of this project as the attempt has been to eliminate the barriers to accessing the local outdoor spaces by informing pupils for local outdoor space that the can access easily and cost free. The pupils have visited local outdoor spaces and engaged in stimulating outdoor learning experiences that after they have been asked to share with their parents/carers. Through sharing the positive experiences and promoting their parents/carers to access the local outdoors the attempt has been to see whether there has been any difference in this variable.
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