Research on significant life experiences have been conducted in many parts of the world in the last three decades, but such research in mainland China is still lacking. College students are an appropriate sample group to study how significant life experiences foster young environmental citizens in China.
Ms. LI Danqing and her supervisor Prof. CHEN Jin of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) extended previous significant life experiences research and addressed the research gaps by broadly recruiting Chinese young environmental active citizens through multiple channels and comparing the life experiences of people who are at different levels of action.
They used a two-phased study design. Young environmentally active citizens as samples in Study 1 were those that made a difference through their action, and college students as samples in Study 2 were those who had different levels of environmental action. The purpose of Study 1 was to determine the life experiences that young environmentally active citizens perceived as influential factors on their current engagement in environmental protection. The purpose of Study 2 was to examine to what extent environmental action was affected by the significant life experiences identified in Study 1, and to verify whether the significant life experiences could distinguish environmentally active college students from other students.
The study was a preliminary investigation and discussion on significant life experiences fostering environmental action among Chinese college students. It indicated that some life experiences indeed presented significant contributions to fostering environmental action, such as ‘environmental organizations’, ‘formal education (college)’, ‘natural experiences’ and ‘life principles’. Furthermore, the formation of environmental action appeared to be a complex and accumulative process, among which several other life experiences may also contribute.
The study entitled “Significant life experiences on the formation of environmental action among Chinese college students” has been published online in Environmental Education Research.
