Marie Brüggemann

Achieving soil conservation requires education that not only delivers factual knowledge but also sparks the personal commitment and care essential for lasting behavioral change. However, by emphasizing cognitive domains, current soil science curricula often neglect the affective dimensions that foster a deep connection to soil. This study explores how emotions and feelings influence soil-care attitudes among university agriculture students. The study participants were undergraduate students enrolled in the introductory soil science course (n = 28). The test design involved a survey, with a pre-test administered at the beginning of the semester and a post-test administered at the end of the semester. A confidential code was used to match the two tests of each respondent. Students with rural backgrounds demonstrated a stronger emotional connection to soil compared to their urban peers (p = 0.037). However, no significant effect of place of upbringing was observed on students’ attitude toward soil care. The course significantly improved students’ attitude toward soil care (p = 0.0049). Pre-test emotional connection to soil emerged as a strong predictor of post-test attitude toward soil care (r = 0.52, p = 0.004). In contrast, the predictive power of pre-test soil science knowledge on post-test attitude toward soil care was not statistically significant. The results of this study suggest that fostering a deeper emotional connection to soil can be a crucial strategy for promoting soil conservation among students. To achieve this, soil science education should incorporate more experiential and emotionally engaging learning activities.

Teaching can contribute substantially to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by addressing traditional curriculum-relevant topics in new contexts related to sustainability. A suitable context is green facades, which support several SDGs at once. The aim of sustainability education should be to foster all components of the KAP triad, i.e., not only promoting environmental knowledge (K) and attitude (A) but also enabling appropriate practices (P). This study analyzes the effect of a short-term didactic intervention on green facades (4 h) on the KAP triad. Pre-, post-, and follow-up tests were conducted with n = 71 students aged M = 14.19 (SD = 1.54). Knowledge and attitude development were analyzed using ANOVA. Regression analyses were calculated to assess the relations of knowledge and attitude with practices. The results show that even a short-term intervention can lead to longer-term effects regarding knowledge growth but will only bring about short-term changes in attitude. Attitude items with the strongest change were not related to students’ direct or immediate activities. In addition, environmental knowledge and attitude appear to support different kinds of activities. Therefore, it seems important that didactic interventions focus on knowledge and attitude to enable students to engage in pro-environmental behaviors.

Teaching can contribute substantially to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by addressing traditional curriculum-relevant topics in new contexts related to sustainability. A suitable context is green facades, which support several SDGs at once. The aim of sustainability education should be to foster all components of the KAP triad, i.e., promoting environmental knowledge (K) and attitude (A), but also enabling appropriate practices (P). This study analyzes the effect of a short-term extracurricular intervention (4 hours) on green facades on the KAP triad. Pre-, post- and follow-up tests were conducted with n = 71 students aged M = 14.20 (SD = 1.33). Knowledge and attitude development were analyzed using ANOVA. Regression analyses were calculated to assess the relations of knowledge and attitude with practices. The results show that even a short-term intervention can lead to longer-term effects regarding knowledge growth but will only bring about short-term changes in attitude. Attitude items with the strongest change were not related to students’ direct or immediate activities. In addition, environmental knowledge and attitude appear to support different kinds of activities. Therefore, it seems important that didactic interventions focus on knowledge and attitude to enable students to engage in pro-environmental behaviors.