The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) is known worldwide for promoting and impacting conservation through advocacy, research and education on behalf of people, animals and the environment they share. Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots, a program of JGI, is a youth-led, community action and learning program in which young people identify and prioritize challenges in their neighborhoods, develop a solution, and then bring that solution to action. During the 2013-2014 school year, middle school students in Los Angeles participated in a pilot of a revised Roots & Shoots program model.
Our Research and Evaluation Director Stacy Johnson, and Senior Research Analyst Jill Lipski Cain, carried out an evaluation of this new program model for JGI who had received funding from the John E. Fetzer Institute. The purpose of the study was to explore how Roots & Shoots motivates, empowers, and instills a greater sense of altruism, compassion, love and forgiveness. One of the challenges and opportunities this evaluation presented to the Improve Group was to define and develop questions that measure compassion in a way that younger students would be able to answer. Jill explains, “We took the time to think through what ‘compassion’ would look like at their age, sourced examples of questions to get inspiration, and narrowed in on the expected changes from having participated in Roots & Shoots. We developed three questions, and each indicates either compassion for people, animals or the environment. I really enjoyed this project because it challenged us to define something abstract and give it more definitive parameters in the context of Roots & Shoots.”
The evaluation was aimed at gaining a better understanding of how elements of the Roots & Shoots experience foster a young person’s increased love for their community and the natural world, and result in the most impactful environmental action. In August of this year, findings from the evaluation were presented by JGI Roots & Shoots Education Manager Emily Rhodes at the American Psychological Association’s Annual Convention in Washington, D.C. In a session called Engaging Youth for Well Being of People and Planet, Ms. Rhodes’ presentation demonstrated how Roots & Shoots motivates, empowers, and instills a greater sense of important pro-social behaviors. Findings included:
Having students lead a community assessment and decide what action they would take to address community problems made their efforts relevant and meaningful to them.- Educators involved with the program believed the majority of students demonstrated compassion for people, animals, and the environment.
- Students became more altruistic and saw how “their positive actions cause others to be better off.”
- Students became more aware and interested about their environment.
- Students were likely to take responsibility for and engage with the environment and community.
Students in the program shared powerful reflections about their work in Roots & Shoots:
“I want a safe environment with no pollution. I want everyone to take part in an environmental service.” – Student Participant
“I liked teaching the younger people about our campaign.” – Student Participant
The Roots & Shoots network has grown to include hundreds of thousands of young people in over 130 countries, working on local and global service projects. To learn more about this program and the work of the Jane Goodall Institute, please click on the links above.