Environmental Awareness through Art

Wendy Webber

Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Harley, Heidi

Keywords

Awareness, Environment, Art

Area of Concentration

Environmental Studies

Abstract

Humans are living unsustainably, and possible remedies proposed by scientists are not being used. Awareness of the state of the environment needs to be increased. Although there are many claims that art has the power to raise awareness, no scientific evidence exists. The goal of this thesis is to test that claim. In this experiment thirty-nine undergraduates at a public liberal arts college were assigned to one of three groups: Art, Nature or Control Group. Participants in each group were either exposed to a group of 8 paintings depicting objects found in the local natural environment, a group of natural objects similar to the ones in the paintings, or nothing, for seven minutes prior to participating in a scavenger hunt set up in a natural environment. After the hunt, participants completed a surprise memory task to gauge their level of environmental awareness. The memory task consisted of 20 pairs of photos, and participants had to choose which of the two photos in each pair portrayed a scene accessible during the hunt. The Art Group remembered significantly more about the hunt environment than did either the Nature or Control Groups. Art was effective in raising awareness about the natural world.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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