Assessing the value of environmental projects in schools

Green Schools Project helps schools to become more environmentally friendly, using existing resources and within their curriculum and financial constraints. It also enables students to develop their skills and understanding by working on green projects.

The request

The Green Schools Project had been collecting impact measurement data for several years, and wished to assess its value in illustrating the benefits of the programme.

The approach

RSS volunteer Barry Leventhal was matched with this project. Working with the charity, Barry first reviewed the quantity and quality of impact measurement data. He then went on to analyse the data, documented the results and presented the findings back to Green Schools Project.

The results

A comprehensive analysis was produced, examining each variable in the data before vs after taking part in the programme. Specific findings were identified on changes in students’ attitudes after taking part in the project.

The analysis concluded that the charity’s impact measurement had collected useful data and was a worthwhile approach. Recommendations were made on how impact measurement can be improved in the future.

The impact and benefits

Henry Greenwood, CEO of Green Schools Project, wrote:

'The support that Barry provided was invaluable for us to find a way of analysing our student survey data to measure impact. We had created a survey for students taking part in the programme to complete at the beginning and the end of a year in which they were part of an Eco-Team running environmental projects in their schools. However, we didn’t have a robust way of analysing the results, so we were looking to develop a method that helped us to do that.

Barry created a spreadsheet and demonstrated how the data could be analysed using the SPSS statistics package. It provided some helpful analysis of results that we had collected and Barry presented this in charts and diagrams and wrote a summary of key findings. Barry also provided a series of recommendations for us to improve our data collection process that we will be able to use alongside this analysis method to get better results in future years. Barry’s support, through the RSS, has been extremely helpful in updating our impact measurement process, and we’re very grateful for his work.'