Making the Invisible Perceptible: Changes in Environmental Understanding and Attitudes Following Multi-Sensory Instruction for Students with Visual Impairment

Although environmental education has been around for nearly half a century, teaching environmental concepts to students with visual impairments is viewed as problematic. Hypothesising that learning environments enriched with multi-sensory materials may be useful, this study examines changes in the conceptual understanding and environmental attitudes of students with visual impairment following participation in a learning environment enriched with multi-sensory materials. A single-group pre-test–post-test pre-experimental design was utilised with the participation of 10 secondary school students with visual impairment. The results indicated higher conceptual understanding scores following the intervention. The results also indicated significant pre–post changes in ecocentric attitudes and general apathy following the intervention, while anthropocentric attitudes did not change significantly. The article concludes with a discussion of good examples of environmental education with students who are visually impaired.