Abstract
The Water Environmental Soundness Index (WESI) has been applied to environmental education at the elementary-school level. Although the effectiveness of WESI has been reported, there has been no specific study to verify this. In this study, to verify the effectiveness of WESI in environmental education, we examined the same student group over two years (2013–2014) , when they were in the 4th and 5th grades. Furthermore, last year (2015) , a new group of 5th-grade students was examined for comparison. This investigation included a river survey using WESI, an awareness survey and a survey of students’ impressions. We considered that by comparing the differences between the two groups of students regarding their answers to questions on WESI and their environmental awareness, the effectiveness of WESI could be verified. In conclusion, the experience of carrying out a survey using WESI contributes not only to the acquisition of water environmental knowledge, but also to environmental awareness of other factors such as waste. The learning effect was thus confirmed.
