To see what we need: recognizing ecosystem services in a campus landscape through environmental education

Ecosystem services (ES) are vital to sustaining human health and well-being. However, ES are rarely realized and understood by the public. As such, it is urgent to increase the awareness and involvement of the public to conserve ES. Our study conducted an environmental education-oriented landscape study to observe, identify, and map ES on a campus landscape based on social values. The social values that incorporate the perception and associated preferences of participants were assigned by pointing out locations where ES exist. To evaluate how environmental education shapes their social values in identifying ES, we compared the changes in the spatial-explicit social value mappings of ES before and after the education program. On the other hand, we evaluated changes in understanding, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to ES. We demonstrated a case study evaluating air quality regulation services provided by the Ming Chi University of Technology in the urban fringe of Taipei, Taiwan. The results showed that environmental education with ES themes reshapes their social values by elaborating on the knowledge of the regulating functions provided by plant communities and increasing contact with nature through outdoor experience. In doing so, the participants recognize how a campus landscape functions and delivers ES for shaping the sustainability of a local community. Our result suggests that a campus landscape provides a dynamic learning environment for engaging people to perceive ES, as well as to change individual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to conserving ES.