*Proceeding Paper* **The Impact of a General Elective Course on Sustainability of the Environmental Citizenship of Undergraduate Students †**

**Jelle Boeve-de Pauw 1,2, Audrone Telešien ˙ e˙ 3,\*, Daphne Goldman <sup>4</sup> and Ralph Hansmann <sup>5</sup>**


**Abstract:** The aim is to evaluate the effect of a sustainable development-oriented course on the environmental citizenship attributes of undergraduate students at a technical university. We discuss the pedagogical and didactic aspects of the course and its linkages to sustainable development education, define the elements of the educational intervention, and present the case study from Kaunas University of Technology. The presentation discusses results from a randomized pre-group –post-group quasi-experimental survey. The results prove the positive effect of the studied educational intervention on the environmental citizenship of undergraduate students.

**Keywords:** environmental citizenship; education for environmental citizenship; pedagogical approaches in environmental education; higher education; educational evaluation

### **1. Rationale**

University students are a crucial audience for environmental citizenship education [1] due to their anticipated roles within citizenry and work environments. Taking a primary interest in active environmental citizenship, we aim to evaluate an educational intervention designed to foster environmental citizenship among undergraduate students at a technological university in Lithuania. We explore the impact of a unique undergraduate sustainable development course on students by implementing a recently developed instrument for measuring the dimensions of environmental citizenship [2]. The instrument is comprised of items measuring past, present, and future actions as environmental citizens and agents of change, as well as the knowledge, conceptions, skills, attitudes, and values for environmental citizenship.
