We recently received fantastic news from Dylan Stiegemeier, the Verto Education environmental history professor who initiated and led our reforestation project in November 2022 to plant 1,000 trees. His master’s thesis on “Assessing transformative learning impacts on first-year university students using large-scale conservation projects on students’ environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviors” has been published in the University of Gothenburg library.
Dylan received an A for his final project and will submit his thesis to the University of Gothenburg’s GUSTA Award, which recognizes outstanding theses written on sustainable development-related topics.
His thesis centers on the tree planting held with RAFA, Verto Education, CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center), and ICE (Costa Rica’s electrical company). You can read more about that incredible event here. Dylan’s premise is that large-scale conservation activities like tree planting can unlock the door to a transformative educational experience. He writes: “Education that is truly transformative and enables students and youth to engage with environmental problems and become solution-oriented thinkers is needed in educational programs and institutions today.”
We are very grateful to Dylan for gifting us a copy of his thesis to encourage other educational organizations to do similar projects with RAFA in the future since the experience was so impactful for the Verto students.
Originally from the U.S., Dylan has been living in Sweden for six years. He completed the master’s program in Education for Sustainable Development at the University of Gothenburg. We wish him the most tremendous success and hope we can work together again.