The Ijen Laboratory: Transdisciplinary Instructional Design as a Catalyst for Student Environmental Agency.

Abstract

Traditional compartmentalized education often fails to cultivate active environmental awareness, necessitating innovative instructional designs that integrate local ecosystems into multidisciplinary curricula. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of a transdisciplinary Project-Based Learning (PjBL) design, centered on the Ijen Geopark, in catalyzing student environmental agency and conceptual understanding. Employing a descriptive survey with a mixed-methods approach, the research evaluated vocational high school students engaged in this integrated instructional framework. Data were collected through targeted perception questionnaires, written reflections, and interviews, followed by quantitative and qualitative descriptive analysis. The results demonstrate that the transdisciplinary instructional design successfully fostered environmental agency, achieving a highly positive overall pedagogical efficacy score of 82.4%. Specifically, the intervention generated high student interest in local environmental contexts (86.7%), enhanced the comprehension of integrated concepts (84.2%), and demonstrated strong relevance to students' daily lives (85.5%). However, the evaluation also identified critical instructional challenges, including difficulties in collaborative group coordination (42.5%) and limitations in technology access (38.3%). In conclusion, integrating local geopark ecosystems into vocational instructional design significantly accelerates student agency and contextual learning, though future pedagogical frameworks must strategically mitigate technological and collaborative barriers to optimize workforce readiness and learning outcomes.