Informal learning has been found to be a progressive method which improves students‘ attitudes, but the majority of studies have only been concerned with the relatively long-term effects of informal learning on students‘ attitudes or knowledge of the field. We therefore examined short-term effects of field education on students‘ attitudes toward biology and their knowledge of ecology. An attitude test consisting of 12 statements and a two-tier test used for examining knowledge of ecology showed a high degree of reliability (Cronbach‘s alpha >0.7 in both cases). The experimental and control group significantly differed in scores from the post-test. We conclude that the short-term effects of infprmal learning bring significant changes in students‘ attitudes to and knowledge of ecology.