From plants to pedagogies: reviewing environmental education pedagogies with a systems thinking approach to aid curricula development

Abstract

In this review, approaches to teaching and learning in environmental education were explored at a conceptual level to understand the diversity of pedagogies in the discipline. We applied systems thinking to make conceptual parallels between ecology (physical environment, plant species, traits, plant strategies) and education (environmental education, pedagogies, pedagogic traits, pedagogic strategy) to better understand how different pedagogies are carrying out environmental education. Mixed methods were used to deconstruct pedagogies into characteristics and reconstruct relationships among characteristics to detect similarities and differences among pedagogies. We detected eight conceptually-similar pedagogic groupings that reflect broad teaching strategies and visualize pedagogies in totality. Our review would benefit practitioners seeking a conceptual framework to ‘remix’ or ‘restore’ environmental education curricula.