Meaningful Encounters with the Built Environment as the Basis for Urban Environmental Education

Markus Hilander,Sirpa Tani

doi:10.3390/educsci12030203

Abstract

As the majority of people in the world now live in cities, it makes sense to question the state of urban environmental education and how it could be developed going forward. In this article, we suggest a way forward based on the essays written by Finnish university students. The students reflected on their relationship with an environment that is meaningful to them. In the essays selected for this case study (n = 25), the built environment of Helsinki—the capital of Finland—and its characteristics are in focus. In this qualitative research, inductive content analysis was used for processing the essays. Many students described the connections between urban nature and built environments, but the results also show that the built environment is especially significant because of its social and cultural aspects. Students described the importance of social bonding and how meeting different sorts of people supports their acceptance of diverse perspectives. Personal experiences and meanings attached to the city, as well as their lack, were mentioned; that is, without these personal bonds, meaningful relations to urban environments cannot be developed. Architecture, aesthetics, and soundscapes were also mentioned. In addition, it was expressed that feeling safe in the built environment is important. In urban environmental education, it is therefore important to pay attention to the social and cultural aspects, too, and not just to the ecological dimension. It is crucial that children and young people have access to the city in order to construct their personal relationships with the built environment.

Highlights

Environmental education is most often connected to nature education and ecological sustainability, even though the need for urban environmental education was already expressed in international UNESCO-organized conferences in the 1970s [6] (p. 53)
In order to strengthen the view of the Finnish context of our case study, we will present the contexts in which the built environment is mentioned in Finnish formal curricula. These documents do not mention ‘urban environments’, which is why we have explored how the documents guide the use of ‘built environments’ in education; that is, what aspects do the formal curricula attach to the built environments? As the aim of our research is to develop urban environmental education, the formal curricula serve as a starting point from which to develop (Finnish) urban environmental education
We have been interested in the meanings that Finnish university students attach to the built environment of Helsinki, the capital of Finland

Summary

Introduction

Cities are everyday environments for most people in the world. More than half of the global population lives in urban settings: in 2019, the urban population rate was about 56% [1]. Western countries—occurred late: only after the Second World War. about 85% of Finnish people live in urban areas. About 85% of Finnish people live in urban areas Because this change has been so rapid, Finnish culture is still strongly attached to its rural background; this can be seen in the repeated ideas of Finnish people’s close relationship with nature [2–5]. Environmental education is most often connected to nature education and ecological sustainability, even though the need for urban environmental education was already expressed in international UNESCO-organized conferences in the 1970s [6] Urban environmental education, to some extent, seems to underline nature access in cities—

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion