Reflections on integrating the political into environmental education through problem-based learning and political ecology

Abstract

This paper reflects on an undergraduate module at the University of Exeter (2018–2019) trialing a problem-based learning approach to the political ecologies of land. It found that this approach offers significant value for teaching and learning complex socio-ecological interdisciplinarity and instilling in learners a deep and reflective sense of the political in all considerations of land and nature. Team-based co-production of ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ imbued learners with a sense of personal agency, though many found problem-based approaches an unfamiliar and challenging approach to path dependent modes of teaching and learning. The principal contribution is to show how problem-based pedagogies have the potential to empower learners as change agents, to better engage with socio-ecological complexity, and gain greater insights into the deep political in conceptions of nature. It offers environmental educators a pathway for replication of this approach, and for introducing learners to problem-based pedagogies for a political ecology of education. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2020.1825919.