Transforming the gendered landscape of outdoor and environmental education: a profession in search of its own maturity

In 1988, New York City’s West Harlem community had a problem. The recently opened North River Sewage Treatment Plant, which stretches eight blocks along the Hudson River, was doing a poor job of processing about 170 million gallons of raw sewage daily. Residents were concerned about the foul smells coming from the plant, and parents complained that their children were suffering from respiratory problems. The community knew it needed help, but it also needed something else: information on the exposures it was facing, on the health effects of those exposures, and on the courses of action open to the people. When the community mobilized months later to form West Harlem Environmental Action Inc. (WE ACT), it had taken the first step toward cultivating just that sort of environmental literacy.

The need for environmental education through outdoor education experiences is becoming increasingly evident in outdoor education theory and practice. In Australia, this environmental focus is reflected in recent outdoor education curriculum documents, particularly in the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE). For many outdoor education teachers who do not have expertise in environmental education, this curriculum development presents a challenge. Outdoor education teachers frequently use National Parks to help them address this challenge. The study examined the educational objectives and roles of teachers and park staff involved in environmental education through outdoor education in National Parks in Victoria, Australia. This paper discusses findings related to the teachers' educational objectives and roles while those of the park staff are examined in a separate paper. The findings indicate that the teachers often lack the environmental knowledge and skills needed to teach some aspects of the curriculum thus making the role of the park ranger or education officer particularly significant in educating teachers as well as students. Issues are raised about the training of outdoor education teachers and of park rangers to meet the environmental education needs of outdoor education students. Questions are also raised about the appropriateness of using National Parks for outdoor education purposes.

The phenomenological study presented in this paper attempts to determine, from outdoor educators, what it meant for them to be teaching outdoor education in Victorian secondary schools during 2004. In 1999, Lugg and Martin surveyed Victorian secondary schools to determine the types of outdoor education programs being run, the objectives of those programs, who was teaching them, the work conditions of the outdoor education staff and issues those staff faced. In this paper connections or disconnections are drawn between the backdrop provided by Lugg and Martin's survey and the lived experience of some outdoor education teachers. Introduction If ever conducted, we would probably be alarmed at, or wouldn't want to see the results of a research study that examined the effects of our profession on the destruction of our interpersonal and family relationships. (Gass, 1998, p. 16) School staff made 910 stress claims in the five years to 2000, while police, prison and fire brigade staff made 995. (Webber, 2001, p.1) The comments above suggest a disconcerting picture of the situation of people involved in either outdoor educating or teaching respectively. Gass (1998) argues that the very attributes that make outdoor educators effective, for example independence, strong commitment and lifestyle investment, are the ones that most threaten their longevity in the field. The recognition of high stress levels among teachers is not uncommon (Dinham, 1993; Dinham & Scott, 1996; Webber 2001) and has been connected to the rapid social, cultural and economic changes occurring in contemporary industrial societies (Ball & Bowe, 1992; Bessant & Woock, 1997; Dinham & Scott, 1996). These changes have created tensions in education and altered the nature of teaching. Yet little is known of the lived experience of the people who work in the outdoor education field. The research project described in this paper investigates the lived experience of the research participants as teachers in Victorian secondary schools and, more specifically, as outdoor educators and provides insight into the nature of teaching outdoor education in Victorian secondary schools. Specifically, this paper will focus on a comparison between the lived experience of teaching outdoor education as reported by the participants in this project and a survey completed in 1999 by Lugg and Martin (2001) looking at the nature and scope of outdoor education in Victorian schools. Methodological considerations The most appropriate method for investigating the lived experience of teaching is a qualitative one. The reduction of human experience to numbers or standard descriptive phrases, as is often the case in quantitative research, does little to inform the reader of the actual experience of the people involved. Teaching is a very human experience, a very emotional project (Connell, 1985; Dinham & Scott, 1996) and, therefore, the lived experience of teaching can be affected by a wide variety of factors. The time of the year, time of the week and time of the day can all have significant impacts. Outside-of-school experiences will impact on teachers' and students' inside-school experience; location of the school and even the weather can make a difference. With teaching providing such a diversity of possible experiences in a wide range of contexts any attempt to establish a priori variables, as is required in quantitative research, becomes extremely difficult. Qualitative methodologies provide a more apposite means of researching complex human experience (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, Porter, 1998). As a qualitative methodology, phenomenology guards against the risk of overgeneralisation as it focuses on the essential themes of a particular lived experience (Crotty, 1996; Van Manen, 1990; Willis, 1999). Phenomenology questions the assumption (that seems foundational to much quantitative research) that we all experience the world in the same way. …

Environmental Education and the Role of Media in Environmental Education in Turkey

Preface Alec M. Bodzin, Beth Shiner Klein, and Starlin Weaver PART I. INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION Chapter 1. The History and Philosophy of Environmental Education Robert L. Carter and Bora Simmons Chapter 2. Professional Preparation for Science Teachers in Environmental Education James T. McDonald and Lynn A. Dominguez Chapter 3. Approaches to Environmental Education Austin A. Winther, Kim Cleary Sadler, and Gerry Saunders Chapter 4. Environmental Education Within the Early Childhood Linda Plevyak and Amy Mayfield Chapter 5. Environmental Education Service-Learning in Science Teacher Education Teddie Phillipson-Mower and April Dean Adams Chapter 6. Beyond terra firma: Bringing Ocean and Aquatic Sciences to Environmental and Science Teacher Education Diana L. Payne and Timothy D. Zimmerman PART II. ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION PEDAGOGY Section 1: Outdoor Learning and Place-Based Environments Chapter 7. Promoting the Use of Outdoor Learning Spaces by K-12 Inservice Science Teachers Through an Outdoor Professional Development Experience Mark A. Bloom, Molly Holden, April T. Sawey, and Molly H. Weinburgh Chapter 8. Integrating Environmental Education Field Trip Pedagogy Into Science Teacher Preparation Bryan Rebar and Larry G. Enochs Chapter 9. Eeew! There's Dew On My Toes: Common Characteristics of Preservice Elementary Teacher Learning in Environmental Education and Instructional Strategies for Science Teacher Educators J. William Hug Chapter 10. Name That Plant! Overcoming Plant Blindness and Developing a Sense of Place Using Science and Environmental Education Jennifer Kreps Frisch, Matthew M. Unwin, and Gerald W. Saunders Chapter 11. Place-Based Inquiry: Advancing Environmental Education in Science Teacher Preparation Somnath Sarkar and Richard Frazier Chapter 12. Summer Methods in Summer Camps: Teaching Projects WILD, WET, and Learning Tree at an Outdoor Environmental Education Center Charles J. Eick, Doyle, E. Keasal, Karni Perez, and Sarah Carrier Chapter 13. Teachers Connecting Urban Students to Their Environment Sherri L. Brown, Nikki L. Votaw, and Thomas R. Tretter Section 2: Instructional Strategies Chapter 14. Exploring Preservice Teachers' Mental Models of the Environment Christine Moseley, Blanche Desjean-Perrotta, Courtney Crim Chapter 15. Pedagogy, Environmental Education, and Context: Promoting Knowledge Through Concept Mapping Barbara A Austin and Nina Schmidt Chapter 16. Unraveling the Scientific, Social, Political and Economic Dimensions of Environmental Issues Through Role-Playing Simulations James G. MaKinster Chapter 17. Exploring Environmental Education Through Eco-feminism: Narratives of Embodiment of Science M.E. Spencer and Sherry E. Nichols Chapter 18. The Value of Non-formal Environmental Education-Based Professional Development in Preservice Science Teacher Preparation Tamara E. Peffer and Alec M. Bodzin Chapter 19. Using Environmental Education Project Curricula with Elementary Preservice Teachers Adele C. Schepige, Patricia D. Morrell, Cindi Smith-Walters, Kim Cleary Sadler, Miriam Munck, and Donna Rainboth Section 3: Technology Chapter 20. Situated Learning in Environmental Education: Using Geospatial Technologies for Preservice Secondary Teachers Rita A. Hagevik, Harriett S. Stubbs, and Diane C. Whitaker Chapter 21. Using Podcasting to Address Nature-Deficit Disorder Beth Shiner Klein and Starlin D. Weaver Chapter 22. Integrating Web-based Activities and Site-based Experiences to Investigate Environmental Issues Alec M. Bodzin

This article argues that there is a strong link between the pedagogy for inclusion and the pedagogy of environmental education and tries to identify any benefits that could be acquired by pupils when the school system tries to use environmental educational programmes to promote inclusion. The idea of promoting a school yard into a school garden is given as an example. The article suggests that outdoor education experiences can facilitate positive development of self‐esteem, peer to peer socialisation as well as teacher–student relationships and a positive attitude towards school. One might conclude that the rationale behind environmental education has much to offer to all of our pupils.

In this case‐study, we present a longitudinal study of one elementary (grades 1–6) school's environmental education (EE) in order to understand the ways in which the school culture supports outdoor EE as a critical component of their science education program. The school, which was known for its school‐based EE curriculum that encompasses an intensive outdoor‐education component, has gone through changes in the staff, and the student population. Our study is aimed at understanding the current challenges of the school outdoor education, in light of its two decade tradition of environmental and outdoor education school‐based curriculum. We observed three field trips and interviewed the principal and teachers. Our critical analysis indicated key tensions regarding outdoor EE: (1) the place of the school's tradition in light of current staff's challenges and agenda; (2) power struggle between the EE teacher and the newer teachers in school; and (3) the separation between the EE program that was an integrative holistic program in the past, and the other fields taught in school. In conclusion, we argue that the main issue is the change in the school culture that reflects the changes the community went through. We suggest that the school should examine old assumptions and revise its EE curriculum in light of changes in the school social and physical environment and in accordance to development in the field of EE. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50: 1019–1046, 2013

This article details the process and analysis of a case study, conducted over a six week period, involving an outdoor education class in an all-boys Catholic, New Zealand secondary school. The questions explored by the case study were the subjective meanings of adventure experiences in outdoor education and the benefits of qualitative research for assessing the value of outdoor education. The methodological techniques used were observation, involving some researcher participation, and in-depth interviewing. Subsequent data analysis was based upon theories of experiential education and adventure education, and concepts of leisure and human agency. The results of the study suggest that the meanings participants make of their experiences, and the value they derive from them, exceed those that may conventionally be sought and measured as an improvement in self-concept. These findings suggest that learning through adventure is potentially valuable as a holistic and life-long form of activity that enhances the capacity to enjoy and engage in living. This is an important extension beyond its often limited and compartmentalised applications, which are rationalised by specific outcome based objectives. A qualitative methodology was indispensable to an inquiry of this kind and warrants further attention in the process of understanding the meanings of adventure and learning.

Background: Ongoing changes in academic publishing require periodic updates to research reporting standards in outdoor, experiential, environmental, and adventure education and recreation fields, to maintain quality and relevance. Purpose: This essay interprets recent statements by major educational and psychological associations and applies their guidelines for research reporting to the Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership (JOREL), the Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education (JOEE), the Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning (JAEOL), and the Journal of Experiential Education (JEE). Methodology/Approach: This joint statement was written by editors of the JOREL, JOEE, JAEOL, and JEE to produce guidance for research reporting across these journal platforms. Findings/Conclusions: The associations’ recommendations for reporting qualitative and quantitative research should be considered as guidance for submitting future empirical manuscripts to the JOREL, JOEE, JAEOL, and JEE. Implications: Authors, reviewers, and readers should consult this essay for guidelines on reporting, reviewing, and reading research in the above journals.

Environmental education aims to solve a variety of problems around all kinds of pending environmental issues. In South Korea, environmental education has developed in a dual system between school environmental education provided by environment teachers as part of the school's subject curriculums and social environmental education provided by environmental education instruction in the community outside the school. Today school environmental education has shrunk considerably while needs for environmental education in the community grow day by day. In this situation, environmental education instructors outside the school provide students with environmental education by visiting schools themselves as well as in the community outside the school, covering most of practical environmental education for students. In the area of education, there have been no full researches on environmental education outside the school and especially environmental education instructors providing the education. This study thus set out to investigate the educational experiences of environmental education instructors by selecting four environmental education instructors as research participants and conducting an in-depth interview with them in June~September, 2021.
 The findings show that environmental education instructors took various chances to begin providing education and there was a high degree of diversity in the content of education and the aspects of growth through educational experiences among the instructors. These findings once again demonstrated the value of diversity that environmental education should guarantee. The environmental education instructors all made many efforts to provide the right education on all sorts of discriminating environmental matters while pursuing diversity. A high level of spontaneity demonstrated by the instructors in the process became an important foothold for their self-growth. The uniqueness of individual environmental education instructors was reflected on environmental education in various ways, and their enriched educational experiences added further diversity to their unique educational capabilities. These findings raise a need for social and educational supports to help the content and methods of environmental education develop in a productive manner in harmony with the uniqueness of environmental education instructors. It is also needed to provide institutional supports for the management of environmental education to guarantee diversity and flexibility like today and, at the same time, ensure systematic long-term education.

Book Reviews 159 Place-Based Curriculum Design: Exceeding Standards through Local Investigations Amy B. Demarest (2015) New York: Routledge, 172 pages $108.95 (hardcover), $45.60 (paperback); ISBN: 978-1138013469 Children, Place and Sustainability Margaret Somerville and Monica Green (2015) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 200 pages $95.00 (hardcover); ISBN: 978-1137408495 Pathways Toward Complementary Aims of Education and Environmental Sustainability: A Paired Book Review As environmental education (EE) has struggled to take center stage in schools in the U.S., many educators and researchers have argued that when EE is an integral part of classroom life, it not only promotes ecological sustainability, but also general educational aims (Moroye & Ingman, 2013). The two books reviewed here contribute to the field by providing curriculum, pedagogy, and research to support the complementary aims of education and environmental sustainability. Demarest’s (2015) Place-Based Curriculum Design: Exceeding Standards Through Local Investigations and Somerville and Green’s (2015) Children, Place and Sustainability provide teachers, policy makers, and community members the resources and rationale for a prolific role for environmental education in schools. Both authors promote visions of EE that are both good for kids and good for the environment. While there are many ways to argue that a good education is compatible with— even enhanced by—environmental education, one useful framework is John Dewey’s (1934/1997) criteria for an educative (versus miseducative or noneducative) experience: continuity and interaction (Moroye & Ingman, 2013). Continuity describes educational experiences that lead to further similar experiences toward growth. In other words, an experience that propels the learner to seek out additional experiences that enhance his/her skills and knowledge is one characterized by continuity. Interaction, as continuity’s partner, describes experiences that are responsive to the internal conditions of the learner (his/her desires and abilities) along with the external conditions of the experience (content to be learned, context of the lesson, and democratic participation). In reading the work of Demarest and Somerville and Green, we quickly recognized that the examples and ideas met Dewey’s criteria for educative experience. As such, we believe both texts hold promise for revitalizing environmental education and more firmly grounding EE in school curriculum. Further, we noticed that both texts are asking a similar question with different emphases. Demarest asks, “Where are children in environmental education?” noting the importance of place. Somerville and Green ask, “Where are the children in environmental education research?” noting the importance of the child’s voice in research. Together these Book Reviews 160 emphases coalesce in educative experiences and provide worthy reads for parents, educators, researchers, and policy makers. Demarest’s focus is on place and its role in curriculum design as constructed by teachers with their students. She offers an explanation of the theory of environmental education that sets the foundation for her discussion of the elements of place-based curriculum design. She then dives deeply into the practical logistics and challenges we often hear from teachers before offering strategies for wholeschool change, noting the “contrasting patterns” (Demarest, 2015, p. 2) with which children undertake their inquiries into the world, as well the vastly different ways that “students access and experience education” (p. 2). Her approach to curriculum design places equal weight on the internal conditions of the learner and the external conditions as characterized in place-based education, thereby satisfying the criteria for interaction. Further, her text promotes student inquiry and choice balanced by content and standards for learning. The text is written largely in response to Demarest’s own urgent calling that students must not only feel tied to the natural world, but also ask critical questions that lead to investigations. Demarest’s vision is nothing short of transformation—of students, of schools, and of communities—toward the aim of planetary health and vigorous learning experiences. Further, as the product of her dissertation work, Demarest artfully crafts stories of teachers and students on their journeys in, through, and with place. Perhaps this is her more important purpose, in that it emphasizes the immediate and present opportunity we have to engage meaningfully and with integrity in sustainable practices. She notes: There is power in knowing how to take the larger outcomes that emerge from local...

Beyond training for tolerance in outdoor experiential education

This article summarizes findings from an ongoing research and development project, ‘Re-engaging disaffected pupils in learning’, which involves troubled and troublesome students in five London schools, all in challenging urban contexts. It outlines the project’s approach, key features of which include: involving the students themselves as change agents; enabling them to experience learning in an active outdoor education environment; creating time and opportunities for staff to work with their students in new ways; and developing strategies which will remove some of the barriers to learning for disaffected students. The article reviews the impact of the project to date, particularly the ways in which involving pupils in a new learning environment - an outdoor education experience - can transform their views about themselves as learners. It also offers a broader analysis of the implications of developing a change strategy designed to re-engage marginalized pupils from urban schools in learning.

This article examines the influences promoting social justice in the field of outdoor experiential education. The philosophical foundations of outdoor adventure including the work of John Dewey and Kurt Hahn are considered in light of social justice education. The historical evolution of social justice activism within the professional community is analyzed. Other influential trends including the development of outdoor programs sensitive to social justice concerns, the cross fertilization from other related fields, and the demographic and economic imperatives to transform the field are described. The methodological fit between outdoor experiential education and social justice education is the final influence presented. The article concludes that potentials for social justice education within the outdoor experiential education field create an imperative for inclusion.

Recent research shows that ‘environmental denial’ (the denial of anthropogenic impact on the natural world) plays an important role in environmental education. The difficulty in changing our detrimental habits stems from the fact that identities in our societies are bound up with consumerist practices. Because we cannot simply give up practices that shape our identity, environmental education has to fi nd ways of substituting unhealthy habits with environmentally acceptable ones. One method of achieving this is through experiential education based on experiences with the natural world and their importance for identity formation. The paper presents a case study involving experiential education in environmental ethics, implemented at the university level. Findings show that the implementation of experiential education technique (fi eld trip) yielded positive results in connection with students’ overcoming of environmental denial and consequential change of their environmental outlook.