Environmental Education Research Research Articles

Learning landscapes through technology and movement: blurring boundaries for a more-than-human pedagogy

ABSTRACT Interest in the role of technology and movement is growing in outdoor environmental education (OEE) research. However, there are many unexamined assumptions involving both non-digital technology and movement for outdoor learners. In this paper, we explore learning landscapes through non-digital technology and movement involving canoe journeys in south-eastern Australia. We examine ways that technology and movement come together to help shape learning orientations through situated examples from OEE fieldwork. Our investigations utilise posthumanist and process-relational theories for exploring onto-epistemological dimensions of outdoor learning. We bring such theory into conversation with photos, videos and student essays to analyse our fieldwork contexts. We highlight that technology and movement cannot be taken for granted; rather, they help constitute the ways we come to know places. We also acknowledge some cultural and conceptual aspects that overlap to influence learning. This paper offers alternative insights for learning landscapes and the mediating influence of technologies.

Unveiling the Role of Zoos in Smart Cities: A Quantitative Analysis of the Degree of Smartness in Kyoto City Zoo

The rapid pace of urbanization and the emergence of social challenges, including an aging population and increased labor costs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, have underscored the urgency to explore smart city solutions. Within these technologically advanced urban environments, zoos have assumed a pivotal role that extends beyond their recreational functions. They face labor cost challenges and ecological considerations while actively contributing to wildlife conservation, environmental education, and scientific research. Zoos foster a connection with nature, promote biodiversity awareness, and offer a valuable space for citizens, thereby directly supporting the pillars of sustainability, public engagement, and technological innovation in smart cities. This study employs a quantitative analysis to assess the alignment between smart projects and the distinctive characteristics of Kyoto Zoo. Through questionnaires, we collected feedback on performance and importance, and subsequently employed the analytic hierarchy process and the fuzzy integrated evaluation method to obtain quantitative results. The findings reveal the high level of intelligence exhibited by Kyoto Zoo, and the analysis provides insightful guidance that can be applied to other urban facilities. At the same time, we compared Kyoto Zoo with Ueno Zoo to see the difference in intellectualization achievements in different contexts in terms of data and systems.

Landscape changes in the city of Barbacena – Minas Gerais recorded in photographs as a didactic resource for Environmental Education processes: A proposal in the light of Historical-Critical Pedagogy

The present study proposes a critical pedagogical practice in Environmental Education, using as a teaching resource photographic sequences from the city of Barbacena-Minas Gerais, which captured the transformations in its urban environment, with the purpose of awakening in students a critical perception of their reality. local and then think about global issues. For this, the methodological perspectives of Tozoni-Reis (2009) were used about the guidelines in Environmental Education research and the analyzes of the selected photographs were constructed from the method described by Panofsky (1979) contemplating denotative and interpretive elements of the images. Based on analyzes and discussions based on the basic theoretical framework of this study, a proposal was built to be carried out by teachers working in Environmental Education in the light of the path proposed by Saviani (1983) for teaching processes supported by Historical-Critical Pedagogy. It was concluded that the proposed theoretical and practical path opens several possibilities for the generation of critical and sensitive stimuli considering scientific and popular knowledge. In addition, it will enable ties and approximation with the identity of values of the students' community, representing a singularity of community values, memories and singularities, contemplating Emotional and rational skills and building cultural resistances in counterpoint to global reality

A didactic toolkit for climate change educators: lessons from constructive journalism for emotionally sensitive and democratic content design

Climate change education is seen as an important contributor to climate change mitigation. Yet, its predominant focus on cognitive learning tends to omit the emotional effects of learning about climate change, which often entails learners feeling anxious and overwhelmed and therefore struggling to engage with and enact ‘solutions’. This paper addresses a gap in current environmental education research relating to the role that the design of educational content might play in engaging with the emotional dimension of learning in environmental and sustainability education. In this effort, the paper draws on constructive journalism to provide an account of how the design of content influences the appropriation of content on both a cognitive and emotional level by the learner. The paper outlines three content design tools (solutions orientation, future orientation, community orientation) that aim to reconcile the emotional and cognitive dimensions of learning while supporting the agency of learners and a democratic conception of climate change education.

Critical education for sustainable development: exploring the conception of criticality in the context of global and Vietnamese policy discourse

ABSTRACT This paper analyses how ‘criticality’ is negotiated in the global policy frameworks on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and re-conceptualised in Vietnamese ESD policymaking. Taking the context of Viet Nam, this paper reflects on what constitutes criticality in education in the light of cultural and historical contexts of the education systems. The comparative perspective helps explore whether (1) universal or decontextualised ‘criticality’ exists or (2) whether ‘criticality’ is culturally negotiated based on the premise that educational imaginaries of societal formation and transformation are historically and contextually embedded and contingent. In addition, this paper connects the ongoing debate on the critical potential of ESD within the field of environmental education (EE) research to comparative education research by highlighting both what a comparative perspective might offer to EE research and what recent developments in EE research might contribute to comparative education research.

Teaching action-oriented knowledge on sustainability issues

Knowledge about sustainability problems as it is typically taught does not per se lead to action for tackling these problems. Environmental and sustainability education researchers have argued for teaching more action-oriented knowledge. This article addresses the ‘didactical work’ required for teachers to do so, both in preparing and implementing lessons. The authors employ transactional didactic theory and the analytical method Practical Epistemology Analysis to open-up the black box of teaching and learning action-oriented knowledge on sustainability issues. The methodology, that has a strong focus on classroom observations, allows to empirically investigate the influence of teachers’ actions on students’ learning. It is here applied to a case study in higher education where it is engineering teachers’ explicit ambition for their students to explore and develop a wider area of knowledge about sustainability issues. Our findings shed light on what this requires in terms of the ‘scripting’, ‘staging’, and ‘performance’ of lessons.

Sensitivity analysis of trends in environmental education in schools and its implications in the built environment

Environmental education research is diverse, complex and multidisciplinary, with interrelated approaches and contexts. This paper aims to analyse the existing previous initiatives, their organisation in different areas, and the current action strategies for improving management and implementing sustainable criteria and circular economy guidelines. The analysis methodology follows sequential phases: (i) analysis of the bibliographic records of the research field; (ii) performance analysis and mapping of scientific production; and (iii) comparison between the different policy frameworks on Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development. This paper analyses the research trends in this field for the period 1968 to 2021. Morever, documents from 21 countries are analysed under various socio-economic contexts to obtain a comprehensive discussion to be replicated through proposals for action in environmental education in the coming years. The analysis shows that Environmental Education started to be included in educational programmes in the early years, taking as a reference green building practices. Over the years, it has evolved through education in consumption habits, promoting the local economy, the reduction of the environmental footprint, and the need to develop inclusive frameworks that address the use of technologies.

환경교육 정책 제안을 위한 교사들의 환경 인식 조사

Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate teachers' perceptions of environmental education and to use the results as basic data for establishing environmental education policies in Jeollabuk-do.
 Methods To achieve this purpose, a questionnaire was prepared with 4 teachers belonging to the Environmental Education Research Community. The survey was conducted online. The contents of the survey are about environmental issues, overall perceptions of environmental education, and education policies.
 Results As a result of the survey, teachers are highly interested in environmental issues and environmental education, and at the same time, teachers used to teach environmental education integrated with school life rather than establishing a separate guidance plan. Teachers recognized that the support for environmental education was insufficient, and preferred methods of support such as program development and dissemination and expansion of teacher training as a support of The Office of Education.
 Conclusions Based on the results, we would like to suggest the environmental education policies that the Office of Education should support. First, it is necessary to develop a variety of programs that can be used for environmental education and build an easily accessible platform. Second, training contents, methods, places, and opportunities for environmental education that reflect the needs of teachers should be provided. Third, it is necessary to create an environment that leads to daily practice. This study is meaningful in that it confirmed the needs of teachers, who are actually implementing policies, not from the point of view of policymakers. Now is the time to prepare for the next step to put the proposal into action as a policy.

Tbilisi’s “Sounds Of Silence”—(In)action in the policy ≠ embodiments of environmental education

Based in the 1977 Tbilisi formalization of Environmental Education (EE), this memory-work study of contemporary silences in Environmental Education Research (EER) emphasizes an embodied∼materialist theorization and activist conception of ecological experience in EE (eco)pedagogy. Relevant empirical-conceptual research drawn from EER Special Issues (SI) provides an evidence-base for re-storying numerous post-Tbilisi silences. Of central importance in critiquing various policy transitions in EE and frequent theory turns in EER are the enigmatically ‘lived’ practices of educative experience (human-culture actions and felt other-than-human-Nature interactions). Ecological experiences within experiential and interdisciplinary EE curriculum are inadequately researched in relation to action. Forty-five years after Tbilisi, the power and promise of its “Recommendations” are re-sounded. Tbilisi’s potentials to reconstruct mainstream education policy have been muted for the past two decades of EER. Evidence-driven critical histories of the praxis of key Tbilisi principles are needed if the narrative continuity of the field is to be radically reclaimed.

Environmental education in Aotearoa New Zealand: reconfiguring possum–child mortal relations

ABSTRACT In Aotearoa New Zealand children learn about biodiversity loss and protection through a bicultural environmental education (EE) program. Connected with Predator Free NZ, a nationwide restoration project, the program teaches children about killing possums, rats, and stoats. Children’s involvement in possum killing has a long, troubling history in Aotearoa and EE is now working to transform attitudes from ‘hating possums’ into respecting all animals. This paper analysis the recent shift in rhetoric, with a focus on the discord between animal rights scholars and EE and by addressing the histories of Aotearoa, possums, and EE. With the help of Donna Haraway, Rangimārie Rose Pere, and other indigenous scholars, the troubles obscuring the move into interspecies respect are made visible. Militarized discourse, war games, individualism, Restoration, nature-culture divide, and human exceptionalism, are all emphasized as barriers. This paper also draws attention to a major concern with possum-child worlds and EE research in that children’s voice is seriously lacking. It is then argued that children’s stories must be present in future EE research, and that the pathway toward respecting possums is one and the same, located in indigenous, interspecies, children’s, and ecofeminist stories. Positions that emphasize interconnected ecologies between people, place, and animals.

Research in Environmental Education. A bibliometric analysis of the last two years

The objective of the study is to characterize the world scientific production on Environmental Education (EA) in the Scopus and Web of Science , between the months of January 2020 to March 2022. We worked with a universe made up of 638 documents from the Web of Science and 774 from Scopus, extracted from 254 and 327 sources respectively. The bibliometric analysis indicates a very similar citation average between both databases (1.45 for Web of Science and 1.40 for Scopus). The average number of citations per document is also similar, being 1,276 and 1,589 in WoS and Scopus . The rate of collaboration between authors is slightly lower in Web of Science . The most cited article in both databases is titled “ How renewable energy consumption contribute to environment quality ? The role of education in OECD countries ”, the most productive author on the subject is Bruce Johnson, the journals that host the greatest production on EE are Sustainability ( Switzerland ) and Remea -revista eletronica do mestrado em educacao .

Environmental education research in Indonesian Scopus indexed journal: A systematic literature review

Studies in the field of environmental education need to be continuously promoted in line with the increasing number of environmental problems. The purpose of this systematic literature review (SLR) was to review and compare investigations of researches on articles published by one Indonesian Scopus Indexed journal i.e., Jurnal Pendidikan IPA Indoneia (JPII) so that they are expected to have significant contributions to the topic of environmental education. This systematic literature review adopts five-step guidelines. The study standards that meet the requirements were as follows: (1). The data used were from the 2012-2021 publication year; (2) articles published in English; (3) Full paper can be accessed; (4) related to the theme of environmental education. It can be concluded that JPII is a pro-environment education journal. JPII publishes 26 articles related to the theme of environment education. The most frequently used keywords were environmental education and students. JPII's important contribution in the theme of environmental education is to provide a real example of the implementation of SETS and to emphasize that the success of implementing environmental education depends on the models, methods, techniques, and tools that are continuously developed by experts.

Assessing Attitudes Towards Wood in the Context of Family Habits: Potential for Reuse of Raw Data from a Questionnaire Survey

The dataset covers a statistically representative quantitative questionnaire survey conducted with 430 children with the aim of assessing their knowledge, habits and attitudes towards wood and trees. The goal of the study was to examine the variables that affect environmental awareness and the use of wood in the future. The dataset contains 430 rows (participants) and 49 columns (variables). Data has a reuse potential in the fields of childhood pedagogy and environmental education research but also opens new ways for demonstrating the formula of statistical representativeness or machine-learning analyses such as clustering techniques, associative learning, or decision trees.

Multiple worlds and strange objects: environmental education research as an additive practice

AbstractThe paper offers three examples of passionate immersion with strange objects and working with peculiar multispecies assemblages, such as the assemblage of a dove called Romeo and the technology to humidify a greenhouse called ‘Princess’, or the experiment of orienteering in forests for years, accounting for slips, scratches and tumbles as being taught by the forest — and prioritising these over the more commonplace educational narratives. The paper is structured in a nonconventional way in that most space is reserved for reports from these ongoing inquiries. The authors will each discuss how they situate themselves in relation to strangeness in research and how they proceed methodologically, locating their approaches as postqualitative. The questions each example addresses are:What is a strange object? How do we come across them? What do we begin to do/produce with them?The additive orientation described in the research stories is proposed to be an important constituent for new survival knowledge especially relevant for environmental education, addressing environmental problems as wicked, and demanding approaches that reach beyond methodological divides.

A passionate partnership: understanding the origins and significance of John Sinclair’s connection with K’gari (Fraser Island)

AbstractThe paper explores the transformation of environmental activist John Sinclair, OA, from a conservative member of the Country Party, through a position of cautious conservationism, to preeminence as a leading environmentalist with some very significant achievements. This paper aims to show some correlations between his work and ideas and major strands of environmental education research. His allegiance to K’gari (Fraser Island) and the way in which he was able to learn from the traditional custodians, the Butchulla people, and other leading environmentalists is described in this paper through his own memoir writing and the viewpoints of informants interviewed by the author. John Sinclair’s profound connection with K’gari, how it was formed and sustained, and its historical and environmental consequences make a remarkable story of a modern citizen turned activist. The development of John Sinclair’s ideas and practice show interesting parallels with the development of both environmental activism and environmental education in Australia. The story has importance in a range of areas connected with environmental stewardship and environmental education.

After the posts: thinking with theory in environmental education research

AbstractIn this essay, we argue that postqualitative inquiry is not a useful descriptor for environmental education research and that it is time to consider what comes after the posts. We argue that thinking with theory as a process methodology in the onto-epistemological framings of our research is more generative and opens up opportunities for this research being interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary/cross-disciplinary, intersectional, ecofeminist/more-than-humanist, indigenous, participatory, experimental and transgressive.

Articulating encounters between children and plastics

In the context of global concerns about plastics, this paper sets out and exemplifies a research agenda for articulating children’s encounters with plastics. The paper analyses data co-produced with 11–15 year-olds through interviews, app-based research and experimental/arts-led workshops. It moves beyond scholarship in health and environmental sciences, and in environmental education research, to outline a far richer range of ways to conceptualise children’s encounters with plastics, based in children’s everyday, embodied and emotive interactions with plastics.

The generativity of feminist and environmental cartoons for environmental education research and teaching

This article brings together a feminist environmentalist cartoonist with a feminist environmental educator in an exploration of the generativity of cartoons in environmental education research and teaching. Using duoethnography as a methodology, and drawing on critical and new materialist feminist theory, we explore our personal memories, stories, and conversations, as well as discussing the origins and/or significance of particular cultural artefacts (some of Judy’s cartoons), to illuminate the reasons for, and influences on, our engagement with cartoons, feminism, the environment, and formal environmental education. Drawing on a range of literature around humour and environmental education and feminism, juxtaposed with our conversations and the cartoons, we also seek to identify some possible ways of measuring what impact or influence cartoons about the environment might have once they are in the world, thereby exploring their generativity in environmental education research, theorizing and practice.

What is community-level environmental literacy, and how can we measure it? A report of a convening to conceptualize and operationalize CLEL

Environmental education research often emphasizes the importance of community context, but conceptualization and measurement of environmental literacy has mostly occurred at the individual level, often focusing on individual behaviors. The environmental problems facing the world today require collective action—communities coming together to address large-scale problems. Accordingly, understanding and encouraging collective action requires a shift in focus from individual to community-level environmental literacy (CLEL). Despite its importance, CLEL has been left largely undefined and unmentioned in environmental education literature. To understand the field’s current conceptualizations and measurement strategies around CLEL, the authors held a convening of 24 researchers to discuss the topic. Here, we report the findings of this convening and present a series of tensions that emerged in conceptualizing and measuring CLEL. We see this area of research as rich with opportunity for innovation and offer considerations for researchers engaging in this work.

Environmental education in Brazil: trends and gaps from 2015 to 2019

Here we carried out a review of the open-access literature concerning Environmental Education in the prominent Brazilian journals from 2015 to 2019, aiming to provide trends in the field of Environmental Education Research in Brazil and highlighted well-studied areas and potential research gaps. We found a total of 695 articles from four scientific journals that met the selection criteria, and identified five key results: i) a predominance of qualitative research approach; ii) sex-biased authorship skewed towards women; iii) high educational attainment, led by authors with doctoral degrees; iv) a majority of authors affiliated to public institutions, and v) a predominance of authors from institutions at the southeast region of Brazil. Therefore, our results highlight that the major gaps to be filled in Environmental Education are the lack of quantitative studies, low scientific production by private universities, and centralization of production in the southeast and south regions.