Environmental Education Practice Research Articles

¿Cómo implementan la Educación Ambiental en sus aulas profesores de centros educativos rurales colombianos?

A pesar de la importancia actual de la Educación Ambiental (EA), lo que ocurre dentro de las aulas constituye un reducto escasamente estudiado. En este artículo pretendemos describir las prácticas en materia ambiental y de EA realizadas por una muestra de profesores de centros educativos rurales de Bogotá. Para ello se recurrió al método etnometodológico, mediante la técnica de observación. Las dimensiones analizadas en la intervención en el aula de los profesores fueron: la corriente de EA seguida, los modelos pedagógicos y didácticos, las estrategias de evaluación y los mecanismos para articular el tema ambiental en las clases. Los resultados se muestran como frecuencias para las distintas categorías establecidas en la observación. Se concluye que las prácticas de los profesores observados responden, en general, a los estándares deseables para la EA, aunque con algunas excepciones relacionadas especialmente con el contexto en que desarrollan su labor docente.

Big History in the Ecuadorian Educational System: Theory, Practice, and Public Policies of Environmental Education

Big History in the Ecuadorian Educational System: Theory, Practice, and Public Policies of Environmental Education

Analysis on the Present Situation of Environmental Education in Middle School of China by Investigation to Teachers and Its Countermeasures

By investigation to Teachers, combining the method of qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis， authors analyzed the present situation of environmental education in middle school and its problems. The results show that, the cognitive status to environmental education of teachers is generally good, but the practice status of it is not satisfied, and there are differences in the practice of environmental education of teachers between schools and disciplines or teaching ages. The investigation shows further that the pressure of college entrance examination and the lack of curriculum setting are the main constraints affecting the implementation of environmental education of teachers, and teacher training is the key to break the bottleneck of environmental education practice. Therefore, The author makes the following Countermeasures suggestions: i) to emphasis on the train of environmental education and great an atmosphere of environmental education for all; ii) to strengthen the platform and mechanism construction for online environmental education teacher training; iii) to promote the interface of environmental education between university and middle school for strengthen the pre-service training of environmental education capabilities; iv) to combine environmental education with teaching reform by promoting open teaching research and practice.

Practice change in environmental education: lessons from professional development

The field of environmental education (EE) strives to develop innovative practices to address emergent issues such as equity, climate change, and urbanization. Through facilitating workshops and ongoing networks for the exchange of ideas, professional development programs may foster innovation or practice change among environmental educators. This study investigates change in practice among environmental educators who participated in one of three online and face-to-face professional development programs. Drawing from practice theory, we measured elements of EE practice including goals, audiences, settings, activities, resources, and ideas. The results showed that across all three programs participants incorporated new resources and ideas into their practices whereas changes in other practice elements varied among programs. Participants in all three programs produced eBooks or ongoing networks that can be used as indicators of practice innovation. This study suggests that practice theory can be used to inform studies of professional development outcomes and examine EE practice, but that practice innovations may be more readily measured at the group rather than individual level.

Education and Sustainability: A Pedagogical Experience for the Interaction with the Brazilian Semiariad Region

The purpose of this article was to present the results and discussions of an action research developed by teachers and high school students in a public school in the Sobral-CE municipality, Brazil’s semi-arid region, where they elaborated and developed an interdisciplinary project aiming to seek the development of new sustainable methods and technologies for the treatment and reuse of domestic effluents and also to avoid wasting drip-treated water on school taps, drinking fountains, sinks and air-conditioning units. The starting point for the project was the group’s concern about the wastefulness observed in the school environment and the awareness of issues related to the limitations of access to water by humanity in recent times. Thus, the main purpose of this project was the development of a practical environmental education capable of contributing effectively to the living conditions improvement in the semi-arid environment, based on the case study, having the school space as a research laboratory, proposing new educational challenges for teachers and learners in the another posture constitution of the same in relation to nature and its resources; based on the study of concrete cases of the daily life of said actors, thus fostering students’ interest in scientific research. To do so, it started with TGS as the main methodological resource, whose course followed the steps of a quantitative research, whose results ratified the project initial hypotheses, showing that itwas possible to develop an interdisciplinary environmental education in a practical and attractive way for students from simple ideas and to insert the student in the universe of scientific research still in basic education.

PRÁTICAS AMBIENTAIS NO PARQUE ECOLÓGICO BOSQUE DOS PAPAGAIOS, BOA VISTA/RR / ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES IN THE PARQUE ECOLÓGICO BOSQUE DOS PAPAGAIOS, BOA VISTA/RR

A cidade de Boa Vista/RR possui espaços verdes que podem exercer um papel vital para qualidade de vida de sua população, visto que estes espaços propiciam a melhor coexistência com o espaço urbano. Analisando a área institucional do Parque Ecológico Bosque dos Papagaios (PEBP) em Boa Vista/RR, tem-se como objetivo geral compreender qual é a percepção ambiental despertada no visitante do Parque, o qual se desdobra nos seguintes objetivos específicos: (i) verificar quais são as práticas voltadas à educação ambiental; (ii) identificar e mapear o fluxo de visitantes; e (iii) discutir se essas práticas funcionam como transformadoras da percepção ambiental dos visitantes do PEBP. A metodologia consistiu em coleta de dados primários, entrevistas com os funcionários do PEBP e análise das práticas de Educação Ambiental desenvolvidas. Foi possível concluir que o PEBP funciona como espaço não formal de Educação Ambiental, por meio de práticas formativas ecopedagógicas, bem como contribui para formar indivíduos conscientes de seu papel na sociedade através dos preceitos da Educação Ambiental Transformadora.

Incorporating Environmental Education in English Language Teaching through Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

It has become undeniable that language learners should be aware of global problems. One of the most serious problems of our globe today is the environmental degradation and education practices should have a contribution to ecological conservation. Environmental education, which is a developing field of study, aims to equip learners with the skills to identify and take action against ecological problems. In order to be able to take part in this solution process, English language learners should especially have critical thinking and critical reading skills. This paper suggests using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy in an environmental education framework for fostering English language learners’ skills required for critical reading of authentic texts related to ecology and increasing their environmental awareness. In this respect, first, an application of the taxonomy in Monroe & Andrews et al.’s (2007) Environmental Education Strategies Framework is presented. Then, in order to exemplify the use of the taxonomy with an environmental education perspective, a set of reading questions which can be used for the critical reading of an authentic text is suggested. Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeding Under Any Conditions (2005), written by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber as a fable, has been chosen as the sample authentic text. It is concluded that environmental education practices can be incorporated in English language teaching by fostering critical reading skills with the suggested approach and authentic texts on ecological issues can be used as classroom material for this purpose.

Environmental Education and Science Education: Ideology, Hegemony, Traditional Knowledge, and Alignment

Environmental degradation and decreasing quality of life have galvanized a generation and launched a resurgence of attention to environmental matters, raising questions about environmental education policies and practices, and their relationship to science and social responsibility. Accordingly, many programs, policies, and frameworks have emerged worldwide in an effort to understand, develop and implement environmental education. However, amidst shared concern for the environment and the recognition of the central role of education in enhancing human-environment relationships, there exist widely differing discourses and practices under the banner of environmental education (SAUVÉ, 2005). In this paper I examine environmental education in relation to: 1) the range of ideological orientations, 2) the hegemony of school-based disciplines, 3) traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom (TEKW), and 4) alignment with science education. This paper stems from my interest in understanding the location (both theoretically and pragmatically) of environmental education discourses in contemporary schooling.

Conceptions of environmental education in Mexican primary education: teachers’ views and curriculum aims

This thesis is about how Mexican primary school teachers conceptualise environmental education (EE) and talk about its practise. Teaching EE or EE-related content is often not a straightforward and unproblematic task for educators. Formal education still faces persistent gaps between EE theory, policy, curricula, and practice in schools. Additionally, EE is often eclipsed by crowded curricula and busy schedules. In fact, in the 2011 Mexican basic education curriculum, EE is one of eleven socially-relevant themes (i.e. cross-curricular themes) to be embedded in multiple aims and statutory subjects, suggesting important teaching challenges for EE. Through a qualitative study, this thesis presents EE in Mexican primary education as a case study situation. It investigates references to EE in 2011 curriculum documents for primary school, then it focuses on the views from 11 Year 6 teachers of 6 schools located around Monterrey, Mexico. After five months of fieldwork, this study collected audio-recordings of three individual semi-structured interviews and non-participant classroom observations per participant. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that the curriculum documents faintly outline EE and stress anthropocentric and participatory aims. Then, using Sauve’s (2005) EE typology, it was found that teachers’ conceptions about EE concentrate on fostering students’ environmental awareness, hoping it would translate into pro-environmental behaviour. Their views relate EE to management and conservation of the immediate environment and in relation to the sustainability of current and future lifestyles. Socio-scientific issues and other elements of human lifestyles, like health and environment, were not emphasised. Additionally, typical factors of the contemporary educational climate and schools’ cultures were related to difficulties in teaching EE-related content. These findings suggest inviting a democratic outline of the desired/necessary EE approach in schools and classrooms might be a substantial step forward to closing gaps. The results also showcase the need for training teachers in cross-curricular pedagogies, shared leadership, and effective communication of the goals and approach to EE.

Developing elementary school children’s water conversation action competence: a case study in China

ABSTRACTThere is a ‘green gap’ between environmental education policy and practice in China due to the lack of localised environmental programmes and the dominance of a lecture-based approach. In order to close this green gap, this study attempted to help elementary school children develop action competence (AC) by involving them in a water conservation educational programme (WCEP), which was designed to meet the challenges arising from water scarcity and pollution in mainland China. A total of 69 children (aged 6–8) in a Shanghai primary school participated in the WCEP for 7 consecutive weeks. The data obtained using the ‘drawing and telling’ approach and pre-survey revealed that the participants appeared to have superficial understanding of water, low awareness of saving water, and limited knowledge of water conservation methods before they joined the programme. The comparison between pre-suryey and post-survey data indicated that the children’s water conservation AC in the four aspects of knowledge, willingness, self-efficacy, and behaviour was significantly improved in a holistic way after completing the programme. Girls outperformed boys in changing their pro-environmental behaviours. The implications of improving young children’s AC in environmental education in China and other developing countries are also discussed.

Non-Formal Environmental Education in a Vulnerable Region: Insights from a 20-Year Long Engagement in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Environmental education is essential in the diffusion of the ethics, values, and skills that are critical to sustainable transformations. This paper presents the experience of non-formal environmental education approaches held in schools in the Petrópolis region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 1997–2016. This paper adds to the literature on the relevant approaches and effectives of non-formal environmental education, especially in the vulnerable areas of low and middle-income regions that face critical environmental challenges. Specifically, to set up the context, this paper intends to firstly convey the commonly identified environmental sustainability challenges that the communities of the Petrópolis region are facing. Secondly, this report aims to convey key insights on how non-formal environmental education practices can strengthen gardening skills, environmental ethics, and sustainable food practices. These approaches have the potential to enhance the capacity of students toward sustainable transformations through encouraging them to be engaged with local social-environmental challenges. This paper adds new insights to the growing literature on non-formal environmental education, and it is hoped to inspire new educational approaches among sustainability educators.

Educação Ambiental: um direito da Educação Infantil

Neste artigo discorremos sobre o direito das crianças à Educação Ambiental (EA) emcreches e pré-escolas. Para tanto, apresentamos de forma sucinta a história da EA. Emseguida analisamos o que diz a Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Brasileira e odocumento lançado no ano de 2017 que institui a Base Nacional Curricular Comum, voltadospara a Educação Infantil (EI). Entendendo que há distintas teorias e práticas de EA, nessetrabalho trouxemos algumas concepções da EA crítica. Para oferecer subsídios às nossasreflexões, nos apoiamos em pensar a EA na perspectiva de articular a dimensão de valores, deconhecimentos e de participação política das crianças.

Social mapping and environmental education: dialogues from participatory mapping in the Pantanal, Mato Grosso, Brazil

This article illustrates the steps taken to enact a new methodology for participatory social mapping by the Environmental Education, Communications and the Arts (GPEA) Research Group of the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT). The aim of Social Mapping is to record the identities, territories and socio-environmental conflicts experienced by social groups, based on their own namings and narratives, rather than relying on those more typically generated or provided by researchers or theorists. As such, it offers an important dialogical pathway for environmental education practices, in that it highlights the intrinsic relationship between culture and nature, and reinforces the understanding that the loss of one implies the disappearance of the other.

Bibliographic review of articles on pedagogical practice of environmental education in schools

This article aims to identify pedagogical practices in the area of Environmental Education (EA) developed in Elementary Schools. We have carried out a bibliographical research of articles published in the last five years in national and international journals. Eight journals were consulted, one of them referring to Geosciences Teaching, four of them referring to Science Teaching and three specifically about Environmental Education taking all the numbers published between 2013 and 2017. In those journals, thirteen articles were selected that presented some relation to our research focus, and these were described and characterized in relation to the School Level, Thematic Area, Methodological Approach and Macro tendency of Environmental Education. In the set of papers analyzed, there was a predominance of papers focused on the Elementary Education Level, for the Thematic Area of Environmental Education and Pragmatic macro tendency. In relation to the Methodological Approach, we identified works on environmental conceptions, proposing seminars on sustainability, analysis of pedagogical practices in Environmental Education, among others. We have identified that although there are many studies focusing on Environmental Education in schools, none of them are concerned with the proposals of Government Organizations for Environmental Education in Environmental Education, the focus of our Master's research, which justifies its development.

Inserindo o conceito lixo zero e a economia sustentável em escolas públicas de Florianópolis

O projeto trata-se da continuação de outro, iniciado em 2016, que teve como objetivo a realização da semana Lixo Zero em uma escola de ensino básico de uma região de baixa renda na cidade de Florianópolis, a Escola Básica Municipal Donícia Maria da Costa. Em 2017, práticas de educação ambiental com foco nos conceitos Lixo Zero e Economia Circular e Solidária foram realizadas através de atividades conjuntas, como oficinas, construção de composteira, debates, questionários, mostras de filme, etc. O trabalho de educação ambiental teve resultados muito positivos, uma vez que toda a comunidade próxima foi atingida e as crianças do coletivo conseguiram gerar renda (economia solidária) a partir de uma feira, onde foram vendidos objetos elaborados pelos próprios participantes, nas oficinas. O projeto continua sendo aplicado em 2018, com objetivo principal de ajudar na instituição da Educação Ambiental no Plano Político Pedagógico.

Projetos de educação ambiental realizados pela Prefeitura Municipal de Santarém (PA) a partir da Lei 9.795/1999

As mudanças ambientais sempre ocorreram; porém, agravaram-se quando o homem descobriu que o fogo podia transformar e modificar o seu entorno, de maneira que se fazem necessárias mudanças urgentes no hábito da sociedade. Portanto, ações de sensibilização se tornaram indispensáveis para a construção de novos valores, atitudes e habilidades sociais sustentáveis. Conforme a Lei Federal nº 9.795/1999, o poder público é um dos responsáveis para promover a educação ambiental. O presente trabalho buscou elencar as ações e práticas de educação ambiental realizadas no município de Santarém pela Secretaria Municipal de Educação (Semed) e pela Secretaria Municipal de Meio Ambiente (Semma). A pesquisa teve abordagem de caráter quantitativo-qualitativo, a coleta de dados ocorreu por meio de levantamento bibliográfico sobre a temática e pesquisa documental junto a Semed e a Semma. Foram identificados 72 projetos direcionados para a sensibilização ambiental. Os principais métodos de sensibilização registrados nos projetos da Semed foram seminários e atividades lúdicas, seguidos de oficinas e treinamentos. As temáticas mais abordadas foram educação ambiental, resíduos e meio ambiente. Os projetos registrados pela Semma apresentaram como principais métodos de sensibilização as atividades lúdicas, seguidos de reuniões de conscientização e hortas escolares. As temáticas mais abordadas foram as questões ambientais em geral.

Still ‘Minding the Gap’ Sixteen Years Later: (Re)Storying Pro-Environmental Behaviour

AbstractIn their seminal 2002 paper, Kollmuss and Agyeman asked the important question ‘Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour?’ The article has had a remarkably high rate of readership, with 64,900 electronic views to date, and 16 years later, this question remains significant. But are environmental educators and researchers any closer to understanding why people engage in pro-environmental behaviour? For this special issue of theAustralian Journal of Environmental Educationand its focus on ecologising education, it is timely not only to re-explore but to (re)story the concepts of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour, in order to generate fertile ground for the creation of new understandings and practices in environmental education. After considering relevant literature published between 2000 and 2018, this article offers an original framework for considering the complex, varied, and interconnected influences on the development of pro-environmental behaviour by (re)storying the development of pro-environmental behaviour through articulating it as a living forest.

The GLOBE Program: Long-term memories of program-relevant experience

ABSTRACTThe study analyzes the meaning attributed to the GLOBE program by its former participants. The data were collected by conducting interviews with 19 adult respondents who left the program at least five years ago. The respondents interpreted the program as a strong community shaped by routine as well as extraordinary program activities and by their relationships. The respondents linked their GLOBE experience with the feeling of being part of something meaningful. The program provided them with a special privilege to experience something different from their non-participating peers. Their participation in the program influenced the respondents' future life and in some cases their professional career. The study discusses the implications in respect to environmental education practice.

Diálogo de saberes para uma racionalidade socioambiental no território centro-norte mato-grossense: possibilidade via educação ambiental?

A crise socioambiental configurou-se mundialmente em meados do século XX devido à consolidação da sociedade urbano-industrial e dos avanços da ciência moderna, pautada pela racionalidade técnico-científica instrumentalizada aplicada para atender o modelo antropocêntrico de dominação da natureza para expansão capitalista. Essa crise global manifesta-se localmente no território centro-norte no estado de Mato Grosso a partir da expansão do capitalismo, a qual tomou forma, em especial na década de 1970, por meio das políticas desenvolvimentistas de integração nacional à Amazônia. A ocupação do espaço – por meio da colonização público-privada que atraiu o interesse de grandes grupos nacionais e internacionais –modificou a dinâmica territorial, movimentação de fauna e flora e também das populações seja das preexistentes no território, seja das populações migrantes em suas diferentes situações. Tal processo ocorreu de modo rápido e intenso, gerando desequilíbrios socioambientais na terra, na água, no ar, na biodiversidade e nas culturas preexistentes no território devido à inserção da Amazônia Legal – como região funcional – no contexto do capitalismo globalmente estruturado, perpetuando localmente os efeitos da crise socioambiental global. Dessa forma, o artigo em questão objetiva compreender como a Educação Ambiental no encontro com o diálogo de saberes e culturas pode produzir uma racionalidade socioambiental na região centro-norte mato-grossense. Por meio de revisão bibliográfica, o estudo revelou que, embora exista uma fragilidade das práticas de Educação Ambiental e/ou adoção de atividades pontuais e não contextualizadas – o que não explicita as relações mercantilizadoras e insustentáveis existentes no modelo de sociedade vigente – quando trabalhado de forma crítica e dialógica, tal modelo promove a compreensão ampliada das relações complexas entre sociedade e natureza. Ademais, a Educação Ambiental no encontro com o diálogo de saberes científicos com os saberes culturalmente construídos por populações tradicionais (indígenas e não indígenas), os quais coevoluem com a natureza, possibilita a construção da racionalidade socioambiental que subsidia uma compreensão que aproxima as ciências da vida, da natureza e da sociedade e é pautada em princípios éticos, democráticos, justos e ecologicamente sustentáveis.

Adult stakeholder perceptions of 4th grade participation in children’s forest environmental education programming

An environmental education (EE) consortium located in the pacific northwest United States coalesced an external evaluation team to research its K-5 EE programming. The purpose of this article is to describe one phase of this program evaluation process including the exploration of adult stakeholder perceptions of EE programming accessed by 4th grade children. The author highlights the goals of the consortium and the context for the program evaluation, and the relevant literature addressing adult perspectives on EE is reviewed. The study framing, method, and qualitative results are reported. Findings suggest that adult stakeholders perceived positive impacts from 4th grade participation in EE, though the programming was viewed as being most beneficial to children coming from economically disadvantaged families. Implications for EE practice and research are discussed.