Description:
This small-scale study examinesyoung people’s perspectives aboutenergy transition and climate change adaptation in regional Gippsland, Victoria,Australia. As the opinions and experiences of children and youth have been historically overlooked in contemporary sustainability climate discourse and policy, this research investigatespreviously unheard accounts.The studydrawsonfourfacilitated “Conversations for Change”discussions with a total of 14 young people (aged 9-17)that exploredtheir ideas and concerns about sustaining themselves and their communities during a time of climate change and energy transition. Theirideas and opinionsaboutliving in/with a climate-alteredlocaland global futurearereflected across four main themes: (a)young people’s values;(b) perceptions of energy, transition and adaptation;(c) the enabling role of climate literacy for young people; and (d) responding to a just energy transition through collective endeavors.
Description:
In this paper we theorize an “enabling place pedagogy” drawn from the findings of two studies of exceptional place-based teaching and learning initiatives in primary schools in low socio-economic communities in rural and regional Australia. In each case the place-based teaching and learning involved the whole school community and was extended to the communities outside of the school. Children across all grade levels participated in the programs, which were enacted in varying degrees across the curriculum. We propose the notion of “organized chaos” as a way to understand the extraordinary nature of the pedagogical encounters offered by the two leading teachers. Through a pedagogy of organized chaos, infinite connections are made possible, opening the way for alternative learner subjectivities, especially for children who are different and those who do not achieve well in conventional classroom teaching. We argue that through a pedagogy of organized chaos in diverse outdoor learning environments, deep ecological learning takes place that enables different ways of being in and knowing the world.
Description:
This book sets out to give close and careful attention to the intimate and often surprising nature of children's sustainability learning in the context of their local places. The authors draw on new materialist and posthuman theory to consider the challenges posed to conventional environmental education by the advent of the new geological era of the Anthropocene and global climate change. Individual chapters explore the role of place and the material world in the development of literacy and language, the contribution of student-led design, arts-based approaches and indigenous knowledges as well as scientific pedagogies to provide unique insights into how children learn in their everyday places. The book is distinctive in its grounding in a range of empirical research studies with children and their teachers about their sustainability learning in a number of different locations in Australia. (From back cover).
Description:
In this chapter, we highlight the central role that healthy, vibrant, and functioning “everyday, local, and nearby” childhoodnature ecosystems can play in both keeping children healthy and in helping them to understand the relationship between ecosystem health and their own health. By understanding these interconnections, children can learn that they are not separate from or superior to nature. Rather, these settings become sites where children can refresh and reimagine understandings of nature and their relationships as, within, of, and to nature. Healthy settings are, we believe, a foundation for healthy children. A focus on health is particularly timely for two reasons. First, there are mounting international concerns about children’ health – be it around issues of physical activity, mental illness, social resiliency and belonging, overweight and obesity, and spiritual grounding. But it is not only children’s health that is of concern: there are deep and mounting international concerns about the health of ecological systems, be it around issues of global warming, acid rain, species loss, air pollution, urban sprawl, waste disposal, ozone layer depletion, and water pollution. This Chapter is framed around the World Health Organization’s definition of health and explores the ways in which local nearby natural childhoodnature settings can promote physical, mental, social, and spiritual health and well-being of children. To illustrate these concepts in action, we profile a case study from our research in Australia. This chapter concludes with a discussion on the ways that healthy childhoodnature settings can unite, inform, and support the interests of educators, environmentalists, and children’s health advocates who have an interest in the health of children and ecosystems.
Description:
Place-based education attempts to position the individual in relationship with the human and non-human elements of the life-world, at a place that is welcoming of educational experience and a knowledge base from which to construct a more ecologically sustainable culture. Food gardens, along with ecological restoration projects within schools are experiencing a significant renaissance and are important sites for place-based education. Many of these places are located in and around the immediate environment of a school ground and become significant educational portals through which children explore their world. This paper reports on the literature reviewed for a study on how a pedagogy of place is cultivated within garden experiences. There is limited research about the use of school gardens as an educational tool and the specific pedagogies that support learning in this context. A number of themes emerge from various bodies of literature that provide a conceptual framework for the study of food garden pedagogies. These themes include placebased education, ecological literary, and nature as teacher. It is useful to think about primary school gardens in the light of this literature because it helps frame a research question for a study into how pedagogies of place can be cultivated within food gardens. [Author abstract, ed]
Description:
Place-based education attempts to position the individual in relationship with the human and non-human elements of the life-world, at a place that is welcoming of educational experience and a knowledge base from which to construct a more ecologically sustainable culture. Food gardens, along with ecological restoration projects within schools are experiencing a significant renaissance and are important sites for place-based education. Many of these places are located in and around the immediate environment of a school ground and become significant educational portals through which children explore their world. This paper reports on the literature reviewed for a study on how a pedagogy of place is cultivated within garden experiences. There is limited research about the use of school gardens as an educational tool and the specific pedagogies that support learning in this context. A number of themes emerge from various bodies of literature that provide a conceptual framework for the study of food garden pedagogies. These themes include placebased education, ecological literary, and nature as teacher. It is useful to think about primary school gardens in the light of this literature because it helps frame a research question for a study into how pedagogies of place can be cultivated within food gardens. [Author abstract, ed]
Description:
Abstract: This paper examines the position and role of 'place' in primary school curriculum. Drawing on the research literature and preliminary data the paper analyses a re-imagined environmental education program at a primary school. Innovative and collaborative processes that depict children as integral designers of a new garden place are discussed. Focus is given to the school ground as an important site for teaching and learning. The role of an ecological centre designed to teach children about sustainable building principles is discussed. Attention is drawn to the importance of children as place makers via endeavours that encourage and support children's fascination and affinity with outdoor places in the school ground. Tending a food garden is proposed as a significant pedagogical pathway for nurturing children's sense of wonder and enabling familiarity and a love of the natural world. Keywords: place, place makers, children, school ground, natural world, gardening
Description:
Abstract: This paper examines the position and role of 'place' in primary school curriculum. Drawing on the research literature and preliminary data the paper analyses a re-imagined environmental education program at a primary school. Innovative and collaborative processes that depict children as integral designers of a new garden place are discussed. Focus is given to the school ground as an important site for teaching and learning. The role of an ecological centre designed to teach children about sustainable building principles is discussed. Attention is drawn to the importance of children as place makers via endeavours that encourage and support children's fascination and affinity with outdoor places in the school ground. Tending a food garden is proposed as a significant pedagogical pathway for nurturing children's sense of wonder and enabling familiarity and a love of the natural world. Keywords: place, place makers, children, school ground, natural world, gardening
Description:
Until quite recently the dominant 'scientific' view of social research located the researcher outside the research context. Inherent within this research approach is the supposed stance of neutrality, impartiality and detachment on the part of the researcher, who invariably becomes a disinterested, disembodied and disembedded observer (Usher, 1996). Postmodern approaches to research have challenged positivist research methodologies and its clear distinction between the subjective knower and the objective world as the privileged model of investigation. By contrast, postmodernism posits the researcher as centrally and socially located within the research context. Rather than suspend our researcher subjectivities, postmodernism invites the researcher to become explicit within the research process, and encourages us to identify our subjectivities as a starting point for acquiring knowledge. This article is a reflective critique of the process within a study into place pedagogies in school garden contexts. It highlights the researcher's initial position of detachment, and her transition towards a more critical and central positioning within the research. The first part of the paper focuses on the background to the study and emphasises the developing relationships between the research participants (three gardening teachers) and the researcher. The paper draws on specific feminist writings and critiques which have contributed to the disruption of dominant positivist research approaches, and explores how the researcher begins to make sense of her 'multiple identities' within the research. Finally, the paper speaks to the significance of how these identities generate 'other' ways of making knowledge in the research process.
Description:
Until quite recently the dominant 'scientific' view of social research located the researcher outside the research context. Inherent within this research approach is the supposed stance of neutrality, impartiality and detachment on the part of the researcher, who invariably becomes a disinterested, disembodied and disembedded observer (Usher, 1996). Postmodern approaches to research have challenged positivist research methodologies and its clear distinction between the subjective knower and the objective world as the privileged model of investigation. By contrast, postmodernism posits the researcher as centrally and socially located within the research context. Rather than suspend our researcher subjectivities, postmodernism invites the researcher to become explicit within the research process, and encourages us to identify our subjectivities as a starting point for acquiring knowledge. This article is a reflective critique of the process within a study into place pedagogies in school garden contexts. It highlights the researcher's initial position of detachment, and her transition towards a more critical and central positioning within the research. The first part of the paper focuses on the background to the study and emphasises the developing relationships between the research participants (three gardening teachers) and the researcher. The paper draws on specific feminist writings and critiques which have contributed to the disruption of dominant positivist research approaches, and explores how the researcher begins to make sense of her 'multiple identities' within the research. Finally, the paper speaks to the significance of how these identities generate 'other' ways of making knowledge in the research process.
Description:
The development of sustainability literate teachers has been identified as a key challenge for the implementation of education for sustainability in Australian schools (Skamp, 2010)and elsewhere (Nolet, 2009). This paper reports on the first year of a participatory action research project that investigates the learning of school teachers, teacher educators, school children and teacher education students, in relation to the integration of place-based sustainability education across the curriculum of a low SES primary school. The methods of data collection included digital visual and audio recorded observations and reflections by teacher educators; reflective observations, focus groups, and interviews with teachers and principals; and the collection of student artefacts from school and teacher education students. A number of different conceptual and theoretical lenses are brought to the analysis of this data including 'thinking through country'; sustainability literacies and new technologies; and contemporary theories of space, place and body. In this baseline paper, the overall findings are summarised under the categories of the participating groups: - teacher, teacher educator, school student, teacher education student, and the school/place/community nexus.
Description:
The development of sustainability literate teachers has been identified as a key challenge for the implementation of education for sustainability in Australian schools (Skamp, 2010)and elsewhere (Nolet, 2009). This paper reports on the first year of a participatory action research project that investigates the learning of school teachers, teacher educators, school children and teacher education students, in relation to the integration of place-based sustainability education across the curriculum of a low SES primary school. The methods of data collection included digital visual and audio recorded observations and reflections by teacher educators; reflective observations, focus groups, and interviews with teachers and principals; and the collection of student artefacts from school and teacher education students. A number of different conceptual and theoretical lenses are brought to the analysis of this data including 'thinking through country'; sustainability literacies and new technologies; and contemporary theories of space, place and body. In this baseline paper, the overall findings are summarised under the categories of the participating groups: - teacher, teacher educator, school student, teacher education student, and the school/place/community nexus.
Description:
This study uses theories of place inhabitation, relationships to food, place ecologies, and place-based pedagogies to examine the educational value of food gardens and related environmental and health initiatives in primary (elementary) schooling in Australia. It assumes that food gardens and their school ground contexts are important ecopedagogical sites for renewing children’s relationships with proximal, everyday places. The study highlights how schools are engaging with socioenvironmental challenges through pedagogical frameworks that support education for sustainability. These frameworks are significant in that they position children as active agents who experience deep levels of embodied learning. A key premise of the thesis is that young learners are experientially capable of developing an ecoethical awareness if they are to become ecologically proactive subjects and citizens. Empirical work drew on case study approaches and arts-based auto-ethnographic methodologies to identify the pedagogical potential of food gardens and school ground ecologies. Fifty-three children aged 8–12 years, three gardening/environmental education teachers and three principals from three Australian primary schools (2×Victoria; 1×Tasmania) worked ethnographically with the researcher during 2007–2009. Data were primarily derived from semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. Other key sources included children’s mapping work, field notes, photos, and the researcher’s journal. Key features of the data collection were: many of the students participated in ‘walking interviews’ that encouraged garden- and school ground-based stories at sites of their choice, coupled with 15 days of participant observation of garden and classroom-based lessons to provide further contextualization. Analysis of interviews and lessons involved a ‘storyline’ approach to interpreting findings. Theoretically informed discussions of the empirical data highlight the following: across the three schools, recognizing the role and significance of teachers’ work and the value of integrated approaches to pedagogy are central requirements for designing, implementing, and evaluating place-oriented curricula. In each case study, relational pedagogies of connection and responsibility afford learning opportunities that can bring children into deepened contact with local places and people. Collectively, the initiatives undertaken by the schools and their wider communities are ‘positive’ and ‘hopeful’, and their examples show how school garden-based ecopedagogies can play a critical role in the renewal of more sustainable people–place relations.
Description:
The ‘ecologisation’ of Australian primary schools brings new opportunities for curriculum expansion and renewal for sustainability education. My contribution to the broader discussion of place, geography, sustainability and literacy stems from an interest in how children are brought into contact with sustainability discourses via sensory and embodied learning in local school ground landscapes. In this paper I am interested in identifying the emergent pedagogies and new literacies that inform and shape the implementation of sustainability curriculum. The paper draws on research that uses theories of place inhabitation, relationships to food, place ecologies, and place-based pedagogies to examine the educational value of food gardens and related environmental and health initiatives in primary (elementary) schooling in Australia. Using research data from two schools, the paper illustrates how school ground settings, curriculum and pedagogy generate spatial, temporal and geographical literacies that support children’s meaning making. These multimodal literacies are vital curriculum ingredients that effectively educate for sustainability.
Description:
There is an expectation that Australian teachers engage professionally in all aspects of teaching and learning, including engagement with teaching networks and broader communities. This paper reports on a partnership between a teacher educator and an environmental educator who set out to expand pre-service teachers' professional knowledge, engagement and practice in an undergraduate Bachelor of Education (primary) course. The paper reports on a study about teacher education students' perspectives of fieldwork-based learning and its potential to inform students' future engagement with the broader school community. Using a conceptual framework of place- and community based education, the study examined data from an electronic survey and student teacher fieldwork reflections to better understand how pre-service teachers interpret the benefits of working with local schools, and communitybased representatives. Findings suggest pre-service teachers' professional engagement was significantly enhanced as a consequence of partnership fieldwork. The implications for teacher education and future teacher practice are discussed.
Description:
There is an expectation that Australian teachers engage professionally in all aspects of teaching and learning, including engagement with teaching networks and broader communities. This paper reports on a partnership between a teacher educator and an environmental educator who set out to expand pre-service teachers' professional knowledge, engagement and practice in an undergraduate Bachelor of Education (primary) course. The paper reports on a study about teacher education students' perspectives of fieldwork-based learning and its potential to inform students' future engagement with the broader school community. Using a conceptual framework of place- and community based education, the study examined data from an electronic survey and student teacher fieldwork reflections to better understand how pre-service teachers interpret the benefits of working with local schools, and communitybased representatives. Findings suggest pre-service teachers' professional engagement was significantly enhanced as a consequence of partnership fieldwork. The implications for teacher education and future teacher practice are discussed.