Integrating Emerging Pedagogies and Technologies in Environmental and Formal Basic Education

INTRODUCTION In response to concerns about global warming and climate change (Letcher, 2009), the perceived estrangement of humanity from the natural world (Louv, 2008), and fears that the carrying capacity (1) of the earth will soon reach its limits (Orr, 1992), a growing number of educational scholars have proposed a re-orientation of schooling around the concept of sustainability and its themes (Orr, 1992; Bowers, 1995; Gruenewald & Smith, 2007; Jickling & Wals, 2008; Smith, 2002, 2010; Smith & Williams, 1998; Sobel, 2004; Sterling, 2004). Termed sustainability education, (2) this approach to schooling works to help students acquire the knowledge, values, skills, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs they will need to work toward a more just and ecologically sustainable world (Smith, 2010). More than environmental education, which focuses on the study of natural systems (how they function and how to manage them) (Palmer, 1998), sustainability education incorporates topics and themes related to social, political, cultural, and economic systems, in an effort to help students recognize the complex relationship between humanity and the natural world. Sustainability education also works to examine many of the ideological principles and values found in Western society (e.g., the concepts of dualism and anthropocentrism; the equation of progress with unlimited economic growth), so that students may develop new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving (e.g., thinking systematically, and recognizing that economic growth is bounded by ecological limitations) (Coates, 2008). Although numerous efforts to enact sustainability education have been made around the world, a single, replicable model of sustainability education fails to exist. Sterling (2004) attributes this actuality to the emphasis environmental and sustainability education places on diversity. McKeown-Ice (2000) acknowledges that diversity is a key component of environmental and sustainability education and explains that a single, replicable model of sustainability education would be entirely inappropriate [given its highly localized nature] (p. 12). Without a model to follow or adapt, educators looking to enact sustainability education are left to decide for themselves what this orientation towards education and the school curriculum should look like. Such a process is challenging. It calls for--among other things--an examination of the core knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, skills and behaviors that individuals are expected to possess as inhabitants of a sustainable world. It also calls for an assessment of how one's conceptualizations fit within the traditional and contemporary aims of the field. The purpose of this case study was to examine how the founding members of a secondary charter school designed a comprehensive model for schooling around the concept of sustainability. By focusing on how the founding members created their school, I intended to document both the processes and complexities involved. REVIEW OF LITERATURE A majority of the research conducted on environmental and sustainability education has focused on the effectiveness of this approach to schooling (Lieberman & Hoody, 1998; National Environmental Education Training Foundation, 2000; Volk & Cheak, 2003; Athman & Monroe, 2004; American Institutes of Research, 2005; Chawla, 2007; Power, 2004). This makes sense given that the field is working hard to justify itself and its intentions (Gruenewald & Mantaew, 2007, as cited in Stevenson, 2007; Smith, 2010; Sterling, 2004). Another area of inquiry for the field has been on challenges to program implementation. In particular, several studies have documented the challenges involved with implementing environmental education and sustainability-based programming in the public school setting (Cotton, 2006; Paul & Volk, 2002; Plevyak, Bedixen-Noe, Roth, & Wilke, 2001; Stevenson, 2007; Summers & Kruger, 2003). …

Environmental education is implemented in formal curricula in multiple ways, including K-12 science. In the United States, the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) has provided a lens for considering how the goals of environmental education and formal science education may overlap and complement one another. Potential synergies emerge from similarities between NGSS science and engineering practices and the skills of questioning, analysis, and interpretation in the NAAEE Guidelines for Excellence. In this study, middle school students were engaged in an environmental storyline unit that supported their abilities to ask questions, design and conduct investigations, and develop model-based explanations, practices consistent across both fields. Participating students demonstrated positive gains in nature relatedness environmental attitudes. This study provides evidence that curricular design around the practices of science and environmental education connects the goals of each and may be a promising approach to broadening access to effective environmental education experiences. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2021.1949569 .

Environmental education in New Zealand (NZ) was born out of the environmental movement during the 1960s and 1970s. During that time it became increasingly apparent that we needed to know more about ourselves, our surroundings and the interactions between these two. The central impulse of environmental education is to help develop people who are knowledgeable of, concerned about, and motivated to do something for, the environment. This involves being:1. Knowledgeable about the physical, social and economic environment of which people are a part;2. Concerned about environmental problems; and3. Motivated to act responsibly in enhancing the quality of our environment as well as our life.In NZ a common misconception held was that environmental education is the same as outdoor education. It is not. Environmental education is concerned with those aims listed above, whereas outdoor education is now taken to mean, and is officially called, ‘Education Outside the Classroom’. Obviously the two are neither synonymous nor mutually exclusive (Dowling 1986). In the school context, environmental education has traditionally been considered as any teaching about ‘the environment’. Today, however, it is being understood as a process which is multi-disciplinary in approach and for the environment at heart.

Studies on ocean literacy in science education have gained increasing attention from scholars in recent years. To provide an overall understanding of these scientific contributions, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on 117 journal articles collected from the Scopus database. The analysis was carried out using Biblioshiny and VosViewer tools to investigate trends and patterns in the field of ocean literacy within science education. The results revealed that publications on ocean literacy in science education have increased exponentially, with an annual growth rate of 0.86%. Key terms related to ocean literacy in science education include education, literacy, oceanography, climate change, teaching, learning, ocean literacy, and students. Emerging study topics include sustainable development, citizen science, marine environment, communication, and environmental education. The findings provide an overview for science educators to develop research studies on ocean literacy and present a valuable framework for continuous research in this area. This study highlights aspects of ocean literacy that have not been extensively explored and can serve as a valuable resource for researchers, educators, and stakeholders engaged in the sustainable conservation of the ocean in the future.

It is thought that it would be appropriate to use augmented reality technology, which provides many educational advantages for effective environmental education. This research aims to examine the effect of environmental education using augmented reality (AR) applications on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of primary school third-grade students towards the environment and to find out the children's views on AR. The case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The research was carried out with seventeen primary school third-grade students from a public school in the 2021-2022 academic year. Environmental education was given to the selected class with augmented reality applications for six weeks. The data were collected with the ‘Semi-Structured Interview Form’ prepared by the researcher. Content analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. According to the findings obtained from the interviews; it has been concluded that environmental education using AR applications is effective in the knowledge, attitude, behavior, and environmental awareness of third-grade students towards the environment. In addition to these, in the interviews; it has been determined that students have positive emotions towards AR reality applications; they want to use the applications in other lessons; AR applications facilitate their learning and positively affect their approaches towards living / non-living beings, the environment and environmental problems.

Environmental degradation is one of the more significant global issues, and public education about the possibility of environmental sustainability has become indispensable. For decades, school curricula have been utilized as a means of providing environmental education for children in India, but traditional methods have occasionally failed to bring students and their communities onto a more imaginative plane. Interactive and immersive media such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) can make the process of learning really interesting and experiential in the context of environmental education in India. The immersion media's unique advantage in an educational application will strengthen this in-depth understanding of environmental issues on the part of the learners. The paper discusses the current application of immersive technologies in environmental education across the world, analyzes their application in the Indian context, and opens up challenges and opportunities, specially focusing on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality and its application in environmental education in India. It considers the role of media as an intervening tool for environmental education, the psychological influence of immersion of media on learners, and how interactive tools can be used to foster behavior change.

Except in small measure, environmental education in the United States has not yet challenged the status quo of Western notions of progress or monoculturalism, or recognized that moving through the environmental crisis may require significant shifts in generally unquestioned cultural attitudes and beliefs. In the U.S., environmental education has instead tended to focus on information regarding environmental problems and to explore topics such as endangered species, global climate change, or the water quality of local streams and rivers. Even this has become a source of controversy in the United States since the mid-1990s as a coalition of right-wing organizations has mounted a well-coordinated political campaign charging environmental educators with bias and a failure to present both sides of controversial issues (Sanera & Shaw 1996, Independent Commission on Environmental Education 1997). Despite this, we believe that if environmental education is to live up to its promise as a vehicle for developing a citizenry capable of making wise decisions about the impact of human activities on the environment, examining and altering fundamental cultural beliefs and practices that are contributing to the degradation of the planet's natural systems will be imperative.We have chosen to call this extended form of environmental education ecological education. For us, ecological education connotes an emphasis on the inescapable embeddedness of human beings in natural settings and the responsibilities that arise from this relationship. Rather than seeing nature as other—a set of phenomena capable of being manipulated like parts of a machine—the practice of ecological education requires viewing human beings as one part of the natural world and human cultures as an outgrowth of interactions between our species and particular places. We believe that the development of sustainable cultures will in fact require widespread acceptance of a relationship between humans and the earth grounded in moral sentiments that arise from the willingness to care. As Indian physicist and ecofeminist Vandana Shiva writes, the term ‘sustainability’ implies the ability and willingness ‘to support, bear weight of, hold up, enable to last out, give strength to, endure without giving way’ (Shiva 1992, p. 191).

The aim of this study is to map the thematic landscape of studies on outdoor education. Our process focuses on the following research question: What are the emerging topics in studies on outdoor education? Bibliometric data retrieved from the WOS database, which consists of 555 scientific publications with the keyword "outdoor education” and indexed in SCI-Expended, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCISSH, BKCI-S, BKCI-SSH or ESCI, was analysed using the descriptive analysis technique. Analysis of the results revealed that there are 10 different types of publications on outdoor education and the most frequently used type is scientific articles, with 365 examples. Keyword network mapping showed that “outdoor education, environmental education and outdoor learning” were terminologies that stood out the most. The analysis of the data was visualized by VOSviewer (Version 1.6.9) visual mapping program and presented with tables and density maps in the findings section. As a conclusion, the study puts forward the main concepts that require particular attention from the outdoor educators. In addition, we hope and expect that the thematic concepts, country distribution of articles and outlining the highly cited studies of this field will contribute to paving the way for future research and identifying the gaps in the literature. This study aims to pinpoint the leading and emerging topics within the outdoor education research field, which has great importance both for the theory and practice of outdoor education.

Sustainability is a global challenge, and our future and that of future generations will depend on our response. For this reason, the educational system must be a fundamental pillar in our response to the challenges of sustainability. This doctoral thesis aims to delve into the use of educational contexts in which, through plant-based environmental education, we are educating for sustainable citizenship. Regarding formal education, compulsory education curricula are analysed to assess how education is reflecting the sustainability paradigm. Secondly, the paradigm of good living (“buen vivir”) is explored as an alternative to the prevailing sustainability paradigm, that of sustainable development. Thirdly, an analysis of the presence of agriculture in different compulsory education curricula is carried out, since agriculture meets several of the characteristics of interest in this thesis, such as its impact on sustainability and its relationship with educational gardens. Fourthly, the use of educational gardens in different programs aimed at primary, secondary and higher education students is analysed. Finally, the use of wild botanic gardens as spaces of interest for plant-based environmental education is evaluated. The results show that the compulsory education curricula do not favour the formation of a sustainable citizenship, since the sustainable development paradigm is the prevailing one, the complexity of sustainability is not deepened and critical thinking about it is not promoted. The introduction of other paradigms such as good living, which could be promoted from a critical environmental education, or the introduction of agriculture, also absent from the curricula, could alleviate these deficiencies. Furthermore, it has been observed that the development of environmental and food education programs in educational gardens allows the development of sustainable citizenship. This potential can be utilised to make up the shortcomings that the curriculum currently has, through learning processes that leads to reflection and even promotes changes in their behaviour with regard to sustainability. In addition, other spaces, such as wild botanic gardens, can also serve to develop a critical awareness in students, committed to a genuine sustainability.

Original Article: "Liu, Q., Gong, D., Chen, M. (2018). Applying Virtual Reality to Study the Effects of Environmental Education on College Students' Ethics and Environmental Literacy. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 14(6), 2255-2263. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/85937" This document states that the Article is retracted by request from the corresponding author.

The purpose of this study is to describe the management of outdoor learning models in environmental education courses.The method used is descriptive qualitative, in which the researcher analyzes the results of the interview management model of outdoor learning based on the needs of the course.This activity takes place from December 2019 to February 2020.The sample of this study was 5 lecturers (3 women and 2 men) in the age range of 32-40 years.The sample selection technique was carried out intentionally by evaluating the teaching experience of environmental education courses for a minimum of 4 years.The results of this study were obtained from the management of outdoor learning models in environmental education courses divided into 5 stages, namely analyzing curriculum structure, study the potential and needs of courses, planning, implementation, and evaluation.The conclusion from this study is that outdoor learning models have various positive impacts on their application.The outdoor learning model will be implemented well if it is accompanied by good management.5 stages in the management of the outdoor learning model are connected.Hope can be applied to other subjects.A finding in this study is outdoor learning models still require face-to-face class, but more time for activities outside the classroom.Activities in the class are in the form of initial coordination, delivery of product designs, and delivery of results.The management of the outdoor learning model needs to be tried in other subjects.

Outdoor education is mostly mentioned in terms of environmental education. The aim of this research is to determine the short term effectiveness of an outdoor environmental education program on biodiversity awareness, environmental awareness and sensitivity to natural environment. The data is collected from an outdoor environmental education project which is financed by TUBITAK and its name is ‘Nature-based Outdoor Environmental Education in Canakkale and Suburbs, 2008.' There are 27 in-service teachers in the project and the project is only for 10 days. An environmental awareness and sensitivity scale is developed for the study. The research design is pre-posttest design. The data is analysed by Wilcoxon signed rank test because of the data is non-parametric. It is found that the nature-based outdoor education program is effective to improve environmental awareness and sensitivity to natural environment; on the other hand it is not successful to improve biodiversity awareness. Key words: Outdoor education, environmental education, in-service teachers, TUBITAK, Turkey

<p>Earth and water monitoring and observation systems provide open geo data to scientists and professionals supporting distributed knowledge of major hydromet dynamics and extremes. Mobile technologies, at the same time, are empowering citizens who are nowadays informed and involved in volunteering actions designed and implemented to make our communities more safe and sustainable. Citizen science, as a consequence, is gaining momentum empowering the general public, from the “pleasure of doing science” to complementing observations, increasing scientific literacy, and supporting collaborative behaviour to solve specific water-related challenges. This work illustrates a conceptual transdisciplinary assessment model that was designed with the goal of standardizing the use of citizen science for advancing hydrology. This work was promoted by the Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY) Working Group established by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), and that is composed by a diverse group of hydrological, computer and social science experts. A community paper (Nardi et al., in press) presented the conceptualization of this transdisciplinary framework by identifying the shared constituents, interfaces and interlinkages between hydrological sciences and other academic and non-academic disciplines. Particular emphasis was given to the integration of human sensing and behavioural mechanisms into citizen science programs addressing hydrological problems. The proposed CANDHY transdisciplinary framework is here further tested and applied to assess some selected citizen science programs to understand the knowledge gaps and opportunities arising from ongoing citizen science programs. This comparative assessment shows some interesting preliminary results demonstrating the capacity of the proposed framework in homogenizing and accumulating knowledge from the collaboration of diverse participatory programs addressing similar or complementary hydrological challenges.</p><p> </p><p>Nardi F. et al., in press. Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY): conceptualizing a transdisciplinary framework for citizen science addressing hydrological challenges. Hydrological Sciences Journal, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1849707</p>

This is a chapter about spaces of learning; in particular those experienced in outdoor and environmental education. Traditionally university courses focus on learning activities within the institution but outdoor experiences play a pivotal role in outdoor education courses. Outdoor educators recognise that there is an intrinsic value in outdoor experiences and the inclusion of off-campus trips in subjects is an accepted assumption that underpins the development of all coursework.

This manuscript identifies some of the challenges associated with environmental adult transformation (EAT) in formal and nonformal adult education settings. The authors argue that while environmental transformations are necessary to enhance global environmental sustainability, there are difficulties in achieving the necessary attitudinal and behavioral transformations that will eventually lead to global environmental action and stewardship. Drawing on their experiences as environmental educators, the authors analyze environmental adult learning and EAT in two U.S. settings——formal (universities) and nonformal (municipal/local government). The authors conclude that although environmental transformations are highly favored in order to enhance global environmental sustainability, transformations are not always clear-cut or achievable. Nonetheless, the authors find that the types of education practices in which formal and nonformal educators are engaged are both beneficial to environmental education as a whole and environmental adult education specifically.