A review of the foundational processes that influence beliefs in climate change: opportunities for environmental education research

Recently, many organizations involved in environmental education have initiated programs that aim to educate visitors or other publics who interact with nature-based resources about the impacts and landscape transformations occurring because of climatic changes. However, many psychological, human-evolutionary, and social–ecological processes that impede individuals’ ability to notice or respond to (e.g. adaptation and mitigation behaviors) climate impacts in nature-based areas, or in their urban-based home communities, may influence the educational process. By reviewing and examining these foundational processes and their potential influence on an audience’s attitudes and beliefs towards climate change, we outline and explain their importance for research. Based on these important psychological, human-evolutionary, and social–ecological processes, the authors conclude by identifying how researchers can investigate the influence of these processes and their potential impacts on environmental education outcomes.     

高校加强大学生环境保护教育的探讨

党的十七大报告提出要建设生态文明,当代大学生作为未来我国可持续发展的决策者、管理者和执行者,是实践生态文明的践行者、环境保护的主力军。我国社会发展的特点,决定了要对大学生进行环境保护教育,通过教学改革、宣传教育、社团活动等途径使大学生树立环保意识,形成良好的环保行为和习惯,为建设社会主义生态文明贡献力量。     

弘扬环境伦理促进环境教育

本文介绍了环境伦理观的由来和发展,阐述了环境伦理教育在环境教育中的地位和作用。     

Issues and challenges regarding environmental education policy implementation

Abstract

In this article, the authors have chosen to inquire into a topic that has specific relevance to the status and inclusion of environmental education in the curriculum at a stage when the translation of policy into practice stands at the crossroads: the transition of environment as phase organiser to environment as integral to all learning areas. In education praxis, the translation of policy into practice is in the hands of educators and teachers (using the terminology as suggested in this article). The issues and challenges regarding the implementation of environmental education policy as experienced by educators and teachers are identified through examining this phenomenon as portrayed in two case studies where in-service education and training (INSET) in relation to environmental education occurs. This study is one of the first to provide a researched background that identifies issues and challenges that impact on the implementation of environmental policy in formal education contexts.     

Metrics and outcomes of conservation education: a quarter century of lessons learned

We conducted a systematic literature review to analyze evaluations of conservation education programs on a global scale in order to better understand (1) temporal and spatial trends in conservation education program evaluations over the last 25 years, (2) patterns in the types of conservation-related issues addressed through these programs, (3) metrics that indicate effectiveness of conservation education programs, and (4) methods and timeframes used to draw conclusions about program outcomes. Findings indicated that there is a need to better connect the types of issues addressed through conservation education programs with metrics that would indicate success in addressing these issues and the actual outcomes measured and reported. As well, there is an opportunity to employ a variety of metrics and methods for evaluating program outcomes, particularly in developing countries, by focusing on cognitive and behavioral components as well as social and ecological ones. Finally, shifting to a more comprehensive strategy for evaluating multiple outcomes in different cultural contexts would provide opportunities for utilizing mixed methods and qualitative approaches in partnership with community stakeholders.     

Sense of place in environmental education

Although environmental education research has embraced the idea of sense of place, it has rarely taken into account environmental psychology-based sense of place literature whose theory and empirical studies can enhance related studies in the education context. This article contributes to research on sense of place in environmental education from an environmental psychology perspective. We review the components of sense of place, including place attachment and place meanings. Then we explore the logic and evidence suggesting a relationship between place attachment, place meanings, pro-environmental behavior, and factors influencing sense of place. Finally, based on this literature we propose that in general environmental education can influence sense of place through a combination of direct place experiences and instruction.     

教学评估是提高成人教育质量的关键举措

评估可为高校成人教育带来教学质量的提高;成教的评估要坚持正确的方针和方向;评估的内容要突出成人的特点;要正确把握评估运行的全过程。     

Sustainability education in a botanical garden promotes environmental knowledge,attitudes and willingness to act

Abstract

Creating behavior change to mobilize transitions toward sustainability is a significant challenge of our time. Inspired by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Farmer Field School, we developed a novel community-based education program to engage people in local sustainability topics. In the Sustainable Communities Field School (Field School) program, advertised as team building tours, participants from local organizations are guided by instructors through University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, while receiving verbal and experiential education on topics of food systems and choices, biodiversity conservation, water conservation, and waste reduction. We found that after the Field School program, participants were significantly more knowledgeable about environmental issues, more connected to nature, showed greater intentions and willingness to engage in sustainability actions compared to garden visitors from the general public who did not go through the program. The results suggest that interactive sustainability education in a botanical garden setting can be a useful education model to mobilize public engagement on sustainability.     

Practice change in environmental education: lessons from professional development

Abstract

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.     

The Teaching Green School Building: a framework for linking architecture and environmental education

The ‘Teaching Green School Building’ is an emergent type of school building that attempts to engage building users with environmental issues in buildings. Architectural interventions in these buildings range from signage to interactive touch screens to gardens and demonstration kitchens that foster educational programmes about sustainable food. The result can be a building that offers informal education, support for formal environmental education, and, overall, a chance for students to embody sustainable living in their daily lives at school. To date, this type of building has been weakly theorized, and the relationship between architectural interventions and environmental education largely unexplored in the literature. This literature review weaves together theories that connect the physical environment with human factors. In particular, research in environmental education, museum studies, conservation psychology and architecture illuminates ways in which buildings can support environmental education and with tactics that go well beyond the convention of informational signage on the wall. The result of the literature review is a framework that points to design patterns that extend from passive to active, individual to collective, and formal to informal. This framework can inform the design, use and evaluation of school buildings designed with pedagogical intent.     

Animals in environmental education research

Over the past few decades, the increase in public and scholarly attention to human-animal relations has inspired an animal turn in a number of academic disciplines including environmental education research. This paper reviews the literature on animals in environmental education with respect to its theoretical foundations in critical pedagogy, ecofeminism and posthumanism, considers empirical work on formal, nonformal and informal learning spaces and discusses the implications of an animal-focused paradigm for teaching and research. In the conclusion the author suggests some areas for further inquiries from her own research and teaching experience.     

Fostering changes in attitude,knowledge and behavior: demographic variation in environmental education effects

This study employs a uniquely multi-factorial, large-scale design to investigate baseline differences and the effects of a singular outdoor educational program on environmental attitudes, knowledge and behavior among primary and secondary school students educated in four different countries. Statistical modelling approaches employed country of residence, age, nationality, sampling year, gender and urban/ rural habitation as predictor variables. Baseline scores were explained by a number of predictors but country of residence and rural-urban differences appeared as the most consistent explanatory variable for positive changes in attitude, knowledge and behavior. Given the nexus of political, social, natural and cultural data contained within the residence variable, we discuss the complex web of drivers that may influence environmental literacy and environmentally responsible behavior. Spatial variation in the value of outdoor education programs is also discussed.     

An environmental ethical conceptual framework for research on sustainability and environmental education

This article suggests that environmental ethics can have great relevance for environmental ethical content analyses in environmental education and education for sustainable development research. It is based on a critique that existing educational research does not reflect the variety of environmental ethical theories. Accordingly, we suggest an alternative and more nuanced environmental ethical conceptual framework divided into Value-oriented Environmental Ethics and Relation-oriented Environmental Ethics and present two pragmatic schedules for analyses of the value and relation contents of e.g. classroom conversations, textbooks and policy documents. This framework draws on a comparative reading of some 30 key books and 20 key articles in academic journals in the field of environmental philosophy and reflects main traits in environmental ethics from the early 1970s to the present day.     

Connecting children to nature through residential outdoor environmental education

Connecting to nature and spending time outdoors as children have been indicated as predictors of environmentally responsible behavior. This study examined whether a residential outdoor environmental education (ROEE) program contributed to the development of children’s connection to nature and their attitudes and involvement in spending time outdoors. Fifth-grade students (n = 163) in Pennsylvania enrolled in a multi-day ROEE program completed pretest-posttest surveys, compared with a control group (n = 72) not enrolled. Program evaluation critically examined the program’s encouragement of spending time outdoors by establishing connections to nature. Results indicated moderate success in the program’s effort to increase participants’ nature connection, but yielded mixed results on outcomes related to time spent outdoors. These findings offer encouragement of ROEE programs’ ability to foster connection to nature in participants.     

Promoting connectedness with nature through environmental education

It has been suggested that a positive human–nature relationship is essential for countering today’s environmental problems. Prior environmental education research has focused largely on knowledge or attitudinal outcomes, and few studies have examined the ability of environmental education programmes to promote connectedness with nature. Therefore, our goal was to (1) examine differences in connectedness with nature among a sample of children with differing ages and academic tracks, and (2) investigate whether environmental education can help promote and sustain connectedness with nature. With a pre-, post- and retention test design, we assessed a comprehensive four-day environmental education programme on water at a school field centre, using the inclusion of nature in self (INS) scale to identify the change in connectedness of 9–10-year-old pupils and 11–13-year-old pupils. We found that younger children and university-track pupils had higher INS scores than older children and general-education-track pupils, respectively. Participating in environmental education resulted in a robust short-term increase in connectedness with nature in both age groups. However, only the younger pupils’ connectedness remained sustained four weeks following the treatment. Environmental educators should keep in mind that strengthening connectedness to nature is more sustainable before the age of 11.     

从环境教育到可持续发展教育

作为人类赖以生存与发展的基础 ,地球环境长期没能受到人类应有的尊重与爱护 ,导致当前人类面临的环境危机。而危机的解决 ,需要人类对现行生产与生活方式全面地反思并进行根本性地改变。教育作为转变思想的工具 ,其作用无可替代。环境教育被看好能承担这样的任务促进这种转变 ,但 30年来的环境教育却被认为是场失败的革新。是现代教育助长了当今的环境问题 ,成为不可持续发展的“贡献者”。在我们目前的状况下 ,可持续发展教育可能是回到那些内在自由、进步的价值观的惟一途径 ,这些价值观曾经是我们教育系统的基础。可持续发展教育是将要改变的教育模式的关键 ,这种教育模式和社会经济组织变化与可持续发展暗含的思想是相和谐的。主流教育观点认为 ,可持续发展教育深深地根植于环境教育之中。目前可持续发展教育的理论和实践都还未完善 ,尚处在探索阶段。在我国新一轮基础教育课程改革中 ,环境教育正在和当前的整体教育改革结合起来 ,推动我国教育的生态化或绿色化 ,使教育成为促进和支持我国可持续发展的基本力量     

Environmental art as an innovative medium for environmental education in Biosphere Reserves

A key goal of Biosphere Reserves (BR) is to foster environmental education for sustainable development. In this study we systematically analyse two cases in which environmental art is used as a mechanism to engage communities in ‘building environmental understanding’, in Noosa BR in Australia and North Devon BR in the United Kingdom. Data were derived through document analyses, site visits, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews conducted with the audience, artists, and residents. The study concludes that environmental art can build understanding through (1) exchanging ideas and providing dialogue (2) building a sense of place (3) clarifying and enhancing the understanding of information and issues, and (4) generating concern. Consequently environmental art should be considered an innovative addition to the suite of environmental education tools used in other BRs and community organisations that aim to educate about the environment.