Agencies,educators, communities and wildfire: partnerships to enhance environmental education for youth

We studied seven programs that engage youth from 10 to 18 years old in wildfire risk reduction in their communities in the United States through in-depth interviews to examine the nature and role of community-school partnerships in resource-focused environmental education. While the programs use a variety of strategies, from Scout badge to summer school, they exhibit several common dimensions: they all engage youth in community projects; they all arise from partnerships between resource agencies, community organizations, and educators; they all began when people familiar with both wildfire and youth education saw an opportunity to improve the community and educate youth through action; and all partners are able to contribute to the common program yet retain their individual identity as they meet their own mission-based goals. We use themes and quotes to illustrate these common dimensions for establishing community-school partnerships that could build action competence through environment-based education projects.     

The Evolution of Smokey Bear: Environmental Education About Wildfire for Youth

Many environmental education programs in the United States educate youth about the prevention of wildfire and its role in ecosystems. We reviewed 50 wildfire education programs for youth (WEY) in the U.S. through an Internet search and interviews with program providers. We investigated whether they reflect current wildfire science, environmental education (EE) instructional strategies, and place-based education (PBE) approaches. We found that while one-third of the programs focus exclusively on wildfire prevention, suppression, and safety topics, one-third focuses on fire ecology, management, and science, and one-third includes all these topics, mirroring evolving scientific approaches to wildfire. Also, while state and federal agencies design and disseminate much of the curricula used, 60% of WEY programs incorporate local social and ecological contexts, revealing the close relationship between WEY and PBE.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Educators have invested considerable effort in developing environmental education programs that address students' knowledge, attitudes, and action competence regarding environmental issues. The authors explore the effectiveness of such programs in terms of both student learning outcomes and the intergenerational influence that results when students discuss their learning experiences with their parents and other community members. Six environmental education programs involving 284 students in Queensland schools, from Grades 5-12, were investigated. Students and their parents were surveyed and interviewed regarding their perceptions about the program, the program's influence on their environmental learning, and the extent and nature of discussions that the program stimulated between students and their parents. The authors draw conclusions about key features that should be incorporated into environmental education programs to encourage and empower students to bring about environmental change in their homes and communities.     

Effective practices for creating transformative informal science education programs grounded in Native ways of knowing

There are a growing number of informal science education (ISE) programs in Native communities that engage youth in science education and that are grounded in Native ways of knowing. There is also a growing body of research focusing on the relationship between culture, traditional knowledge, and science education. However, there is little research documenting how these programs are being developed and the ways in which culture and Western science are incorporated into the activities. This study outlines effective practices for using Native ways of knowing to strengthen ISE programs. These effective practices may also be used to promote change in formal education. The authors combine an overview of current research in informal science education with personal interviews with educators engaged in ISE programs offered to youth both on and off tribal reservations as well as experts in Indigenous education. Participating individuals and programs included Native communities across the United States, including Alaska and Hawai??i. Keeping in mind that each community is unique, ISE programs that are grounded in Native ways of knowing will benefit by utilizing the effective practices outlined here as a guide for starting or strengthening existing ISE programs relevant to the needs of their communities.     

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.     

Empowerment as a purpose of education

Within the field of alternative higher education is a growing movement which distinguishes itself through its orientation to individual and social change. Its proponents contend that conventional (and many alternative) higher education programs are oriented primarily to the conservation and maintenance of the dominant societal systems. Furthermore, they contend that those systems hinder us, individually and collectively, in achieving greater social, political and economic justice and a higher quality of life for all. This sector operates with the conviction that alternative education can have a liberating or empowering impact for individuals and communities by contributing to their appropriate development.Dr. Mark Rosenman, Guest Editor of this section, is president of Beacon College (formerly Campus-Free College), headquartered in Washington, D. C.     

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.     

Adult education and the future of work

This paper puts forward the proposition that in times of fiscal stringency adult educators have relied on two basic responses: either align programs to suit current political imperatives or bring pressure to bear to maintain the status quo. However, neither of these may be adequate to cope with what now appears to be a more fundamental change in our economy resulting in permanently high unemployment and the increasing importance of work in the informal economy. These two factors emphasise the difficulty of continuing to accept the current work‐leisure dichotomy that underlies much of our thinking and presage a dramatic change in the ways some people may have to gain their livelihood. Adult educators have had a significant role to play in individual and community economies but this is largely unrecognised due to the fact that adult education practitioners have tended to justify their work on quality‐of‐life or numbers grounds. Such justifications may no longer be adequate. If adult educators wish to maintain their programs in hard financial times they certainly have the capacity to do so but they will have to rethink their rationale, reject outmoded beliefs and patterns and justify their work through the outcomes of their programs and not just the outputs.     

Using the communities of practice framework to examine an after‐school environmental education program for Hispanic youth

Environmental education researchers have called for a greater analysis of ‘learning’ in environmental education in relation to contemporary theories and explanatory frameworks of learning. Situated learning, as a prominent example, is a sociocultural theory that contends that learning is a social process that occurs as individuals participate in ‘communities of practice’. This study aims to enhance our understanding of the usefulness and applicability of the communities of practice framework to the analysis of learning in environmental education, focusing on the learning in after‐school environmental education programs for Hispanic youth. Results suggest that the framework can be applied to identify some environmental education programs as communities of practice, characterized by the development of joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and shared repertoire. The framework was also found to be useful in identifying and describing learning as bringing about changes in identity formation as a result of participation in the programs. Finally, we suggest that such programs, due to their free‐choice nature and multiple opportunities for participation, also offer suitable contexts for further research regarding the relevance of sociocultural theories of learning to environmental education practice.     

Exploring the Relationship of Home Country Government Reforms and the Choices of International Higher Education Scholarship Program Participants

Many international scholarship programs expect that graduates will return home to apply their education for socioeconomic development, yet national contextual factors shape these anticipated outcomes. Through comparing Georgia and Moldova, this research examines how one contextual factor—the home government’s reforms—influenced U.S. higher education graduates’ pathways. Notably, the decade-old, pro-democratic revolutions in each country were identified as “critical moments” that shaped how international scholarship alumni estimated their role and responsibility in their country’s progress. Findings contribute to nuanced understanding of how student mobility influences change in post-Soviet countries, leading to improved international education programs.     

Core or periphery? The positioning of language and literacies in enabling programs in Australia

Enabling education has a respected and established place in Australian higher education as an alternative pathway into university study. While the value of enabling education in providing access to higher education is undeniable, its provision across Australia is necessarily diverse, as individual programs respond to the needs of their local communities. This resulting diversity makes it difficult to gain insight into the field of enabling education. Given the purpose of enabling education is to prepare students for tertiary study, the role of academic literacies and language (ALL) is central for both Native English Speaker and Language Background Other Than English students, and it is to this focus that this paper attends. To shed light on the field, this paper presents the findings from a national audit of enabling education, providing a much-needed overview of the enabling programs offered across Australia, focusing on the ways that language and literacies are taught, positioned and, in some cases, disconnected from practice. Drawing on this analysis, we discuss how language and literacies are positioned as either central or periphery to the core work of enabling programs and begin a discussion which seeks to place ALL at the centre of enabling education.     

PROGENIES IN EDUCATION: THE EVOLUTION OF INTERNET TEACHING

Technological advances create tension between what traditional educational systems offer and what new online teaching methods can offer. External pressures are being exerted on traditional educational systems forcing change on time-honored scholastic practices. As a result, progenies, the natural offspring of technology innovations and traditional education practices, are reshaping education. The initial driving force of any developing technology is the innovation of product. The innovation of product is the search for a dominant design. The desired features of a technology are defined in this search process. The authors conclude that a dominant design in online teaching platforms has emerged and has thus created an implicit understanding of the performance requirements to be met by the product. Educational organizations now must shift their focus from innovative online product development to a standardization of the product with a concurrent increase in process innovation and development. Schools with online teaching and learning programs are not seeking to define their distinct brand of distance education; rather they are seeking ways in which to improve their processes of delivery. Thus a shift must occur from an emphasis on product innovation to process innovation. This article develops the concept that an increase in process design, a responsibility of individual educators, is the next step toward the development, implementation, and refinement of collaborative learning, learning communities, and individual learning strategies that facilitate student achievement.     

Using Instrumental Variables to Account for Selection Effects in Research on First-Year Programs

The widespread popularity of programs for first-year students is due, in large part, to studies showing that participation in first-year programs is significantly related to students’ academic success. Because students choose to participate in first-year programs, self-selection effects prevent researchers from making causal claims about the outcomes of those programs. The present research examined the effects on first-semester grades of students participating in themed learning communities at a research university in the Midwest. Results indicated that membership in themed learning communities was positively associated with higher grade point averages, even after controlling for entering ability, application date, gender, and first-generation/low-income status. However, when instrumental variables were introduced to account for self-selection, the effects of themed learning communities on grades were not statistically significant. The results have implications for campus leaders and assessment practitioners who are working to develop methods for understanding the effects of programs designed to enhance the undergraduate educational experiences on their campuses.     

学校、家庭、社会共同营造和谐教育——新加坡“教育合作伙伴”概念引介

20世纪90年代末,新加坡教育部提出了"教育合作伙伴"概念。除学校外,政府、家庭、社区、企事业单位及其他组织和个人都有责任关心教育,贡献力量。在合作过程中,学校与教育合作伙伴紧密联系、充分沟通、优势互补,为学生创设一个整合的教育环境,以达致"理想教育成果"。     

Identifying and developing crosscutting environmental education outcomes for adolescents in the twenty-first century (EE21)

Abstract

While multiple valid measures exist for assessing outcomes of environmental education (EE) programs, the field lacks a comprehensive and logistically feasible common instrument that can apply across diverse programs. We describe a participatory effort for identifying and developing crosscutting outcomes for Environmental Education in the twenty-first Century (EE21). Following extensive input and debate from a wide range of EE providers and researchers, we developed, tested and statistically validated crosscutting scales for measuring consensus-based outcomes for individual participants in youth EE programs using confirmatory factor analysis across six unique sites, including two single-day field trip locations, four multiday residential programs and one science museum in the United States. The results suggest that the scales are valid and reliable for measuring outcomes that many EE programs in the United States can aspire to influence in adolescent participants, ages 10–14.     

Program portfolios: documenting teachers’ growth in reflection‐based inquiry

Meeting the challenge of program accountability is a goal for teacher education programs across the USA. In this context, achieving effective assessment practices that provide concrete evidence of program participants’ knowledge and skills has become both an increasingly significant issue and a challenge to teacher education programs seeking to document the attainment of their program learning outcomes. This qualitative study examined the portfolio reflections of 51 teachers enrolled in an advanced master’s degree program whose learning outcomes are aligned with the core propositions of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Using the four levels of reflection and a fifth level that emerged from data analysis, we examined the levels of development and change in teachers’ reflections across the program. This analysis helped the researchers to determine to what degree teachers developed a reflection‐based inquiry stance in their classrooms during the program. The study contributes new findings to the body of literature on the role and function of portfolios in teacher education programs seeking to document teachers’ understanding and application of specific program goals and professional standards as a result of professional development coursework. As an authentic assessment tool, portfolio data (i.e., evidence such as the reflections contained therein) can provide an important lens for capturing teachers’ approach to teaching and learning and provides insight into the complexity of professional development for practicing teachers.     

Taking time,breaking codes: moments in white teacher candidates’ exploration of racism and teacher identity

Abstract

In three narrative vignettes, this paper challenges scholars and practitioners of teacher education to consider ways that our courses do and do not engage white teacher candidates to take on racially conscious orientations. The work addressed in this paper has implications for our understandings of how preservice teachers can learn about racial identity in ways that benefit individual teachers and support their work in schools and communities. These findings buttress previous work in ‘second wave’ white teacher identity research and can translate directly into teacher education course and program design. Simultaneously, this research speaks to the broader literature in teacher education, offering evidence to support the value of extended periods of time for new teachers to build authentic relationships and conduct critical study of self and society in a climate where teacher preparation programs face pressure to reduce credits to degree and intensify their focus on preparing students for externally mandated assessments.     

Disseminating New Technologies Through Vocational Education for Rural Change in China

Effective dissemination of new, applied technologies through ruralvocational education and training has the potential to change thetypes of economic activities and economic performance levels of ruralpopulations, so contributing to improving their quality of life andlevel of community development. However, ways to effectively bringabout such change at the grassroots level in rural communities have notas yet been widely documented in either practical or theoretical terms.Using an agro-technical school as a case study, the research reported uponhere identifies key factors that are crucial for achieving successfulchange in rural China. Contributing factors were found to include: thelevel of government commitment to empowering rural villagers with newknowledge and expertise; the ability to effectively disseminate informationon best practice to promote the entrepreneurial capacities of ruralcommunities; and adoption of an approach that incrementally exposes targetgroups to appropriate strategies for sustainable change. It was foundthat in order to be effective in facilitating the desired sustainablechange, the intervention process needs to achieve capacity buildingwith regard to both the individuals and communities involved. In thecase study referred to here, the communities were successful in developingnew expertise through strengthening and upgrading vocational education andtraining to create more productive means for income generation. Theeducation institution involved also acquired additional roles, withregard to formal training programs, in preparing villagers for moreeffective technology-based production. In this case, vocational educationserved as a successful empowering agent for rural change.     

Encouraging interaction and striving for reciprocity: The challenges of community-engaged projects in teacher education

Opportunities for experiential learning in teacher education are increasingly important as the demographics of teachers and students diverge. I draw on place-conscious pedagogies, funds of knowledge, and teacher development theories to inquire into pre-service teachers' developing conceptions of community as they engaged in a project meant to introduce them to the local communities. Findings suggest that PSTs’ experiences with communities growing up limit their understanding of reciprocity between communities and schools as teachers. The findings have implications for the ways that teacher educators incorporate experiential learning into their programs.     

Faculty-exchange programs promoting change: motivations,experiences, and influence of participants in the Carnegie Mellon University-Portugal Faculty Exchange Program

The international mobility of faculty is increasing worldwide. Although studies have considered the experiences of academics abroad, less is known about faculty-exchange programs with policy objectives. This study helps to fill this gap by analyzing a nationwide structured faculty exchange program established by Carnegie Mellon University and Portuguese universities to bring change to Portuguese higher education. The findings are based on interviews with Portuguese program participants, whose motivation to participate and experiences with the program, in addition to the influence of their experience abroad on their home institution, were explored. We find that, although the alignment of individual motivations with institutional interests is important to such programs, the complex transposition of individual experiences to the institutional level may be impeded by cultural resistance as well as resource and organizational constraints. Our exploration of the features that determine the success or failure of these experiences provides insights for policymakers seeking to implement faculty-mobility programs in the future.