Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T13:50:21.143Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Eliciting Students' Understandings: Necessary Steps in Environmental Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Alistair Robertson
Alistair Robertson*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Science Education, University of British Columbia
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

One difficulty in conceptualising the scope of environmental education results from the tremendous breadth of environmental issues which need to be addressed. Environmental issues may be considered, for example, in terms of ‘an interlinked array of political, social, economic and biophysical environmental factors’ (O'Donoghue & McNaught 1991, p.391; see also Di Chiro 1987, p.25). This conception portrays environment as not just natural systems alone, but as ‘a human creation, a result of the way we use nature and its resources to satisfy our needs and wants’ (Fien 1993, p.3). These conceptual developments are consistent with the growing realisation that environmental issues cannot be understood, let alone addressed, in isolation from social and political values and lifestyle choices (Capra, 1982; Devall, 1988; Guha, 1989). Illustrating this thinking, Livingston (in Evernden 1993, p.xii) portrays environmental issues as analogous to the tips of icebergs: they are simply the visible portion of a much larger entity, where the ‘submerged mass constitutes the fundamental problem, that domain of unspoken assumptions which legitimates the behaviour which precipitates the state of affairs we designate as “the environmental crisis”’. Evernden (1993, p.xii) proposes that a consideration of environmental issues must begin with the recognition that their source ‘lies not without but within, not in industrial effluent but in assumptions so casually held as to be virtually invisible’. These interpretations of root causes of environmental issues have important implications for environmental education research and teaching practices.

Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 9 , 1993 , pp. 95 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

References

Ashwell, A.N. Project WATER (Grahamstown): a case study of the development of an environmental education project. Unpublished magistral dissertation, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1992.Google Scholar
Capra, F. The Turning Point. Science, Society, and the Rising Culture, Bantam Books, London, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clacherty, A.J. Towards an Environmental Education Programme for the Training of Primary School Teachers. Unpublished magistral dissertation, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 1988.Google Scholar
Cock, J. and Koch, E. (eds) Going Green: People, Politics and the Environment in South Africa, Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 1991.Google Scholar
Devall, B. Simple in Means, Rich in Ends, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1988.Google Scholar
Devall, B., & Sessions, G. Deep Ecology, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1985.Google Scholar
Di Chiro, G. Environmental Education and the Question of Gender, in Robottom, I. (ed.) Environmental Education: Practice and Possibility, Deakin University Press, Geelong, Victoria, 1987.Google Scholar
Evernden, N. The Natural Alien, Second Edition, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fien, J. Education For the Environment. Critical Curriculum Theorising and Environmental Education, Deakin University Press, Geelong, Victoria, 1993.Google Scholar
Fox, W. Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism, Shambhala, London, 1990.Google Scholar
Gough, N. “From Epistemology to Ecopolitics: Renewing a Paradigm for Curriculum”, Journal of Curriculum Studies 21, 1989, pp.225–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gowin, D.B. Educating, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1981.Google Scholar
Grieg, S., Pike, G. & Selby, D. Greenprints for Changing Schools, Kogan Paul, London, 1989.Google Scholar
Guha, R., “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique”. Environmental Ethics 11, 1989, pp.71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallowes, D. (Ed.) Hidden Faces. Environment, Development, Justice: South Africa and the Global Context, EarthLife Africa, Scottsville, Natal, 1993.Google Scholar
Irwin, P. “Conserved Areas: Who has Access?” Bushcall 1/6, 1991, pp.6–7.Google Scholar
Irwin, P. “The Concept of Environmental Education and the Development of Environmental Education in South Africa,” Southern African Journal of Environmental Education 11, 1990, pp.3–7.Google Scholar
IUCN, UNEP & WWFN, Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainability, Gland: IUCN, Gland, 1990.Google Scholar
Jickling, B. “Why I Don't Want My Children to be Educated for Sustainable Development”, Journal of Environmental Education 23/4, 1992, pp.5–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jickling, B. “Environmental Education and Environmental Advocacy: the Need for a Proper Distinction”, Canadian Issues XIII, 1991, pp.169–175.Google Scholar
Khan, F. Contemporary South African environmental response: An historical and socio-political evaluation, with particular reference to blacks. Unpublished magistral dissertation, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 1990.Google Scholar
Loubser, C.P., & Ferreira, J.G. “Environmental Education in South Africa in light of the Tbilisi and Moscow Conferences”, Journal of Environmental Education 23/4, 1992, pp.31–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, A.M. “Science and Environmental Education: Pious Hopes, Self Praise and Disciplinary Chauvinism”, Studies in Science Education 7, 1980, pp. 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lythcott, J., & Duschl, R. “Qualitative Research: From Methods to Conclusions”, Science Education 74, 1990, pp.445–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magi, L.M. “Cognized Use of Natural Resources: a Black Perspective”, Development Southern Africa 6, 1989, pp.326–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marton, F. Phenomenography and “The Art of Teaching All Things to All Men”, Fenomenografiska notiser 8, Institut for Pedagogik, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, 1988.Google Scholar
O'Donoghue, R., & McNaught, C. “Environmental Education: the Development of a Curriculum Through ‘Grassroots’ Reconstructive Action”, International Journal of Science Education 13, 1991, pp.391–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Riordan, T. “The Challenge for Environmentalism”,iIn Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds), New models in geography, Unwin Hyman, London, 1989.Google Scholar
Orr, D.W. Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, 1992.Google Scholar
Robertson, A. “Toward Constructivist Research in Environmental Education: a View of Epistemologies, Constructs, and Learning from Science Education”, Australian Journal of Environmental Education Google Scholar
Robertson, A.S. Student Teachers' Conceptualisations of Environmental Education: Research Proposal. Unpublished paper, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., 1992.Google Scholar
Robottom, I. “Technocratic Environmental Education: A Critique and Some Alternatives”, Journal of Experiential Education, 14/1,1991, pp.20–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robottom, I. “Environmental Education as Educational Reform”, Environmental Conservation Autumn, 1987, pp. 197–200.Google Scholar
Sessions, G. “Ecocentrism and the Anthropocentric Detour”, Revision 13/3, 1991, pp.109–115.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R.B. “Becoming Compatible: Curriculum and Environmental Thought”, Journal of Environmental Education, 24/2, 1993, pp.4–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevenson, R. “Schooling and Environmental Education: Contradictions in Purpose and Practice”, in Robottom, I. (Ed.) Environmental Education: Practice and Possibility, Deakin University Press, Geelong, Victoria, 1987.Google Scholar
The Third Alternative, Summary Report. People's Response to the South African Education Crisis, Integrated Marketing Research (Pty) Ltd, Rivonia, Johannesburg, 1990.Google Scholar
Turok, B. “South Africa's skyscraper economy: growth or development?” In Hallowes, D. (ed.), Hidden Faces. Environment, Development, Justice: South Africa and the Global Context, EarthLife Africa, Scottsville, Natal, 1993.Google Scholar
Unesco-UNEP, “Environmental Education For University Students”. Connect XVI/3, 1991.Google Scholar
Wals, A. “Young Adolescents' Perceptions of Environmental Issues: Implications for Environmental Education in Urban Settings”, Australian Journal of Environmental Education 8, 1992, pp.45–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar