Environmental Education in Australia - A Review (1997) International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 234-239. (original) (raw)

Environmental Education—Ponderings From Down Under

Global Bioethics, 2001

This article describes and reflects upon Australia's extensive, federally-mandated, environmental education program. This program is based on a National Conservation Strategy which went into effect in 1989. But the program has massive support on the state and local levels as well. In addition to traditional classroom study of the environment and environmental issues, Audtralian Students do composting, re-vegetation oflocal canyons, and other hands-on activities. In many areas of the students' deatiledreports become the data base for the government's environmental monitoring program. A remarkable aspect of environmental education in Australia is the web of groups and individuals who are involved: local fanners, Aboriginal peoples, banks, local nurseries, and all levels of government, along with environmental organizations like Greening Astralia and Landcare.

Learning to govern oneself: environmental education pedagogy and the formation of an environmental subject (2000) Australian Journal of Environmental Education, Vol 16, pp. 31-35

Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 2000

This paper uses the work of Weber and Foucault to explore the ways in which environmental education may operate as a site for forming and maintaining particular ethical competencies which most environmental educators argue are necessary in order to live in an ‘environmentally sustainable’ manner. Environmental education practices, as evidenced in the Earthkeepers program, are examined to show how environmental education may be working in quite particular ways to construct specific ethical abilities and competencies in students. It is argued that we need to be far more concerned with and aware of the actual means we use to encourage students to live in an ‘environmentally sustainable’ fashion

Bonding with the land: outdoor environmental education programmes and their cultural contexts

2005

The issue of sustainable living has beconie an increasingly important theme in public discourse. Particularly in the last decade educators and researchers have paid much attention to people's relationships with the environment under the theme. 'Western' advocates of education for sustainability generally present as models the traditional approaches of indigenous peoples. However, contemporary attempts by indigenous peoples to 'bond' young people with the land have not been extensively investigated. Following a careful selection process a total of seven educational programmes in the UK and North America were chosen to explore participants' core values and concerns regarding the environment. The research design was 'mixed' and based primarily on participant observation, supported by interviews and written surveys. For the indigenous groups in North America, being 'on the land' was 'life' itself, and was tied strongly to their identity and well-being. Aspects of their culture and history were inseparable from the programmes, whereas for the groups in the UK, people visited 'wild places' primarily for personal enjoyment. The UK programmes studied aimed to cultivate a caring attitude towards the environment chiefly through conservation work. However, in contrast to the North American cases the experience was largely divorced from daily life and paid little attention to cultural and historical heritage. The present study has made three significant contributions to the education literature concerning people's relationships with the environment. First, the nature of these relationships varies depending on cultural and social setting and the local context plays a vital role in developing the relationships. Second, a fundamental change in people's relationships with nature requires ontological transformation. Third, while it may be beneficial to adopt certain elements from North American programmes in the UK or vice versa, educators cannot simply duplicate cultural models as education needs to be culturally and locally appropriate. These programmes were experimental and evolving. Further research is required to investigate models of education for sustainability that are culturally and locally appropriate to each place.-11-Declaration This thesis has been composed by the author and is solely my own work. This work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualitfication.

Imagination and enviro-mentalities: ways of seeing in Australian environmental education

The unique Australian landscape has formed identity and culture. The complexities of representing our country are existent through our fiction, drama, poetry and art, and yet go unseen in the expository discourses of contemporary environmental education. Jordan (2012) suggests our 'national imaginary' must now be seen in the context of globalization and sustainability. Whilst Education for Sustainability (EfS) offers a frame for learning about the environment, like landscape's imported gaze, it is constrained by 'unsustainable' discourses of development and progress. As educators we need the vision of interdisciplinary artists or order to see the layers of our imagined 'scapes' (Appadurai 1996) and encourage a re-conceptualization of our relationship with nature . What implications can this have for ways of knowing and learning in EfS? This research attempts to find a place for imaginative intelligence in learning for sustainability. Indigenous and non-indigenous ways of seeing and representing the land in Australia are examined as a way to investigate how imagination can be effective in positioning educators as culture-makers as well as knowledge-producers.

Environmental Education: The Need for a Perceptional Paradigm Shift

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Management and Conservation of Resources, it seems to have suffered a serious flaw in approach. The approach in Environmental Education had always been condescending -the urban intellectuals patronizing the rural illiterate. This very approach overlooks the fact that the latter are the genuine practitioners of environmental management, particularly for their livelihood and hence are more in touch with nature; the former inspite of their educational superiority, are highly alienated from nature and hence have a poor understanding of traditional practices in resource management. It is, therefore, a pressing imperative that this patronizing attitude is replaced with one of humility -of learning. The perception in Environmental Education, therefore, has to change from "teaching the rural mass" to learning from their rich experience and complementing that with appropriate scientific knowledge.