Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T14:57:44.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mapping Sustainability Initiatives Across a Region: An Innovative Survey Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

Margaret Somerville  and
Monica Green
Margaret Somerville*
Affiliation:
Centre for Educational Research at the University of Western Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Monica Green
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education (Gippsland campus), Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Margaret Somerville, Centre for Educational Research at the University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The project of mapping sustainability initiatives across a region is part of a larger program of research about place and sustainability education for the Anthropocene, the new geological age of human-induced planetary changes (Zalasiewicz, Williams, Steffen, & Crutzen, 2010). The study investigated the location, nature and type of sustainability initiatives in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. The purpose of the study was to trial the development of a place-based survey questionnaire to map initiatives in education for sustainability across a region in order to understand how they emerge in local places. The data from the survey was interpreted using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. This article focuses on the qualitative thematic analysis across all survey responses and assesses the findings in order to determine the usefulness of the approach. The study found that a regional place-based approach enables a different conceptualisation of the possibilities of a cross-sectoral interconnected system of sustainability education. The nonformal and informal sectors are important sites of innovation and have great potential to enrich the pedagogies of education for sustainability in the formal sector.

Keywords

sustainabilityeducationmappingplace and community
Type
Feature Articles
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , December 2012 , pp. 65 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brunckhorst, D. (2000). Bioregional planning: Resource management beyond the new millennium. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic.Google Scholar
Day Langhout, R., Rappaport, J., & Simmons, D. (2002). Integrating community into the classroom: Community gardening, community involvement and project-based learning. Urban Education, 37 (3), 323–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fawcett, L., Bell, A., & Russell, C.L. (2002). Guiding our environmental praxis: Teaching and learning for social and environmental justice. In Filho, W.L. (Ed.), Teaching sustainability at universities: Towards curriculum greening: Environmental education, communication, and sustainability (Vol. 11, pp. 223–238). New York: Peter Lang Scientific Publishers.Google Scholar
Flowers, R., & Chodkiewicz, A. (2009). Local communities and schools tackling sustainability and climate change. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 25, 71–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, K., & Tilbury, D. (2004). Whole-school approaches to sustainability: An international review of sustainable school programs (Report Prepared by the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability [ARIES>]). Canberra, Australia: The Department of the Environment and Heritage.Google Scholar
Idrizi, B., Meha, M., Nikolli, P., & Kabashi, I. (2012). Data quality of Global Map and some possibilities/limitations for its wide utilization for global issues. Survey Review 44 (325), 134–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2007). Summary for policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Geneva: IPCC Secretariat.Google Scholar
Kagawa, F., & Selby, D. (2010). Education and climate change: Living and learning in interesting times. London & New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, V., Sumalia, U., Dyck, A., Pauly, D., & Watson, R. (2011). Construction and first applications of a global cost of fishing database. ICES [International Council for the Exploration of the Sea] Journal of Marine Science, 68 (9), 1996–2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matsumura, K., Hijmans, R., Chemin, Y., Elvidge, C., Sugimoto, K., Wu, W., . . . Shibasaki, R. (2009). Mapping the global supply and demand structure of rice. Sustainability Science, 4 (2), 301–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, R., Green, P., Balk, D., Fekete, B., Revenga, C., Todd, M., & Montgomery, M. (2011). Urban growth, climate change, and freshwater availability. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (15), 6312–6317.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nolet, V. (2009). Preparing sustainability-literate teachers. Teachers College Record, 111 (2)409–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onwueme, I., & Borsari, B. (2007). The sustainability asymptogram: A new philosophical framework for policy, outreach and education in sustainability. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 8 (1), 44–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orr, D. (2009). Down to the wire: Confronting climate collapse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potapov, P., Yaroshenko, A., Turubanova, S., Dunbinin, M., Laestadius, L., Thies, C., Zhuravleva, I. (2008). Mapping the world's intact forest landscapes by remote sensing. Ecology and Society, 13 (2), 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rautio, P. (2011). Writing about everyday beauty: Anthropomorphizing and distancing as literary practices. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, 5 (1), 104–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiva, V. (1992). Recovering the real meaning of sustainability. In Cooper, D. & Palmer, J. (Eds.), The environment question: Ethics and global issue (pp. 187–193). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Skamp, K. 2010. Critical review of current practice and research of environmental education and education for sustainability for Kindergarten to Year 12 from 1990. Retrieved from http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/env_ed/assets/pdf/review_skamp.pdfGoogle Scholar
Somerville, M., & Green, M. (2011). A pedagogy of ‘organised chaos’: Ecological learning in primary schools. Children Youth and Environment, 20 (1), 14–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
State Government of Victoria. (2008). Gippsland Regional Plan. Retrieved 20 February 20, 2012, from http://www.rdv.vic.gov.au/victorian-regions/gippslandGoogle Scholar
Sterling, S. (2001). Sustainable education: Re-visioning learning and change. Totnes, UK: Green Books.Google Scholar
Sterling, S. (2007). Riding the storm: Towards a connective cultural consciousness. In Wals, A. (Ed.), Social learning: Towards a sustainable world: principles, perspectives, and praxis (pp. 63–82). The Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Sterling, S. (2012). The Future Fit Framework: An introductory guide to teaching and learning for sustainability in HE. Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/esd/The_Future_Fit_Framework.pdfGoogle Scholar
Stewart, K., Lewison, R., Dunn, D., Bjorkland, R., Kaelz, S., Halpin, P., & Crowder, L. (2010). Characterizing fishing effort and spatial extent of coastal fisheries PLoS ONE 5 (12), e14451. Retrieved from http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014451CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stocker, L., & Barnett, K. (1998). The significance and praxis of community-based sustainability projects: Community gardens in western Australia. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, 3 (2), 179–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, P., Anderson, S., Tuttle, B., & Morse, L. (2012). The real wealth of nations: Mapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint. Ecological Indicators, 16, 11–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorpe, W. (2011). Watbalimba: Language of song, story and dance. Unpublished masters thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.Google Scholar
Tilbury, D., & Wortman, D. (2008). How is community education contributing to sustainability in practice? Applied Environmental Education and Communication, 7, 83–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UNESCO. (2002). Education for Sustainability — From Rio to Johannesburg: Lessons learnt from a decade of commitment. Paris: Author.Google Scholar
UNESCO. (2012). Education for sustainable development. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-for-sustainable-development/Google Scholar
Uzzell, D. (1999). Education for environmental action in the community: New roles and relationships. Cambridge Journal of Education, 3, 397–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walshe, N. (2008). Understanding students’ conceptions of sustainability. Environmental Education Research, 14 (5), 537–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walter, P. (2012). Theorising community gardens as pedagogical sites in the food movement. Enviornmental Education Research, iFirst, 1–19.Google Scholar
Wulder, M., White, J., Magnussen, S., & McDonald, S. (2007). Validation of a large area land cover product using purpose-acquired airborne video. Remote Sensing of Environment, 106, 480–491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zachariou, A., & Symeou, L. (2008). The Local Community as a Means for Promoting Education for Sustainable Development. Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 7 (4), 129–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Steffen, W., & Crutzen, P. 2010. The new world of the anthropocene. Environmental Science and Technology, 44 (7), 2228–2231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed