Hostname: page-component-669899f699-qzcqf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T01:07:10.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward a Pedagogy for Australian Natural History: Learning to Read and Learning Content

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Alistair Stewart  and
Gregg Müller
Alistair Stewart*
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
Gregg Müller
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
*
†La Trobe University, P.O. Box 199, Bendigo, Victoria 3552, Australia. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper we suggest that learning about natural history experientially can be thought of as a type of reading, where understanding is developed by using particular skills, processes and content. In our experience, teaching and learning natural history involves the generation of knowledge and understanding through relating direct personal observations of aspects of the natural world to broader cultural and conservation issues. We therefore argue that teaching Australian natural history that reflects the particular social, cultural and environmental circumstances of the place in which it is undertaken requires pedagogical research and informed debate. In this paper we highlight this neglected aspect of pedagogical research within Australian outdoor and environmental education and discuss our experiences of teaching natural history to undergraduate students to stimulate discussion and challenge researchers-educators to develop practices that are informed by the natural history of this continent.

Keywords

Natural historynaturalistAustraliaplace-based education
Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 25 , 2009 , pp. 105 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arthur, J. M. (2003). The default country: A lexical cartography of twentieth-century Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.Google Scholar
Australian State of the Environment Committee. (2001). Australia state of the environment 2001: Biodiversity. Canberra: CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Department of Environment and Heritage.Google Scholar
Bell, A. (1997). Natural history from a learner's perspective. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 2, 132–144.Google Scholar
Brookes, A. (2002). Gilbert White never came this far south: Naturalist knowledge and the limits of universalist environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 7(2), 73–87.Google Scholar
Calder, J. (1987). The Grampians - a noble range. Melbourne: VNPA.Google Scholar
Carter, P. (1987). The road to Botany Bay: An essay in spatial history. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Dovers, S. (Ed.). (2000). Environmental history and policy: Still settling Australia. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Downey, P. O. (1998). An inventory of host species of each aerial mistletoe species (Loranthaceae & Viscaceae) in Australia. Cunninghamia, 5(3), 685–720.Google Scholar
Flannery, T. (1998). The explorers. Melbourne: Text Publishing.Google Scholar
Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gough, N. (2002). Ignorance in environmental education research. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 18, 19–26.Google Scholar
Halsey, M. (2004). Environmental visions: Deleuze and the modalities of nature. Ethics and the Environment, 9(2), 33–64.Google Scholar
Jardine, D. W. (1998). Birding lessons and the teachings of Cicadas. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 3, 92–99.Google Scholar
March, W. A., & Watson, D. M. (2007). Parasites boost productivity: Effects of mistletoe on litterfall dynamics in a temperate Australian forest. Oecologia, 154(2), 339–347.Google Scholar
Moyal, A. (2001). Platypus: The extraordinary story of how a curious creature baffled the world. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Norton, D. A., & Reid, N. (1997). Lessons in ecosystem management from management of threatened and pest Loranthaceous mistletoes in New Zealand and Australia. Conservation Biology, 11, 759–769.Google Scholar
Page, M., & Baxter, G. (2006). A curse upon the land: foxes and cane toads. In Crotty, M. & Roberts, D. A. (Eds.), The great mistakes of Australian history (pp. 79–92). Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.Google Scholar
Pedley, E. (1899 [1965]). Dot and the kangaroo. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Reid, N., & Yan, Z. (2000). Mistletoes and other phanerogams parasitic on eucalypts. In Keane, P. J., Kile, G. A., Podger, F. D. & Brown, B. N. (Eds.), Diseases and Pathogens of Eucalypts (pp. 353–384). Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing.Google Scholar
Robin, L. (2005). Migrants and nomads: Seasoning zoological knowledge in Australia. In Sherratt, T., Griffiths, T. & Robin, L. (Eds.), A change in the weather: Climate and culture in Australia (pp. 42–53). Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press.Google Scholar
Robin, L. (2007). How a continent created a nation. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.Google Scholar
Seddon, G. (1997). Landprints: Reflections on place and landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Seddon, G. (2005). The old country: Australian landscapes, plants and people. Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stewart, A. (2006). Seeing the trees and the forest: Attending to Australian natural history as if it mattered. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 22(2), 85–97.Google Scholar
Thomashow, M. (2002). Bringing the biosphere home: Learning to perceive global environmental change. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Google Scholar
van der Ree, R., Soderquist, T. R., & Bennett, A. F. (2001). Home-range use by the brush-tailed phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa) (Marsupialia) in high-quality, spatially limited habitat. Wildlife Research, 28, 517–525.Google Scholar
Wagner, J. (1993). Ignorance in educational research: Or, how can you not know that? Educational Researcher, 22(5), 15–23.Google Scholar
Watson, D. M. (2001). Mistletoe - a keystone resource in forests and woodlands worldwide. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 32, 219–249.Google Scholar