Common notions around the concept of sustainability tend to be framed within the values and principles that the world's natural environments need to be used and managed in such a way as to make them available for future generations. Consequently, pedagogical approaches in environmental education that follow this intellectual thread tend to adopt a standard scientific approach to inquiry-based learning. This article argues that the features of a geographical approach to inquiry, particularly in its wider conceptualisation of fieldwork, provides a much more effective means of developing an environmental education that is more cogniscent of the deeper aspects of sustainability. While the importance of the natural systems components of sustainability cannot be ignored, they tend to displace other inherent facets within the sustainability concept and, in particular, the reality that any discussion as to the sustainable use of natural environments must incorporate knowledge and understanding of the way people interact with these environments. We contend that sustainability, when taught in schools, has tended to be environmentally and scientifically based, diminishing the role of humans. In an example of how this deficit might be overcome, the Australian Curriculum incorporates sustainability as one of the three mandatory cross-curriculum priorities; that is, one of the avenues for encouraging complementary learning and teaching across different disciplines. Within this curriculum framework, the concept is expanded to not only include a consideration of the mutual interdependence of the environmental spheres (Systems), but also World View and Futures — thus including the human component. However, using the notion of the fieldwork imperative (Casinader & Kidman, 2017), which distinguishes between the reasons why we do fieldwork and the reasons why we should do fieldwork, we argue that sustainability education would be placed more effectively within the disciplinary domain of Geography, rather than as part of an integrated curriculum approach or in Science.

Despite the essentiality of freshwater to all life on the planet, the populous has inadequate understandings of water. Formal education plays a key role in shaping how individuals and communities make sense of water, its accessibility, management, consumption, and hazards. This article seeks to bring attention to the influence of cultural framings of freshwater and extreme freshwater events (such as flood and drought) in government-mandated school curricula in two water-vulnerable geographical regions of Australia and Canada. We seek to identify and respond to hegemonic social constructions that become naturalised if left unexamined. By examining the agendas and language around freshwater and extreme freshwater events in formal educational curricula, we gain a better understanding of the perceptions and assumptions made about freshwater. The results highlight that freshwater and extreme freshwater events are minimally conceptualised within these curricula as ‘nature-based’, rather than being part of a dialectical relationship with societal agendas and practices. This article discusses the implications of this framing and the psychological barriers that may affect the acknowledgment and investigation of extreme freshwater events. We conclude by offering curricular suggestions that invite community-based understandings of the dialectic relationship freshwater has with communities and regional ecosystems.

Underwater photo-elicitation is a novel experiential marine education technique that combines direct experience in the marine environment with the use of digital underwater cameras. A program called Show Us Your Ocean! (SUYO!) was created, utilising a mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative methods) to test the efficacy of this technique. Participants (adults and high school students) snorkelled, explored the ocean, and captured images both in and out of the water. Underwater photo-elicitation was proven effective at increasing awareness, eliciting emotional reactions, and fostering a sense of connection to the ocean. However, it was not necessarily effective for raising awareness of environmental issues nor for motivating pro-environmental behaviour. Interestingly, while some attitudes about and behaviours toward the ocean did become more environmentally sensitive, others appeared to shift unexpectedly away from environmental concern. This result was perhaps due to the lack in the program of an ecological knowledge-based component. Participants enjoying the beauty of the ocean did not realise the threats facing it or what to do about these. If the goal is to achieve significant attitude change and cultivate pro-environmental behaviour, this new approach should be supplemented with critical thinking/action competence and ecological/ocean literacy.

While there are many environmental education programs for children, few studies have used an appropriately developed scale for evaluating how such education might have on impact on children's environmental orientations. The research presented in this article adapted the NEP (New Ecological Paradigm) for Children scale to develop a new instrument for measuring children's environmental attitudes: the NEP (Children@School). The NEP (Children@School) has been developed by analysing the impact of the design of physical learning spaces on children's environmental attitudes. Factor analysis indicated that NEP (Children@School) has three dimensions: Children's Environmental Attitudes towards Human Intervention, Children's Environmental Attitudes via ESD at School, and Children's Environmental Attitudes towards Eco-Rights. We argue that NEP (Children@School) can meaningfully measure the impact of learning spaces on children's environmental attitudes. While the instrument was developed for use in Australia, it has been designed for global applicability.

The benefits of beginning Education for Sustainability (EfS) in early childhood are now widely documented. With the support of their teachers, young children have shown that through engagement in sustainability practices they are capable of becoming active citizens in their communities (Duhn, Bachmann, & Harris, 2010; Kelly & White, 2012; Ritchie, 2010; Vaealiki & Mackey, 2008). Engagement with EfS has not been widespread across the early childhood sector in Aotearoa New Zealand (Duhn et al., 2010; Vaealiki & Mackey, 2008) until recently. One way of addressing EfS in early childhood education is through teacher education institutions preparing students to teach EfS when they graduate.