The 19th Biennial Conference for the Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) was a wonderful milestone for any national organisation. Our South Australian hosts were very excited to see us all descend on Adelaide in September 2016 to take up their offer of ‘Tomorrow Making’. ‘Our Present to the Future’ was four days filled with considering what we were working on and what we are working towards, both individually and collectively. Youth presentations, collegial collaborations, and sharing of goodwill and thought resulted in a generative conference, just like we have come to expect from environmental educators. Sally and I are pleased to maintain the tradition of guest editing the AJEE Special Issue, showcasing six papers as a representation of the knowledge shared, considered, adapted, and devised at the conference.

Having participated in both the New Zealand Association for Environmental Education (NZAEE) and Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) Research Symposia of 2016, the authors provide a critical analysis of the opportunities provided during these symposia for researchers to position themselves within the environmental education field. Each symposium is analysed in terms of its purpose and program structure, and the opportunities for researchers to communicate and share their ideas, build their research community, and frame their field. It was found that there were spaces for researchers to reinscribe the structures and practices of the environmental education field, but less space for its disruption. Furthermore, it seemed that there were some voices from the edge who were unintentionally silenced to some degree; for example, emerging researchers, women, and Indigenous people. It is recommended that symposia organisers and delegates give careful consideration to these spaces for disruption and to inclusivity when planning and attending future symposia.

Graduate students are often plagued by stress and anxiety in their journeys of becoming researchers. Concerned by the prevalence of poor graduate student wellbeing in Australia, we share our experiences of kin-making and collaboration within #aaeeer (Australasian Association for Environmental Education Emerging Researchers), a collective of graduate students and early career researchers formed in response to the Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) conference in Hobart, Tasmania, in 2014. In this article, we begin to address the shortage of research into graduate student wellbeing, led by graduate students. Inspired by Donna Haraway's work on making kin in the Chthulucene, we present an exploration that draws together stories from the authors about the positive experiences our kin-making collective enables, and how it has supported our wellbeing and allowed us to work collaboratively. Specifically, we find that #aaeeer offers us a form of refuge from academic stressors, creating spaces for ‘composting together’ through processes of ‘decomposing’ and ‘recomposing’. Our rejection of neoliberal norms has gifted us experiences of joyful collective pleasures. We share our experiences here in the hope of supporting and inspiring other emerging and established researchers to ‘make kin’ and challenge the potentially isolating processes of becoming researchers.

This is a researched account of an offshore coral reef education partnership formed during a time of rapid environmental change (the coral bleaching events in the years 2015 to 2017). The aim of the partnership is to encourage a learning connection with Sea Country. Framed as civic environmentalism, this article explores the dimensions of practice between a reef tourism provider, local schools, a local university, and local Indigenous rangers that enables primary, secondary and university students, rangers, and educators to travel together on day trips to the outer Great Barrier Reef and islands and have immersive and sharing educational experiences. Offshore environmental education and higher quality marine education is increasingly important in the Anthropocene, when Australian reefs are subject to the pressures of climate change and other impacts other impacts that diminish their resilience.

Despite school-community partnerships having much potential to provide educational organisations with authentic teaching and learning opportunities through community-based action projects, they remain under-utilised largely due to the structural constraints and pressures faced by teachers. This study helps fill a gap in scholarly discourse about the specific ways in which school-community partnerships can effectively be developed by providing an in-depth account of an 18-month pilot project with the aim to develop a conservation education program (Kids Greening Taupō) through a partnership structure in Aotearoa New Zealand. An evaluation of the pilot project was conducted using an ethnographic approach, which sought stakeholder perspectives about the program's developmental process through an interpretive lens. Qualitative data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis, and then thematically analysed. The findings provided in this article illuminate stakeholder insights and perspectives about the structures established and processes utilised over the three broad stages of program planning, implementation and maintenance, and the resultant environmental initiatives and programs. Through this study, a Collaborative Community Education Model has emerged that may serve as a potential framework or starting point for those interested in creating a new school-community partnership or to modify an existing one.

Sustainability is a Cross-Curriculum Priority (SCCP) in the Australian Curriculum and is intended to be integrated into teaching and learning where deemed appropriate by teachers. This article explores teachers’ knowledge, understanding, and beliefs about curriculum priorities and the situational context of teaching and learning in Queensland schools. In this article we discuss the ways in which teachers describe their relationship with sustainability education and the SCCP. Data were collected from interviews with 26 Queensland teachers, teaching across all year levels from early childhood to Year 12, as part of two different PhD research projects. Queensland teachers participating in both studies indicated strong support for the inclusion of sustainability within formal curriculum; however, this strong support did not translate into practice in most cases. As a result of curriculum and policy pressures, teachers indicated that despite their belief that Education for Sustainability (EfS) is important, few believe they have the time or support for teaching EfS. The current educational context teachers have described offers limited opportunity for teachers to integrate sustainability in ways that are meaningful and relevant to their students. The SCCP did not influence planning or teaching decisions, and many teachers were unaware of its existence. Data from both studies question the adequacy of current educational policy and curriculum documents for supporting teachers to engage with sustainability education.

One of the goals of environmental education is the development of environmental literacy. The development of environmental literacy for preservice teachers is critical if they are to be confident and competent to deliver environmental education in schools. Little is known about the impact of environmental education on preservice teachers’ environmental literacy and their subsequent practices as teachers within schools in New Zealand. This study used a mixed-methods approach with a pretest and posttest design to examine the environmental literacy of preservice teachers enrolled in a compulsory environmental education paper as part of their Bachelor of Teaching program at a New Zealand university. The perceptions of the preservice teachers’ preparedness to teach environmental education was also examined. Findings indicate that despite only slight shifts in preservice teachers’ environmental literacy, their confidence to teach environmental education significantly increased after completing the paper. Increases in the strength of correlations between environmental knowledge and affective dispositions were observed upon completing the environmental education paper. Implications of findings for teacher education programs are discussed. This study could inform curriculum design and teaching and learning practices for effectively preparing preservice teachers to promote the development of the environmental literacy of students in their future schools.