It seems ironic that the amazing breakthroughs and successes of scientific methods of enquiry of the past century that were supposed to enhance the quality of human life are currently looked on as being at the root of many of the pressing environmental and social problems of our time. Conventional approaches to science and technology that enabled humankind to manipulate and exploit natural resources led to a sense of authority and command which gave rise to a sometimes blind belief in ‘…the triumphs of natural science in seeking to develop the social understanding that would allow human beings successfully to harness the forces thus released to their own self-betterment’ (Giddens 1982, p.69).

This extension of the apparent success of natural science as ‘… an ideology, a culturally produced and socially supported, unexamined way of seeing the world which shapes and guides social action’ (Carr and Kemmis 1986, p. 132) seemed very appropriate at the time. Inevitably, the trusted logical positivist and reductionist approaches permeated social sciences to such a degree that they dominated Western views on education for a long time. Popkewitz (1984, p.23) refers to the effect on education in which ‘…human engineers … act upon educational affairs as though there are no difficulties or uncertainties; …educators are to manipulate and control children as physical scientists manipulate objects of the physical world’.

This paper summarises a research project carried out by the author on the effectiveness of pre-service teacher education in environmental education in New Zealand. Secondary pre-service teacher education students who had opted for a 20 hour course in environmental education expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the course but this begged the question of what would happen to them once they hit the reality of the classroom in a country which then had no policy or curriculum guidelines on environmental education. The author followed up eleven graduates from the 1996 course and six from 1997 to see if they were teaching, if they were teaching environmental education and how they now felt about their teacher training. The results were mixed – but some were teaching environmental education. They all continued to speak highly of their College training in environmental education and all but one would encourage others to do the course. However classroom management problems, staff cynicism and a lack of status for environmental education had created difficulties for them. Several had already given up on teaching as a career and others were considering leaving. Strategies to counter these disturbing trends are outlined as recommendations to the College and the wider education community.

Loss of biodiversity and habitats is one of the greatest threats to the environment and education has a critical role to play in addressing this issue. This paper describes a teaching activity for first-year university students studying sustainable resource management at the University of Newcastle which established a partnership between education, government and the community to rehabilitate a nature reserve where biodiversity values were threatened by weed invasion. Students research the problem (weed invasion), quantitatively assess the impacts of weed invasion and management interventions, and work alongside a community-based bushcare group and government agency during on-ground rehabilitation of the reserve. Key outcomes for students have been knowledge and skills relevant to a critical issue for the Australian environment; a more optimistic attitude towards environmental issues and their potential to develop solutions; a positive perspective about the role of community involvement; continued participation in community bushcare groups outside the classroom; and personal involvement in solving a critical environmental issue.

The rationale for including sustainability in Higher Education curriculum has been made clear, yet how to facilitate effective learning in this field has received less research attention. This article focuses on approaches to the ‘framing’ of sustainability in curriculum design as a tool for educators to contextualise sustainability concepts and practices to engage learners within traditional disciplines where sustainability studies are still relatively novel, and therefore, not embedded within existing disciplinary ‘frames’. The article draws together findings from a qualitative study of four undergraduate sustainability courses to provide initial insight into different framings of sustainability and student experiences within the courses. Drawing on an analysis of empirical data and theory, this article argues that the way sustainability is framed may assist in addressing barriers in the uptake of sustainability by teachers and students in Higher Education. Framing has the potential to support student engagement with sustainability courses and the integration of sustainability within degree programs and professional practices. The findings also indicate that framing, and its effect on learning, are shaped by both the presentation of content and also, more importantly for transformative learning, the pedagogy underpinning the curriculum design.

This research was commissioned by the (then) Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) to provide recommendations on how to best support Western Australian (WA) secondary schools to engage in education for sustainability (EfS). The research aims were to identify barriers and benefits to being involved in EfS, the support systems required for schools to participate in EfS at secondary school level, and the difficulties that secondary schools experience when implementing EfS programs. A variety of research methods were utilised: semi-structured interviews with non-teaching stakeholders; online questionnaires for teachers, school administrators and students; focus groups and semi-structured interviews with teachers and school administrators; and an expert panel workshop to discuss data and recommendations prior to completion of a final report. Data were collected from 29 schools, 45 teachers and school administrators, 186 students, and various EfS external providers and stakeholders across metropolitan and regional WA. This article focuses on three issues identified in the data that we consider important and under-represented in discourses of EfS in Australia: lack of understanding about what EfS means among educators; lack of meaningful student involvement in EfS in secondary schools; and differing quality in EfS programs offered by external providers. We conclude this article by offering ways to improve EfS in WA secondary schools.

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.

Within the North American public education system, institutionalised structures of schooling often prevent teachers from aligning their values with their practice when it comes to environmental education (Bowers, 1997; Weston, 2004). In response to this, this article will outline our lived experiences, as teachers and researcher, in disrupting the traditional school system as we work toward building a new culture in schooling through nature-based education. Acts of disruption that we will speak to include: going outside for learning on a regular basis, teaching for empowerment, involving families in the education, attempts to play with structural confines of schooling, and finding ways to stay empowered ourselves. Through this work, we have found that there is a rippling effect to the disruption that requires courage, grit, and resilience such that we do not slide back into conventional approaches. We have also become empowered in our practices through implementing these changes, watching our students become active stewards within their communities and beyond. We are learning deeply about the work of structural change within a public school district and offer words here as inspiration and support for others wishing to make changes within their own context.

How can an organisation move from awareness raising, in the form of natural history poster production, to the development of systems that change organisations? Through close integration of research and practice, the Gould League has achieved this transformation. It began with extensive research into best practice environmental education, going beyond the traditional boundaries of environmental education to areas that included the psychology of culture change, business management, systems thinking, governance, drug education, marketing and organisational psychology. This broad approach to research has led to the development of highly effective sustainability education programs, such as Waste Wise Schools and Sustainable Schools.

The Waste Wise Schools Program, funded by EcoRecycle Victoria and managed in consultation with the Gould League, is an action-based waste education program. Originating in Victoria in 1998, it has been adopted by over a third of Victorian schools and has led to widespread outcomes, including waste reductions of up to 95%. There is strong evidence from surveys that this program is sustainable in schools over time and research confirms that the program is contributing to changes in the waste-wise thinking and behaviour of the families of the children at these schools.

A model for culture change in schools, based on the experiences of the Waste Wise Schools Program, has also been developed. This model, a valuable tool in the continual improvement of Waste Wise Schools, has applications to sustainability education in general.

The instrumental relationship to nature and the realist epistemology that dominate the analysis of contemporary environmental issues have prompted me to develop an interest in a socialized conception of science in environmental education (EE) so as to throw into question a certain overappreciation of scientific expertise whenever the environment is at issue. This interest in an epistemological renewal has also impelled me to favour the socioconstructivist model of cognition in EE. The relevance of these various aspects is presented to the reader as the extension of a necessary epistemological renewal in EE, as various authors in this field of research have advocated.

Despite increased engagement of Indigenous representatives as participants on consultative panels charged with processes of natural resource management, concerns have been raised by both Indigenous representatives and management agencies regarding the ability of Indigenous people to have quality input into the decisions these processes produce. In order to determine how to more effectively engage Australian Aboriginal peoples in the management process, this article describes the results of interviews with Elders of the Bundjalung Nation and other community representatives who represent their community's interests on natural resource management boards within their traditional country. Community representatives identified the factors they considered important in understanding natural resource management and administrative processes and where training would enable them to make a significant contribution to the consultation process. It also highlighted a need for non-Indigenous managers to gain a greater understanding of Indigenous knowledge systems and protocols.

Promoting efficient energy use in schools that consequently reduces greenhouse gas emissions is the purpose of a residential Energy Efficiency in Schools (EEIS) program reported on in this paper. Research on this program aligns with one of the “key overarching sustainability issues”, set out in the Learning for Sustainability: NSW Environmental Education Plan 2002-2005: “Sustaining energy use, cutting greenhouse gases”. The EEIS program was sponsored by Queensland EPA, Ergon Energy and Education Queensland. Participants learnt about innovation, leadership, coal mining, greenhouse issues, the “greenhouse challenge”, conducting energy audits, alternative energy and promoting energy efficient practices in school and the community.

Three EEIS models in Queensland that supported change in energy usage behaviours of participants (school students, parents and staff) is examined. In each of the models, interviews were conducted and questionnaires were completed with participants. In Model 1 it was found that, overall; the EEIS program did develop positive energy efficient behaviours in those who participated. In relation to whole school effects, mixed results were obtained. In Model 1 a rural school initially reduced energy consumption by fifty percent and in Model 2 significant changes in energy efficient behaviours in the school communities occurred. In Model 3 one school followed through an action plan and similar positive effects were observed. The development of an action plan that is implemented in the school, the selection of suitable participants, and post-program visits to schools by relevant staff were among the factors that contributed to the overall success. Each model was found to have achieved their aims to varying degrees but had outcomes that are likely to have both lifetime and possibly intergenerational effects.

In this article, I critically analyse how meanings of health and food, tied to obesity reduction, ‘subjugate’ environmental priorities and knowledges of food. To do this, I explore the meanings of health and food constructed in the NSW Health Munch & Move program. I examine the use of language to construct notions of food and health that are not only difficult to challenge, but difficult to think otherwise, including in relation to environmental perspectives of food. I argue that as calculative and individualised conceptualisations of food and health become more and more ‘common sense’ (Mudry, 2009), there is a ‘closing off’ of what is thinkable and doable in relation to food and health. The subjugation of environmental priorities of food takes place both through their marginalisation and through how we are invited to define the place of food in our lives.

Concern exists over the extent to which environmental education is being addressed in Australian primary school curricula. This is especially so since the release of the nationally developed Statements and Profiles in eight key areas of learning because no documents specifically relating to environmental education were produced. This paper reports the results of a study in which a survey based on outcomes relevant to environmental education, as drawn from curriculum documents in use in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria, was completed by a sample of primary teachers from both states. Results indicated that, in most schools, outcomes relevant to environmental education were being given significant attention. However, the extent to which different outcomes were addressed varied widely, as did the extent to which individual schools addressed outcomes over the years kindergarten/preparatory to year 6 (K/P-6). Implications for teacher education drawn from the findings are discussed.

Land management is often a three-way partnership between management agencies, scientists and community members. Co-operation between these three sectors in working for better environmental outcomes has a long history in Victoria, and nature conservation has often previously been achieved through successful adult environmental education. The recent development of an ecology course on the Box and Ironbark forests continues this tradition. It was organised by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) for community interest groups and was taught by scientists.

This article presents the results of qualitative research into some participants' view of their learning on the course. It suggests significant directions for adult learning in environmental education. An intensive experience of field-based scientific inquiry appeared to prompt not only ecological learning but also development of aesthetic, moral and action dimensions for the interviewees. The article suggests that environmental education needs to embrace fruitful elements of various learning methods for adults, including scientific learning about ecology. The process of enabling people to extend their knowledge of natural settings and processes can also enhance their relationship with and commitment to these places.

The importance of imagination in education has a significant history (Egan, 1986, 2001; Eisner, 1976; Greene, 1988; Steiner, 1954; Warnock, 1976); however, scholarship is often theoretical, and the involvement of imagination in understanding sustainability is often overlooked (Jones, 1995; Judson, 2010; Stewart, 2009). Imagination has rarely been the subject of Environmental Education (EE) and research. Its nature is contested, and its workings can be concealed by formal notions of knowing and learning. Contemporary environmental philosophies argue that education can often contradict its aims through limited understandings of environment and knowledge (Orr, 1991, 1992; Weir, 2008; Whitehouse, 2011). This thesis reconceptualises imagination as a way of knowing and learning in environmental terms. The study investigates the role of imagination in Education for Sustainability (EfS) contexts and critically analyses how imagination is involved in understanding sustainability for teachers and learners. The possibility of imagination as environmental knowledge, and as essential to resolving environmental problems, is applied in this research.

The relationship between outdoor education and environmental education in Aotearoa New Zealand has undergone many changes since formal education began in early colonial times. Discussion draws from qualitative doctoral research undertaken by the authors that investigated education for sustainability in outdoor education and how meaning is ascribed to outdoor experiences. The article describes how environmental education and outdoor education had common historical roots in nature studies that eventually were teased apart by the development of separate agendas for learning and assessment, coupled with the political context of the 1970s and 1980s. The article finds that contemporary forces relating to the economy, society and the environment are now driving a re-engagement of the two discourses in Aotearoa New Zealand at a variety of levels, from schools to national bodies, and that this re-engagement signals a positive outcome for addressing key environmental issues and engaging students in the outdoors.

In this paper we explore what decentring the child in posthumanism does to our research practices, to our conceptualisations of and relationalities to the child. Crucially, we explore the imperative for other ways to encounter the child – that pursue a decolonising and de/recentralising agenda. We pursue tentacular lines of enquiry through a series of interwoven stories – some more familiar than others. It is by queering old narratives that new and unexpected stories concerning pedagogical documentation, sustainability and environmental education, and the child’s contaminated connection to ‘nature’ begin to emerge. This paper attempts to mobilise ‘the posthuman child’ as feral, an uncomfortable in-between that invites us to grapple with the disease of life on a damaged planet. Central to our storytelling is recycled, ‘natural’ materials found in a Reggio Emilia kindergarten in Norway. Specifically, cork has guided us; insisting that we take the non-innocence of matter to the heart of enquiries. We do this to illustrate the potential of feminist new materialism to respond with situated, embodied, affective insights and provocations that might offer ways to consume, cohabit and wrestle in more care-full ways with the Anthropocene ecologies that we are intricately and endlessly enmeshed in.

This article will investigate the philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) as a coherent basis for environmental education. The work of Bhaskar serves as an in-depth approach to understanding how to apply critical realism (the critical and the realist) to matters such as environmental education, because he concretely theorises the connections between science, social change and metaphysics. By mobilising key Bhaskarian motifs — that is, the primacy of ontology over epistemology, the laminated system as a means to understand reality, the ways in which inquiry may be organised through the real, actual and the empirical, and the positive application of dialectics — this article constructs a new approach to environmental education and positions it in the field of environmental education by comparing it to posthumanism and the new materialisms. This article contains inquiry-based study outlines for enhanced thinking around: (1) climate change and social justice; (2) movements towards a carbon-free economy; (3) water, food and population; and (4) the future of human habitation.

Despite the importance of teachers to the school garden movement, we still know very little about what drives particular teachers to incorporate a school garden into their pedagogy. In response, this article reports the findings of a study designed to investigate the internal processes and products involved in rationalising and sustaining teachers’ use. Analysis of interviews with three primary teachers — Laura, Meredith, and Clare — indicate that a powerful rationale is formed when teachers read their childhood memories, often idealised, against their observations of children today. This rationale is strengthened by opportunities afforded by the garden itself, which allows teachers to enact their deepest beliefs about teaching and learning and resist external controls. This study also provides evidence that a school garden can easily evoke nostalgia. The article ends by re-theorising this nostalgia as part of the ‘cultural logic’ (Enfield, 2000) of school gardens, while suggesting nostalgia's productive uses.

Rather than create another definition this paper explores the philosophy of interpretation in order to identify its core values. This shows that the main difference between environmental interpretation and environmental education is whether affect is considered to be pre-or post-cognitive. To the interpreter particularly significant experiences create deep emotional responses in participants that need no explanation. While moods, feelings and emotions are known to be important to attitude and behaviour change, how they create behaviour change is largely unknown. Interpretation will only make significant advances and become more challenging when it is informed by articulated theory. The implications for practice are that affective rather than cognitive models of learning need to be both employed and explored in future.