As institutions of education and learning, the higher education sector has a significant role to play in implementing the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014). Some institutions have already acknowledged, and are shaping, their roles in working towards sustainability through appropriate development and implementation of institutional policy and practices, including the signing of international agreements related to sustainability. Such institutions are specifically linking learning to sustainable development. This study was initiated as a result of our interests to i) identify the current commitment to education for sustainability and ii) learn from the institutional lived experiences about how education for sustainability may be realised, within the Australian university context. This is a preliminary investigation to provide baseline insights into how education for sustainability with a focus on curriculum innovation is being implemented within the Australian university landscape. This investigation is informing our further research to understand institutional change of education for sustainability in universities.

Promoting pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) among students is a major concern for educators. The present article presents an educational program based on a self-determination theory framework (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000) and a study demonstrating that working according to the theoretical principles presented in the program leads to the desired outcomes. The primary aim of the study was to test whether a hypothesised model in which autonomy support by students’ parents and moderators in a large-scale intervention program would be associated with autonomous motivation, which would in turn lead to PEBs, over and above the contributions of the students’ self-perceived competence and relatedness. The participants were 102 Bedouin high-school students (Grades 8 to 10) sampled from a cultural background characterised by a collectivist-hierarchical society in Israel. The results, based on structural equation modelling, indicated that moderators and parental autonomy support, as well as self-perceived relatedness and competence, were associated with students’ autonomous motivation, which in turn was associated with pro-environmental behaviours (including cleaning behaviours, activism, and preserving behaviours). The study supported the hypothesised model and demonstrated that SDT can be utilised as a theoretical framework for educational programs aimed at improving students’ self-determined PEBs.

Environmental education owes its very existence to a particular interpretation of reality. My purpose here is to examine critically the “selected fictions” on which that view of reality is based — to examine the ways in which our perceptions of environmental problems and issues are “conditioned by our position in space and time”. I will argue that some of these perceptions constitute unsustainable fictions and will consider some ways in which we might work towards living lives based on more sustainable constructions of human interrelationships with their environments. I will begin with an illustration of how an interpretation of reality can be changed by taking (to coin Durrell's metaphor) two paces east or west — by glimpsing something familiar from an unusual vantage point.

This study explores the observations and perceptions of environmental education centre officers and teachers regarding children's experiences with nature. The study also explores the officers' and teachers' perceptions of the potential of using nature experiences in environmental education. A thematic analysis of data from interviews with 13 officers and 8 high school teachers in Sydney, Australia, revealed a widely held perception that children and young people have limited experience with natural settings in nature reserves and national parks. The interviewees suggested that although their students were interested in learning in natural settings, many were uncomfortable, afraid, and only had a vicarious understanding of Australian ecology, flora and fauna. The participants' view of the potential of nature experiences was twofold: nature experiences were fundamental for developing a connection with nature and establishing environmental concern, and experiences in nature facilitated ecological knowledge, which was considered to be a component of understanding and developing place identity in the Australian environment.

Enacting a critical environmental education curriculum theory with 8- to 9-year-old children in 1978 is now ‘restoried’ in a ‘history of the present/future’ like ‘case study’ for prosecuting five interrelated problems confronting progress in environmental education and its research. They are: the intense heat of the Anthropocene; the accelerating speed of the Dromosphere; the deep cuts of neoliberalism's policing of the cognitive capitalism of the corporate university and public education; the entrepreneurial entry of sustainababble into the discourse of education; and the digital colonisation of its pedagogical practices. The once radical promise of environmental education to serve as a critique of education partially through its ‘language’ (Le Grange, 2013) of empowerment, agency, transformation, contestation, ideology, ethics, action, praxis and change demands revitalisation; hence, this belated restorying of the 1978 case. The time is right; at least in some academic/educational settings where the ‘new materialism’ notions of critical, agency and action remain much more than a fading memory or convenient text. New theory helps restory this old curriculum theory and its slow ecopedagogical activism. In this ‘old’, the critical curriculum theory (re)positioned young children and their teacher as action researchers of their own embodied socio-environmental relations. Through highly inclusive and participatory practices of outdoor and indoor ecopedagogy, children became ethically active ‘citizens’, capable of democratically enacting political and Political change. This ‘active responsibility for the environment’ was, indeed, a key purpose, or promise, of environmental education when the field was formalised in the 1970s. Elements of children's (eco)aesthetics-environmental ethics and ecopolitics are described in this case account of the ‘environmental design’ of a radical curriculum innovation that critically emphasised the ‘humanly-constructive’ educational conditions that enable agency (Payne, 1995, 1999a). Such enablements were only ever assumed in the ‘socially critical’ theorisations of curriculum and pedagogy developed in Australia in the early 1980s. For researchers, this partially autoethnographic narrating of the old case describes the children's (embodied) experiences and locally emplaced agencies in newer theoretical ‘figurations’ of their ‘body~time~space’ relationalities. Children's outdoor ‘expeditions’, interdisciplinary inquiries, literacy development, scientific investigations, and personal and public activisms are described. Revealing these micro figurational relationalities in slow ecopedagogical contexts of the environmental design of education (Payne, 2014) is consistent with Robottom and Hart's (1993) too often forgotten ‘old’ call for researchers and practitioners to clarify the presuppositions they make about the trilogy of ontology-epistemology and methodology in framing, conceptualising, contextualising, representing, and legitimating the research problem and its questions. This restorying and history of the present/future is alert to (but cannot develop) aspects of contemporary ‘high’ theory drawn from the humanities, social sciences and arts that prioritises the politics of ontological deliberation and the ecologies of things, (re)claims a material disposition in empirical inquiry and critique while speculating about non-anthropocentric ‘thought’ responsive to the ‘new’ rallying point of, for example, the Anthropocene. In sum, new theory helps restory the critical, creative, expressive and experimental forms of re-theorising the persistent problematic of human and non-human nature relations and the role of education — well on display in this ‘old.’ This revitalised history of the present/future aims to revive critical optimism and imagination about how agencies of socio-environmental change once promised by critical environmental education and its research can be re‘turned’. The article concludes with some post-critical retheorising of key critical components of the 1978 curriculum theory.

Education for sustainability (EfS) is widely supported and researched; however, the broad and deep implementation of EfS in universities that is needed lags behind the goals of change agents. This article reviews literature on change procedures; in particular, curriculum change in universities. Our aim was to develop insights into strategies change agents can use to bolster their efforts to implement EfS. We found that change in universities is commonly acknowledged as a complex process, and that taking account of institutional culture is an integral step in curriculum change efforts. We also explored the struggles and successes of attempts to diversify the curriculum in order to find parallels that EfS change agents can learn from.

This study was undertaken to examine the ways, and to what extent, boys and girls entering school have positioned themselves in relation to discourses about the environment and the implications this has for environmental education. I was inspired by Davies (1989) and Davies' and Banks' (1992) studies of the ways in which gender was constituted through the discursive practices of girls and boys and the ‘… political implications of the ways in which children are constrained by the dominant gender discourses …’ (Davies and Banks 1992, p. 2). I was also influenced by the current ecofeminist scholarship that looks at the political implications of the perceived right in Western cultures to dominate the non-human.

While I am anxious to avoid labelling the children as masculine and feminine based on their biological sex it is interesting to note that in my study of young children's perceptions of environment the discourses of male ‘culture’ ascendancy were more often taken up by boys, while the marginalised discourses that opposed culture as ascendant were more often taken up by girls. I am concerned with the implications of these gendered constructions of environment for girls, nature and environmental education reform.

Sustainability is a contested concept. Whilst the “triple bottom line” is sometimes used to describe the economic, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability, there are differing conceptions of what this notion implies. There are nevertheless some recurring themes that are outlined in this paper. There has also been some convergence in notions of “sustainable communities” and “healthy communities”. Balanced integration of economic, social and ecological dimensions remains a challenge for policy-makers, educators and community members.

Australia regularly suffers floods, droughts, bushfires and cyclones, which are predicted to increase and/or intensify in the future due to climate change. While school-aged children are among the most vulnerable to natural disasters, they can be empowered through education to prepare for and respond to disasters. School disaster education is essential to raise awareness among students and their communities and to encourage preparedness action. However, evaluation of Australian school-based disaster education programs has been limited. This article presents the results of a critical literature review of peer-reviewed publications on disaster education programs in Australian schools conducted through Scopus, A Plus, PsycINFO and the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) databases. Results highlight a significant dearth of studies examining disaster education programs in Australian schools. Recommendations for future research are proposed to bridge knowledge gaps and establish disaster preparedness resources that support children's knowledge and preparedness for disasters.

Discourse in the Australian Journal of Environmental Education of the last ten years has not addressed a pedagogy that draws on and reflects the natural history of the continent. Australia is an ecological and species diverse country that has experienced substantial environmental change as a consequence of European settlement. Australians have historically been, and increasingly are, urban people. With high rates of urban residency in a substantially modified landscape, what role might environmental education play in assisting Australians to develop understandings of the natural history of specific Australian places? While Australia has a rich history of people observing, comparing and recording the natural history of the continent, environmental education discourse in this journal has not addressed how pedagogy might be informed by a focus on natural history. This paper draws attention to this gap in Australian environmental education discourse and offers some thoughts and ideas for a pedagogy based on the natural history of specific places.

The process of intergenerational influence has important implications for environmental educators who wish to promote discussion about and action for the environment beyond the bounds of the school classroom. This paper examines the process of intergenerational influence in environmental education through a quantitative analysis of the factors influencing the frequency and nature of intergenerational discussion. The relationships among eight sets of variables are explored, including student and parent environmental orientation, the quality of family communication, program features, student enjoyment of the program, student learning through the program, and the frequency and nature of discussion of the program. The findings are discussed both in terms of their implications for environmental educators and for future research in the field.

The growing emphasis on sustainability in school curricula in Australia reflects international trends in education. Teacher education is a vital strategy for the incorporation of Education for Sustainability (EfS) in school curricula. Research to identify drivers and barriers to embedding EfS across a primary teacher education program in an Australian university is the focus of this article. Using a mixed methods approach, data were gathered through document and unit outline audits, a self-efficacy pre-service teacher (PST) survey, and staff and PST focus group interviews. The audits identified a foundation of EfS principles and content across units. Lecturers identified societal and personal drivers and blockers to embedding EfS across the course, with lack of time considered the biggest blocker, which is also consistent with existing school-based research on the nature of teachers' work. PST responses described successful learning outcomes; however, confidence towards teaching sustainability varied. PST reported that the incorporation of community networks in their course provided enriching experiences. Embedding EfS involves values, sustainability concerns and appropriate knowledge and skills. Successful implementation will depend on the development of appropriate understandings of teacher educators.

In these regenerative times prompted by the Anthropocene, Aboriginal voices are situated to draw on ancient wisdom for local learning and to share information across the globe as ecological imperative for planetary wellbeing. In this paper, postqualitative research foregrounds the sentient nature of life as ancestral power and brings the vitality of co-becoming as our places into active engagement. It enables coloniality to surface and reveals how it sits in our places and lives, in plain sight but unnoticed because of its so-called common sense. Postqualitative research relates with ancient knowledges in foregrounding Country’s animacy and presence, revealing the essence of time as non-linear, cyclical and perpetual. In this way, we are places, weather and climate, not separate. Postqualitative research also relates with ancient knowledge in illustrating Country as agentic and time as multiple, free of constraint and directly involved in our everyday. Country is active witness in the lives of Aboriginal peoples, here always. This is a strong basis for decolonisation. We all have a responsibility to listen, to help create a new direction for the future in the present time.

This paper addresses the question of how Australian environmental education (EE) research was conceptualised and contextualised in the decade of the 1990s. Sixty seven articles published by Australian authors in this journal from 1990–2000 were analysed to examine the conceptualisation of this research using an inductive emergent categorisation approach and a five frames model (Reid, in press) of key arguments and debates in the field. Contextualisation was explored in relation to specialist areas, scale and environmental dimensions of focus. A search for a coherent and distinct meaning of of this research was explored by making comparisons with international environmental education research during a similar time period that was the subject of two reviews. These analyses revealed that Australian environmental education research can be characterised as questioning and challenging prevailing (at the time) environmental education orthodoxies by critiquing and theorising the conceptual and curriculum framing of environmental education, most commonly from a socially critical and global perspective. Specialist areas and educational sectors that received little attention are also discussed.

There is a paucity of research in Australia on the nature of young people's attitudes, knowledge and actions. This paper reports on the findings from one such study of Australian high school students. The research was based on a survey of 5688 students from Melbourne and Brisbane. These young people identified protection of the environment as the most important problem In Australia and strongly supported the belief systems characteristic of an ‘environmental paradigm’. Despite this, the majority displayed relatively low levels of knowledge of key environmental concepts, and were involved in little environmental action-taking outside of household activities. Differences are reported between: students from Melbourne and Brisbane; girls and boys; high performing and general schools; and teachers and students. The paper concludes with a discussion of some implications for environmental education in Australia.

Increasing attention is being given to the inclusion of Education for Sustainability in pre-service teacher education. However, there is little research to explain why and how early-career teachers include Education for Sustainability in their work, or how teacher education providers can encourage and support them to do this. Through analysis of two interviews this paper examines the way in which a pre-service primary school teacher interprets her role in Education for Sustainability. Her personal reflections on the manner in which her life experiences, including her own schooling, have influenced her intentions as teacher are explored. Her university teacher education program in Education for Sustainability and her teaching internship experience also appear to have influenced her teaching goals. The profile presented in this paper outlines her intentions and sense of identity as teacher and how that has developed and is expressed. Conclusions centre on the relevance of her reflections for education for sustainability in pre-service teacher education. In particular, her example demonstrates how the development of pedagogical content knowledge relevant to Education for Sustainability during the pre-service years can play an integral part in an individual's decision-making when teaching.

In this essay I suggest that the practice of environmental education research might be improved by efforts to identify what Jon Wagner (1993, p. 16) calls the ‘blank spots’ and ‘blind spots’ that configure the collective ignorance of environmental education researchers. In Wagner's terms, what we know enough to question but not answer are our blank spots; what we do not know well enough to even ask about or care about are our blind spots-areas in which existing theories, methods, and perceptions actually keep us from seeing phenomena as clearly as we might. By way of example, I argue that much research on significant life experiences does little to reduce ignorance in environmental education. I conclude by briefly appraising some strategies that might help environmental education researchers to recognise ways in which the field's dominant research traditions and models produce partialities and distortions.

A major challenge for researchers and urban planning practitioners is how to obtain meaningful and influential contributions on urban and environmental planning activities from children and young people within the constraints of adult policy and practice. The key elements of this challenge concern traditional methods of communication between ‘experts’ and children and young people in rationalist planning settings, versus emerging research in relation to children's and young people's views and agency around civic participation. This article will address the work of a number of researchers and practitioners who have grappled with the inherent tenions of making planning practice and urban design more inclusionary, while facilitating and respecting children and young people's civic participation. This article also advocates the advantages and strengths of their participation in planning and urban design processes.With a focus on two exploratory programs developed by the authors in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria, this article will demonstrate how the sharing of knowledge and skills between planning and design professionals and children and young people can lead to more meaningful and influential contributions from them. The programs examined were informed by leading practice both in Australia and internationally, and have assisted to develop children and young people's sense of spatial competence, and their confidence and efficacy in their local environment, contributing ultimately to their wellbeing. They have also supported the establishment of youth leadership groups with the confidence and skills to contribute to ongoing local government urban and environmental planning activities.

At the inaugural national conference of the Australian Association for Environmental Education in Adelaide (October, 1980), it was clear that multiple interpretations existed of the key descriptor ‘environmental education’. At that conference, at earlier international conferences (e.g., Tbilisi, 1977) and in recent Australian curriculum materials (e.g., The Curriculum Development Centre's (CDC's) Environmental Education Project), the terms education about the environment, education in the environment, and education for the environment were and have been used to capture the various interpretations of environmental education. An explication of these terms is offered in the Environmental Education Project (CDC, 1981), and in Fensham (1979).

These terms seems to embrace the various facets to emerge in discourse about environmental education — they can, perhaps, be taken as representing the accepted dimensions of environmental 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.