I am enormously grateful to the readers of this journal for their kind attention to this work over the past 30 years. Conceptual analysis, the subject of my article, is primarily about clarifying meanings of those key concepts that are central to our collective work. Given the number of nebulous concepts in environmental education, and in education in general, this work has never ceased to be important — though, sadly, it is often neglected. Take, for example, a concept currently in vogue, social learning. Two ways of approaching this sometimes fuzzy concept would be, first, for authors to provide a clear articulation of the term, in their own view. What exactly does the idea of social learning involve for an author, and what are the implications for its use in the particular context in which it is used? This is a lot like clarifying one's own assumption about a concept for the benefit of the author and reader alike, and something we should be able to expect from all authors. Second, researchers can analyse the scope of a concept's usage within a body of literature, such as Rodela (2012) has done with social learning. This kind of analysis can provide a kind of heuristic for other researchers to navigate the extant usage of a key concept, and to point in future directions.

Over the last decade, a growing number of universities have committed to ensuring that sustainability is integral to higher education with the intent of preparing eco-literate graduates who can make positive contributions to the sustainability of the environment. With particular consideration for the increasingly internationalised teaching environment of many higher education institutions, this study sought to explore how academics’ conceptions of teaching sustainability might differ across disciplines. This study builds upon the seminal work of Reid and Petocz (2006), Cotton, Bailey, Warren, and Bissell (2009) and Cotton, Warren, Maiboroda, and Bailey (2007), who explored the views of academics across a range of disciplines not traditionally associated with sustainability. This study extends their research by specifically identifying academics from a variety of disciplines who might be considered experts in the field of sustainability.

The study takes a constructivist view of ‘conceptions’ that are developed through one's experiences, beliefs and interactions with community. The theoretical framing also identifies pedagogical approaches recommended in the fields of sustainability and intercultural education, and establishes eco-literacy and environmental ethics as integral to one's conceptions of sustainability.

This research applied a multi case-study approach, including open-ended interview questions with participants from four different faculties of Monash University, namely: Science; Business and Economics; Education; and Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. All four participants were selected on the basis of the synopsis of the unit they taught overtly stating that sustainability-related content was included in the syllabus, and thus might be defined as experts in the teaching of sustainability. The data was analysed using descriptive followed by interpretative coding, which ultimately identified six different components that might contribute to the participants’ conceptions about their teaching. These components included: discipline; conceptions of sustainability; ethical position; pedagogical approach; approach to intercultural education; and approach to eco-literacy.

The findings of the study conclude that there were likely to be disciplinary differences in the academics’ conceptions of teaching sustainability. While there was no evidence of a disciplinary link to the academics’ understanding of what sustainability is, the research did appear to support a correlation between an academic's previous education and their ethical position. Furthermore, the current discipline of their unit appeared to strongly reflect their pedagogical approach to teaching sustainability. The research also highlights that, while there are clearly some innovative teaching strategies being utilised, there is room for more transformational learning to be included in syllabus design. Additionally, as the number of unit outlines that overtly referred to sustainability was surprisingly low, and not all sustainability-related units seemed to demonstrate a comprehensive approach to the teaching of eco-literacy, questions are raised about whether all students are actually engaging in sustainability education as signatories of the Talloires Declaration have pledged.

The significant contribution of this study is represented by its implications for the development of curriculum and syllabus design in the field of sustainability education. Having highlighted the potential disciplinary differences between approaches to teaching sustainability, a range of stakeholders, including university faculties and individual academics, can review how sustainability education is taught in their curriculum and address areas that require greater attention to ensure students receive a comprehensive exposure to the skills and knowledge required to develop eco-literacy.

As one of the contributors to the first issue of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education (AJEE) in 1984 (and to a further seven issues between 1991 and 2009), and as a sometime member of its editorial board (1991–1994) and the editorial collective that edited four issues (1999–2002), I have been privileged to witness at close hand its development from infancy to maturity. My particular focus in this brief reflection on the journal's development is on the research methodologies that it has privileged or diminished. In the interests of brevity, I focus in detail only on some tendencies that emerged in the first few issues, with the remainder being dealt with via selective references and impressions.

Significant progress has been made with respect to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in tertiary education institutions, particularly universities. There are also examples of ways in which sustainability has been incorporated into secondary schools and curricula, but with varying levels of success. ESD that has been incorporated in secondary schools has been shown to engage students and give more context to the curriculum, as well as enable students to develop the critical thinking required to tackle the big issues that face the planet now and into the future.

In the United Kingdom, while some aspects of sustainability have been introduced into the secondary school curriculum, they are often merged into other subjects and do not attract as much attention as traditional subjects. Furthermore, sustainability emphasis varies between schools, exam boards and teachers, leading to differing levels of understanding among teenagers. As a result, it could be argued that some young people fail to engage with global issues, which could be contributing towards the lower rates of young people voting in the United Kingdom. Promoting sustainable development, and how engineering can contribute towards it, could also potentially help reverse the decline in engineering student entries at universities, by attracting more interest to the engineering field. Thus, the question is raised as to how sustainability knowledge can be improved among teenagers.

The research investigated the scale and quality of ESD at secondary schools in the United Kingdom and recommended a range of solutions to improve sustainability teaching and thinking among teenagers. A range of research tools were used, including a literature and curriculum review, interviews and surveys with teachers and students, and a role-play case study.

The research involved a survey being conducted with 475 UK secondary school students aged 12–18 years. The survey was conducted to determine the current level of sustainability understanding of the students, where they learned about it, their preferences relating to issues facing the Earth, and how they think sustainability teaching could be improved. Surveys were purposely open ended, and teachers were instructed not to give prompts prior to the survey, to enable an accurate reflection of students’ knowledge. Results of the surveys varied across age group, school, overall attainment levels of students and exam boards. In general, results showed that while students are interested and knowledgeable about current issues, their level of understanding of sustainability is poor to moderate, and they want it to be taught in more subjects.

A gap analysis was then conducted with a curriculum review, survey results and interviews with teachers as inputs. The aim of the analysis was to determine the difference between a desirable level of knowledge and teaching of sustainability, and current practice. Among other things, the analysis indicated that interactive learning would be beneficial, and thus a role play, set in Cambridge and covering environmental, social and economic aspects, was designed and run at two schools in Cambridge. An element of competition was included, as well as a relatively open set of rules, to invoke creative solutions. Observation during the game indicated engaged students. Feedback from students indicated that the game was a fun and useful learning tool. Feedback from teachers was also positive, indicating that interactive teaching tools, like role plays, class debates and field experiments, can be very valuable towards teaching students about the complexities of sustainability.

After the role plays, the students were surveyed with identical questions to the initial survey. Results were compared, and sustainability knowledge and the ability to identify environmental issues was seen to increase significantly, far more so than originally expected. This increase in knowledge was highlighted by the students themselves in subsequent feedback sessions.

Finally, steps were proposed to improve sustainability education that could be implemented by schools and teachers or at the UK National Curriculum level:

• • a ‘Sustainability Week’ or sustainability short course to be run at early secondary school, with the aim to give students a holistic overview of sustainability;

• • aspects of sustainability, including real-world examples, to be included in all subjects and lead on from the short course;

• • interactive learning tools to be strongly encouraged and made available to all teachers;

• • training and support to be provided to teachers to improve understanding and ability to teach sustainability;

• • extra-curricular sustainability activities to be offered at all schools.

The process of researching ‘Children's conceptions of nature’ was spontaneous — a story in itself! Having taught in Victorian primary schools in the 1970s, after 15 years in teacher education in the university sector, I felt it was important to ‘return’ to the classroom — to walk the talk! Each Friday afternoon for an hour or so, I met with Year 6 children to ‘chat’. In the mid-1990s, ‘philosophy for children’ was emerging. My doctoral, completed in the early 1990s, focused on philosophies of education and environmental ethics. We chatted a lot in class — about anything. One puzzled kid asked, ‘Where does space start and finish?’ Another, ‘Are not running spikes a way to enhance sport performance?’

Documenting a history of environmental education in Australia within an international context has been a research focus (some would say obsession) of mine since 1974, when I undertook a ‘needs for environmental education’ survey for the Curriculum Development Centre. Given the human-centred issues that launched the field (clean air and water, population), it was disturbing to see how it became characterised as nature focused from the 1990s onwards, to distinguish it from education for sustainable development (ESD). As we now look post-decade, we find that ESD is not yet integrated into mainstream education and sustainable development agendas, and the need to promote global citizenship is being added to the agenda. Most of the UNESCO priority action areas from 2014 look very familiar: policy support, whole-institution approaches, educators and local communities. The fifth area is Youth, a category that emerged in its own right for the first time in Agenda 21. Having been in this historical space for so long, I expect I will continue to document a history of the field for as long as I can, to see where the journey leads us.

In 1984, the Australian Journal of Environmental Education commenced. At that time I was 6 years old, in my first year of primary school at Tieri State School in Central Western Queensland. I knew nothing of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education (AJEE), or environmental education for that matter (at least not in a formal sense). In many respects, I was perhaps part of the intended audience (the future generation). As was the case with many children of my generation (Generation X, on the cusp of Generation Y), environmental education at school was largely incidental. Having grown up in a mining town (from 1983 to 1991), environmental conservation was certainly not a welcomed perspective. All the same though, my childhood was free, untamed and unsupervised in the Australian bush. It was that pastime or playtime where my environmental consciousness began its emergence.

This article documents the efforts of three women who undertook environmental action in their respective schools in the late 1990s. Two young women pushed through a number of barriers, including peer and family pressure, to create a recycling program. A principal defended her teachers to give students space for environmental learning within school grounds. One of the barriers they encountered was a persistent cultural discourse, through which those who embodied an ethics of care were positioned pejoratively as ‘greenies’. In response, the women positioned themselves as ‘not greenies’, in order to legitimise their environmental work. Ten years later, Neus Evans and I revisited this phenomenon (see Whitehouse & Evans, 2010). Dedicated educators, who saw their task as educating young people for their future, were again careful to constitute themselves as ‘not greenies’, while they innovated sensitive and sensible action in far northern schools. I remain interested in how cultural discourses both enable and act as barriers to sustainability practice, and in how environmental educators find themselves negotiating certain discourses in order to act.

Have you heard of the White-footed Rabbit Rat, or the Christmas Island Pipistrelle? The White-footed Rabbit Rat was thought to be widespread in south-east Australia but became extinct within 3 decades of European colonisation (Tzaros, 2005). The Christmas Island Pipistrelle, a micro bat, is probably the most recent species to become extinct in Australia (Flannery, 2012).