This article addresses the teaching of Geography from the perspective of field classes in a theoretical methodological approach to be applied in traditional communities. Here, field classes are considered an active methodology that enhances students' understanding of reality, involving local knowledge. The ethnoknowledge of traditional communities…

Rapid assessments are useful methods for engaging stakeholders, standardizing monitoring activities and supporting later planning stages. This article proposes to extend rapid assessment methods into 'rapid environmental planning' and to use it for the education of planning professionals. For the assessment stage, the pressure-state-response model…

Ocean Literacy is a growing global education movement aimed at deepening and contextualising the human relationship with the ocean. While ocean topics are largely missing from UK school curricula, Ocean Literacy principles offer an opportunity for environmental educators to infuse their programmes with broader perspectives on the ocean, creating…

The complex environmental challenges humanity faces require citizens who are scientifically and environmentally literate. Many environmental education programs are situated in the field where students are immersed in their learning. These field-based activities are engaging but may lack opportunities for students to develop critical thinking and…

This study reviews the Ontario secondary school curriculum in light of recommendations made by the 2007 Bondar Report, "Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future." It analyzes curriculum expectations and enrollment data for the purpose of reporting upon and providing recommendations for place-based environmental education. The extent and…

This study describes how students' intuitions about sampling are informed by extended experiences in investigating local ecosystems. Elementary students in a rural/suburban district in the upper midwest spent a year conducting first-hand comparative field studies of nearby ponds, prairies, and forests. At the close of the term, we conducted…

There is currently a well-established belief among politicians, scholars and university representatives that educational systems can produce positive attitudes towards sustainable development (SD) among citizens. This article investigates whether Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in teacher education has effects on pre-service teachers'…

Over 3,900 trees on a university campus were inventoried by an instructor-led team of geography undergraduates in order to quantify the carbon sequestration associated with biomass growth. The setting of the project is described, together with its logistics, methodology, outcomes, and benefits. This hands-on project provided a team of students…

This study explored and documented students' responses to opportunities for collective knowledge building and collaboration in a problem-solving process within complex environmental challenges and pressing issues with various dimensions of knowledge and skills. Middle-school students ("n" =?16; age 14) and high-school students…

Following evolutionary theory and an agriculture model, ecosystem research has stressed bottom-up dynamics, implying that top wild predators are epiphenomenal effects of more basic causes. As such, they are assumed expendable. A more modern co-evolutionary and wilderness approach--trophic cascades--instead suggests that top predators, whose…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a ubiquitous problem-based learning system (UPBLS) on students' question-raising performance in field inquiry activities. An experiment was conducted on an elementary school natural science course. A total of 43 sixth and fifth grade elementary students divided into experienced and…

This article seeks to contribute to the idea of "posthumanist education" by unfolding an educational situation where an assemblage of two humans and 33 former battery hens is gathered to carry out a so-called cognitive bias experiment for two days. A Deleuzian repertoire is set in motion to configure the dynamics of hens intervening in…

Two field studies form the basis of this article. The major purposes of Study 1 were to examine significant life experiences affecting the cultivation of environmental activists in eastern Taiwan, and to reconstruct the life paths followed by those active people who engaged in effective environmental action. 40 usable autobiographical memories…

This paper presents findings from research into students' perceptions and experiences of geography fieldwork. The study focused on Year 9 students (13-14 years) from three state secondary schools in urban northern England. Geography fieldwork, depending on its conceptualisation and implementation, has the potential to provide students with a wide…

This project attempted to develop a baseline on which the community could assess its own local environment. The objectives of the study include developing a list of references and resources, developing an assessment model for community use, composing an environmental quality index, determining areas to be protected and persuading decision-making…