The growing interest in outdoor early childhood education, even in countries with a weak environmental tradition such as Portugal, tends to be associated with a concern over the alienation between urban/Western children and nature. While educational projects in nature criticize this separation, they still maintain a bad culture vs good nature…

This article presents Family Nature Tours as a participatory method for exploring children's human and more-than-human-nature interactions within the context of the family. Through equipping children with wearable cameras during family-led outdoor activities, this qualitative study provides insight on what non-rural Alaskan families consider…

This study explores how fieldwork can contribute to the development of ecological literacy and draws on actor-network theory and science studies which imply an understanding of agency as being distributed. The aim is to explore the consequences of the human-nonhuman encounters in fieldwork practice for the growth of ecological literacy. The…

Children's experiences with nature may develop ecological literacy and enhance their psychological well-being. However, a limited understanding of how the village landscape has functional impacts on the children's play behaviour and perceptual performances can influence ecological literacy. This study investigated children's preferences in the…

Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous methodologies and tools, providing application for learning and teaching field. On the basis of the widespread use of wireless devices and mobile computing technology, this study proposes a context-aware plant ecology learning system (CAPELS) based on context-aware technology; adapting deep neural networks…

This study was carried out within a project to promote health and ecosystem services, 'the benefits people obtain from ecosystems', in preschools in Sweden. The paper applies the concept 'affordance' to capture the functional meaning that children assign to different material aspects of their schoolyards before and after the installation of…

This paper draws on a research study that builds on a long and rich history of research in environmental education focusing on the value of learning through everyday experiences with the more than human. This study specially focused on very young children's experiences of ecologies and explored the unique opportunities sensorially rich bodily…

Currently there is no urban forestry and natural resources curriculum available to Louisiana K-12 students. In addition, there has not been any assessment of the perception, willingness of teachers and or students in Louisiana for Urban Forestry. This study assessed the above gaps in urban forestry and natural resources education and addressed the…

This emergent field of ecopedagogy gives little conceptual, methodological, and empirical consideration to the significance of spatial and temporal elements of environmental learning. This article focuses on both spatial and temporal components of three ecopedagogic instances, examining experiences from participant's perspective. Specific…

People's knowledge about nature, their interest in nature, their nature experiences, and their values and emotions regarding nature are factors that promote people's positive views on environmental issues and sustainability. Knowing the variation and patterns in teachers' and student teachers' views is an essential step in considering the ways in…

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the nature education project on the attitudes and awareness levels of secondary school students towards the environment. The research is based on an experimental model which is a type quantitative research approaches and the population consisting of the students studying at a secondary school…

In this paper I share my understandings of an elective outdoor environmental education course, a significant component of which was a field school. I helped develop this course at the Canadian university where I work as an academic, with the field school conducted on the island of Kaua'i in Hawaii. The paper describes the university field school…

Throughout the United Kingdom's (UK's) primary science curriculum, there are numerous opportunities for teachers to use the farming industry as a rich and engaging real-world context for science learning. Teachers can focus on the animals and plants on the farm as subjects for children to learn about life processes. They can turn attention…

One of the standards for life science addressed in the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) is "Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics" (HS-LS2). A critical concept included in this core idea is biodiversity. To show competency, students are expected to design investigations, collect data, and…

It is no surprise that many environmental education programs include outdoor experiences as a foundational part of their curriculum; after all, who better to teach ecological lessons than nature itself? In contrast, there are inherent challenges to teaching environmental education while restricted inside a classroom. The average student currently…