ERIC Number: EJ1000701
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Dec
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0814-0626
EISSN: N/A
Mapping Sustainability Initiatives across a Region: An Innovative Survey Approach
Somerville, Margaret; Green, Monica
Australian Journal of Environmental Education, v28 n2 p65-77 Dec 2012
The project of mapping sustainability initiatives across a region is part of a larger program of research about place and sustainability education for the Anthropocene, the new geological age of human-induced planetary changes (Zalasiewicz, Williams, Steffen, & Crutzen, 2010). The study investigated the location, nature and type of sustainability initiatives in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. The purpose of the study was to trial the development of a place-based survey questionnaire to map initiatives in education for sustainability across a region in order to understand how they emerge in local places. The data from the survey was interpreted using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. This article focuses on the qualitative thematic analysis across all survey responses and assesses the findings in order to determine the usefulness of the approach. The study found that a regional place-based approach enables a different conceptualisation of the possibilities of a cross-sectoral interconnected system of sustainability education. The nonformal and informal sectors are important sites of innovation and have great potential to enrich the pedagogies of education for sustainability in the formal sector.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Sustainable Development, Educational Innovation, Environmental Education, Environmental Research, Educational Research, Research Methodology, Place Based Education, Regional Characteristics, Maps, Surveys, Questionnaires, Qualitative Research, Statistical Analysis, Pilot Projects
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A