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Potentials for Critical, Community Engaged Place-Based Experiential Learning: Using a Campus Farm to Integrate the Environmental Studies Curriculum

By Jesse P. Van Gerven

Sustainability education is crucial for envisioning and enacting the changes necessary to solve the environmental polycrisis currently accelerating around the globe. The field of environmental studies is potentially well positioned to act as a catalyst for transforming both perceptions of and actions toward the more-than-human world. But too often the environmental studies curriculum presents issues of environment-society relations in siloed, disconnected, and atomized ways. What is needed are transformations to the standard environmental studies curriculum and pedagogy, which correct for the inappropriate siloing of issues, while also empowering students and all people to actively participate in the decisions that affect their lives. In this paper, I review and assess an effort to implement a place-based experiential learning (PBEL) module focused on local, sustainable agriculture in an Introduction to Environmental Studies course. I focus on the organization and execution of the PBEL module, as well as the measured impacts on students’ levels of civic engagement. In doing so, I show PBEL can be organized around the principles of community engaged critical research (CECR) with the explicit purpose of empowering individuals and communities by identifying and dismantling exploitive power structures. Finally, I argue this critical, community engaged place-based experiential learning approach needs to be further developed and assessed in a wider variety of institutional and disciplinary contexts.

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Environmental Literacy in Environmentally Themed Higher Education Courses

By Jordan A. King and Rebecca L. Franzen

Abstract: This study sought to determine the influence of environmentally themed higher education courses upon students’ self-perceptions of their environmental literacy. Past research has suggested mixed conclusions about the objectives, approaches, and impacts of environmental and sustainability education in higher education. This study assessed environmental literacy and the influence of pedagogical perspective and instructor emphasis in environmentally themed higher education courses. Using the Hollweg et al. (2011) framework for environmental literacy, the study assessed students’ self-perceptions of their environmental literacy in a pre- and post-test format. Data were analyzed using a paired samples t-test and one-way ANOVA with a Tukey HSD post-hoc test. The results of the study showed that environmentally themed higher education courses are having a significant influence on students’ self-perceptions of their environmental literacy. However, instructors seemed to emphasize behavior least of the four aspects of environmental literacy. These findings suggest that environmentally themed courses are having a strong impact, yet further integration of environmental education principles may be meaningful. This study clarifies the impact of environmentally themed higher education courses. The distinction between pedagogical perspectives delineates new understandings of the differences in environmental literacy change. This study serves as a ground for future research to build the implementation of environmental education in higher education.

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The Self System Drawing: Teaching a Sustainable Worldview through Creativity

By Elizabeth Meacham

A personal reflection, from the professors’ perspective, of an arts integrated learning tool created to teach systems concepts in college level environmental studies and sustainability courses.

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Boyer Plus: Field Study Courses for Sustainable Education

By Daniel Moscovici

The field study (or short-term study abroad) creates a successful hybrid of study abroad and field research. These short-term educational adventures (edu-ventures) give environmental or sustainability students opportunities to gain practical knowledge while traveling domestically or overseas. In addition, it presents the opportunity for both faculty and students to extend the traditional Boyer model of scholarship, a reputable professoriate model, by developing continuity. The field study fulfills the four pedagogical goals of the Boyer model: creating research opportunities (discovery); breaking down the silos of traditional academic departments (integration); acting as consultants on-site (application); and educating students beyond the faculty members’ expertise (teaching). In addition, these field studies fulfill a fifth goal: building relationships and transgressing time (continuity). The development of this Boyer Plus model from a field-study experience serves as a tremendous tool for colleges, universities and professors to build the opportunities and necessary pedagogical skills for both traditional and non-traditional students.

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