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 study of Naessian ecocentrism and anthropocentrism in three environment club coordinators/science teachers, their colleagues and some parents at three secondary schools uses deep ecology and relational fields as primary frameworks for open-ended interviews. The findings reveal new insights into the affective, cognitive and behavioural characteristics of coordinators who enhance environmental education in their schools. The work presents preliminary data on leadership among sustainability coordinators who run environment clubs. It fills a gap in the literature by showing that in addition to environmental educators requiring knowledge and attitudes regarding sustainability practices, affective qualities like connectedness and love for the environment may be important to their success as sustainability exemplars. Teachers emerge as sustainability exemplars in a relational field to implement sustainability across the secondary curriculum, galvanise students, teachers and parents to connect to the Earth, and help students, teachers and parents move away from anthropocentrism. Findings suggest that if schools commit resources and time to the coordinator’s role, students experience significant benefits by becoming closer to the Earth and more empowered to act for the environment in ways consistent with deep ecology.

There is growing pressure from the public health sector, government, environmental, medical and scientific fields to teach young people about food. However, little is known about pre-service teachers’ preparation in this area. This article addresses this gap by providing a case study of one approach to food education, which was purposefully designed to bring together two fields — health education and education for sustainability (EfS) — in teacher education in Victoria, Australia. This article outlines the ways in which this approach has the potential to challenge the conventions of both fields and ‘spaces’ of health (first space) and sustainability (second space), and gave rise to a possible ‘third space’ (Soja, 1996). This article uses data collected from Promoting Health Education, a 10-week course designed for generalist primary school pre-service teachers. It also utilises reflections from pre-service teachers and teacher educators (also the authors) to explore how they navigated first, second and third spaces. In doing so, the authors examine some of the learning potentials and difficulties within third spaces, including: designing third spaces; wrestling with the dominance of first space; complexities of second space; and questioning what might be lost and gained through the design of third spaces.

The rich and innovative ideas of quantum physicist and feminist theorist Karen Barad have much to offer environmental educators in terms of practical theories for teaching and learning. This article shares insights gained from a facilitated conversation at the Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) Conference Research Symposium, and offers an introduction to Barad’s theories for environmental educators. At this time of challenging planetary imperatives, environmental education is increasingly called upon to contribute to students’ understanding of connectedness, and Barad’s theory of agential realism provides a way to think about, articulate and engage with connectedness as inherent within the world rather than something we need to create. By considering entanglement as a fundamental state, we understand that separateness is not the original state of being. This shift in perspective supports a subtle yet powerful approach to knowledge, communication and collaboration, understanding difference as integral within the world’s entangled becoming. The convened conversation sought to explore Barad’s thinking by defining and discussing the concepts of agential realism, intra-action, material-discursivity, phenomena and diffraction. Barad’s ideas were used to collectively explore what it means to be intraconnected and entangled in today’s world, and specifically how these concepts and experiences relate to our work and lives as environmental educators and researchers.

As health threats appear with increasing regularity in our food systems and other food crises loom worldwide, we look to rural areas to provide local and nutritious foods. Educationally, we seek approaches to food studies that engage students and their communities and, ultimately, lead to positive action. Yet food studies receive only generic coverage and tangential attention within existing curricula. This article, reporting a pilot study located at Canada's geographic and cultural edge, focuses on local knowledge about past and present food practices. Objectives are to test pedagogies that bring all students greater opportunities for engagement and learning about their physical environment and food history, and that can be applied to rural and, with modifications, urban settings. Three critical, place-base pedagogical approaches — experiential, discovery and arts-based — to classroom teaching and learning are discussed, as well as implications for educational leadership, teacher training and curriculum development.

School gardens provide a unique learning environment for English as Second Language (ESL) students; students are able to engage in experiential outdoor learning that will enhance in-class lessons. This study evaluated the effects of school gardening on ESL students' learning about good nutrition. Data collected indicated that there were positive gains in student learning and feelings of belonging to the school community. Indications from the study suggest that teacher attitudes play a big part in ESL student engagement in the learning process for environmental education. Garden-enhanced lessons about nutrition provided experiential learning for ESL students that effectively supported in-class learning.

Constructivism, as a set of theories about how learners learn, has been an important discourse in the educational research literature for a number of years. Interestingly, it has been far more visible in science education research than in environmental education research. This article considers conceptual change theory within constructivism as a contested concept, outlines differing expressions of constructivism in science education and environmental education, and argues for approaches to environmental education that adopt socially constructivist perspectives with respect to the character of the subject matter content as well as to learners' apprehension of such content. In considering implications for research, this perspective is juxtaposed with a recent United States Education Act, which prescribes a far more objectivist approach to educational research and which serves as a reminder that research itself is a powerful factor in shaping how we construct the nature of subject matter, learning and the implications of these for teaching practice.

National and global food systems are beset by intersecting and mutually reinforcing crises of public and ecological health. The locus of these crises resides primarily in the excessive concentration of corporate power and control. Deploying a Gramscian theory of politics as a contribution to the ongoing development of a critical food-based environmental education pedagogy, this article argues that transformative change requires the mass exercise of food citizenship directed towards the realisation of a socially just and ecologically sustainable food system, as contemplated by the principles of food sovereignty. The article argues further that food citizenship in turn presupposes levels of engagement and motivation that will only come from processes of transformative learning and critical consciousness-raising through an emerging form of environmental education: critical food systems literacy.

Theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of education and activism in the Anthropocene will be enriched by an embrace of non-hegemonic thinking. Lakshmi Ashram, a small girls’ school in the Himalayan mountains of Uttarakhand, India, provides an object lesson in thinking differently: in an imbrication of education/research/activism. This article acknowledges a continuing lack of attention in the literature to local, cultural and place-based diversity in transformative learning for sustainable community. However, the central story in this article is not one of critique, but rather one of a Himalayan approach to creating the pedagogical conditions for transformation in thinking and behaviour, in a connected socio-ecological community. Writing across an intercultural space, the two authors describe their ethnographic methodologies, exploring the long-term impact of a Lakshmi Ashram education on students and inhabiting the pedagogical experience of the school. A seamless flow of socio-material practice between pedagogy, research and activism in the school’s educational approach speaks to a Gandhian philosophy-in-action that is worth considering as a contribution to global educational praxis in the Anthropocene. In telling this tale of one small school’s pedagogical philosophy, the authors aim not towards ideological posturing, but towards creating further openings in thinking differently in education.

This paper documents a case study involving a Perth primary school accompanied on its sustainability journey by Millennium Kids Inc, a local not-for-proft community organisation. Tension between the school's sustainability focus, its prestige as an elite private school and a “lucky country” mentality frames the Australian-ness of this environmental education story. Data draws from interviews conducted with teachers, the deputy principal, principal, and CEO of Millennium Kids. School staff reported that Millennium Kids' collaborative approach connected the school with community groups and families in meaningful ways, provided support to staff, and infuenced curriculum integration by engaging the student voice. Challenges in the school related to managing expectations from families, leadership that fosters shared responsibility, and teachers' efforts to integrate sustainability across learning areas. A pattern of sustainability education was established in the school but these challenges could encumber the longevity, integration and support for these initiatives in the future.

As lead agency of the DESD, UNESCO focuses on partnerships to activate networks and projects in support of ESD. Established committees in Asia and the Pacific are enhancing coordination and cooperation throughout the region. At present, the focus is on mobilising the media, private sector and youth as key stakeholders in achieving ESD. UNESCO recognises the value of linkages and is linking to other programs such as teacher education and supporting existing institutions working in related fields of ESD. UNESCO is involved in a collaborative project to develop monitoring and reporting mechanisms for the DESD in Asia-Pacific. Awareness-raising is increasing understanding of ESD and encouraging active involvement of partners across the region.

In most Victorian schools outdoor education has meant the weekend bushwalk or the end of year camp. It has been extra-curricula. But that is changing.

Outdoor education appears poised to achieve subject status is Victoria. It is included in official curriculum developments and is served by recognised specialist tertiary courses.

Outdoor education has been distinguished from physical education by its focus on environmental education, and a converse argument probably applies. But is the environmental education which occurs in outdoor education distinguished by anything other than an association with adventure activities? After all, field trips are not a new idea.

This paper argues that the distinctiveness of outdoor education as a form of environmental education is derived from its physical and conceptual isolation from schooling. Conceptual isolation provides the opportunity to construct powerfully affective forms of de-schooled environmental education.

The ways in which an outdoor education context can provide different situational constraints from those existing in schools or other institutions are outlined. An action research project is used to exemplify ways in which teachers might reconceive education within those new constraints.

The paper concludes that outdoor education can allow powerful forms of environmental education to develop, but that a technocratic rationalisation of the field associated with its increasing institutionalisation threatens to negate that potential.

This paper presents a gender inclusive curriculum model for environmental studies at the senior secondary level. The curriculum model is based on three sources of information about gender and environmental studies: ecofeminist theory concerning Western constructions of the humanity–nature relation, socialist feminist critique of academic and professional practice in the environmental disciplines, and an analysis of syllabus documents produced for senior secondary environmental studies courses in South Australia and Victoria. The model induces recommendations concerning the representation of the concept ‘environment’ in the syllabus, the portrayal of women in the syllabus, and the pedagogic and assessment strategies promoted in the syllabus.

Drawing on a posthuman lens we walk — with Deborah Bird Rose and her conceptual framing of shimmer. We explore shimmering as incorporating a sensorial richness, as beauty and grandeur, as constantly in flux, moving between past, future and back again. Shimmering has potentiality in a posthuman context in its encompassing of spiritual and ancestral energies and illumination of the human (settler) story of exceptionalism. By theorising shimmer with this posthuman lens, we acknowledge and honour the eco-ethico consciousness raised by Australian ecophilosophers and ecofeminists such as Deborah Bird Rose and Val Plumwood, and the social ecologists who have continued to walk with them. In order to disrupt anthropocentricism and present a moral wake-up call that glows from dull to brilliance in these precarious times, we bring to environmental education the potential of holding the shimmering past tracings of theory along with us on our journeys.

Current methods of agricultural and environmental education for indigenous farmers in Papua New Guinea (PNG) fail to provide high level engagement. Indigenous knowledge (IK) forms the basis of natural resource management, agriculture and health of farmers in PNG, yet its value to agricultural and environmental education in PNG is rarely recognised. The argument made in this article is that valuing indigenous knowledge will enhance agricultural and environmental education. The purpose of this empirical study was to assess the application of a knowledge management model in understanding indigenous knowledge to enhance agricultural and environmental education. This article focuses on agricultural and environmental indigenous knowledge and culture in two villages in the Western Highlands of PNG. Participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and apprentice observations were methods to collect data from small-scale indigenous farmers. The study found that as farmers shift to cash crops, IK is devalued against Western knowledge. The study also found that trust, culture, and social barriers limit sharing of knowledge. The article concludes with recommendations for future agricultural and environmental education in the PNG highlands.

This article presents an evaluation of a new upper secondary Earth and Environmental Science (EES) course in Western Australia. Twenty-seven EES teachers were interviewed and 243 students were surveyed about the degree of difficulty, relevance and interest of EES topics in the course. The impact of the course on students’ views about EES topics was also explored. It was found that more than two thirds of the students chose to study EES because of personal interest. However, students perceived that some Earth science topics were difficult, boring or irrelevant. A lack of content knowledge from lower secondary science contributed to these perceptions. Nevertheless, teachers and students perceived that their understanding and attitudes towards environmental science topics such as climate change was improved. With the advent of a new Australian senior secondary science curriculum that includes EES, the implications of the findings for curriculum development and teacher professional development are discussed.

This article describes an interpretive study that evaluated a new subject in teacher education called ‘Education for Sustainable Development’. The study evaluated the subject for its ability to prepare pre-service teachers for their roles as environmental educators. We used perspectives in place-based pedagogy and critical thinking to underpin the subject design and our analysis. Data sources include instructor journals, planning documents, interviews with students and student thinking books. Interpretive analysis of the data corpus was a collaborative process that involved both subject instructors and students who took the subject. Themes that emerged from the research were centred around: (1) how the students built connections between primary school education and environmental education; (2) how students developed action competence through the activities in the subject; (3) how students were challenged to think differently about themselves as educators; and, (4) how the subject design presented its own challenges for both instructors and students.

Sustainability is a Cross-Curriculum Priority (SCCP) in the Australian Curriculum and is intended to be integrated into teaching and learning where deemed appropriate by teachers. This article explores teachers’ knowledge, understanding, and beliefs about curriculum priorities and the situational context of teaching and learning in Queensland schools. In this article we discuss the ways in which teachers describe their relationship with sustainability education and the SCCP. Data were collected from interviews with 26 Queensland teachers, teaching across all year levels from early childhood to Year 12, as part of two different PhD research projects. Queensland teachers participating in both studies indicated strong support for the inclusion of sustainability within formal curriculum; however, this strong support did not translate into practice in most cases. As a result of curriculum and policy pressures, teachers indicated that despite their belief that Education for Sustainability (EfS) is important, few believe they have the time or support for teaching EfS. The current educational context teachers have described offers limited opportunity for teachers to integrate sustainability in ways that are meaningful and relevant to their students. The SCCP did not influence planning or teaching decisions, and many teachers were unaware of its existence. Data from both studies question the adequacy of current educational policy and curriculum documents for supporting teachers to engage with sustainability education.

This paper is an outgrowth of my work for the Bicentennial Australian Studies Schools Project (BASSP) for which I wrote the booklet, Education for the Australian Environment (Fien 1988). This was one of ten booklets on Australian Studies distributed to every primary and secondary school in Australia early in 1988. The purpose of Education for the Australian Environment was to provide guidelines for injecting an Australian Studies perspective into environmental education. In the final chapter of the first draft of the booklet I sought to provide a framework for the development of an environmental education policy through a process of curriculum inquiry at the individual school level.

In part, I was moved to include a framework for school level curriculum work in environmental education by concerns expressed by Gough (1987) and Robottom (1987a) about the value of centrally-developed policy statements on environmental education. While the 1977 Tbilisi Declaration urged UN member states to prepare policies “to introduce environmental concerns, activities and content into their education systems”, Gough and Robottom urged caution over the use of centralised policies as instruments for educational change. In summary, the reasons for their concern stemmed from the potential danger that centrally developed policies might foreclose debate over the nature, goals and practices of environmental education and, thus, supplant local innovations and variations in environmental education with uniform prescriptions. They also expressed concern that the hierarchical pattern of authority embedded in centralised curriculum decision making was inappropriate to environmental education and that it could easily lead to the deskilling and disempowerment of environmental educators at the grassroot levels.