Adrienne Cachelin

Using the Significant Life Experience Framework to Inform Program Evaluation: The Nature Conservancy's Wings & Water Wetlands Education Program

Significant life experience research suggests that outdoor experiences foster proenvironmental outcomes. Time spent outdoors is more frequently identified as the source of proenvironmental behavior than is education, suggesting that cognition may be less important than affect. Yet, environmental education field programs are often evaluated on cognitive outcomes alone. The authors piloted a mixed-methods evaluation, measuring both cognitive and affective responses to a field education program. Quantitative responses suggest that field-based participants demonstrated greater cognitive understanding than classroom-based participants. Qualitative responses suggest that field programs foster different affective reactions than do classroom programs. These results have critical implications for field-based programming, classroom instruction, and evaluation.

Language Fouls in Teaching Ecology: Why Traditional Metaphors Undermine Conservation Literacy

We believe that the language commonly used in teaching actually hinders the creation of conservation literacy. We examined four frequently used ecology and environmental studies textbooks and considered the ways in which commonly used language can obscure or enhance an understanding of ecology and conservation. Specifically, we used the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (a.k.a. linguistic relativity) and framing theory to examine the approaches reflected in three elements of the texts: introductions and treatment of two key ecological concepts (matter cycling and energy). Language used in the texts contained implicit metaphors that portrayed nature as a resource; resisted ecological realities, such as the finite nature of matter and the loss of energy with each transformation; and fundamentally served to separate humans from nature. Although the basis of conservation literacy is understanding of the complexity of ecological systems, culturally based communication as exemplified in these texts does not encourage students or educators to recognize the feedback loops that clarify human membership in the ecosystem. Consequently, the language used to teach ecology perpetuates the idea that humans exist outside of its laws. With this paper, we hope to initiate a dialogue about how to retool the language used in teaching and communicating about ecology such that it resonates with, rather than undermines, conservation.

Disrupting neoliberal discourse in critical sustainability education: a qualitative analysis of intentional language framing

While education for sustainability is a critical task that is gaining ground in a plethora of educational contexts, it is frequently rendered ineffective in the face of neoliberal practice and discourse. Here we examine the pervasive impacts of neoliberalism on education for sustainability, looking specifically at discursive formations that shape our understandings of humans in and as nature. Throughout ecological texts, root metaphors carry forward specific cultural histories that serve neoliberal agendas by positioning nature as commodity and humans as consumers. We sought to systematically understand how manipulating a root metaphor in the creation of instructional texts might disrupt neoliberal discourse and foster critical sustainability. Using a thought-listing technique to explore student response patterns qualitatively allowed for insights into the power of discourse in educational contexts. Data support the notion that intentional framing may be a powerful tool in education for sustainability. We argue that language and discourse are necessary and effective grounds for change if sustainability is to take root.

Framing for sustainability: the impact of language choice on educational outcomes

Because what people do is not based entirely on what they know, the way educators frame sustainability concepts is critical. Framing influences recognized antecedents of pro-environmental behavior such as attitudes, and traditional educational outcomes such as critical thinking. Yet, because commonly used frames are based in metaphors that tend to portray nature as resource and resist ecological complexities, sustainability educators may be undermining their own goals. This paper makes the case for a promising new construct synthesized from the education and attitude literature, called critical elaboration, and examines the impact of framing on this variable. College student participants read texts portraying humans as either a part of nature (systems metaphor) or apart from nature (non-systems metaphor) in either an active or passive voice, then responded using a thought-listing technique. Frames employing a systems metaphor rather than a non-systems metaphor elicited significantly more critical elaboration, as did frames that employed active voice. Data suggest that education for sustainability requires thoughtful consideration of metaphor underlying message frames.

Affinity for Nature in Outdoor Programming: Theoretical Foundations, Scale Development, and Importance

The objectives of this study were a) to develop a youth Affinity for Nature Scale that can be used to document the affective outcomes of children participating in nature based programs; b) to review three relevant strains of literature informing the development of the scale: emotion theory, child development, and affinity for nature; and c) to review the importance of this scales utility in terms of the current state of childrens relationship with the natural world. The study outcomes include a field friendly instrument based on the emotion literature providing outdoor educators a reliable method to assess program outcomes aimed at connecting children to nature. A sample of 309 campers was recruited for the initial scale development. Content criterion and discriminant validity were assessed. The results showed there was adequate internal consistency and reliability for a 10 items a shorter 5 item scale. In addition, the paper gives a rationale for the utility of this scale based on current trends of human and environmental health. In response to the growing concerns of childhood obesity, emotional health, and decreases in environmental literacy and sensitivity camps, nature centers, park and recreation organizations, and public land agencies are increasingly tailoring their program offerings to provide opportunities for children to connect with nature. These educators and program planners need tools that are easy to administer in the field to evaluate affective outcomes for the youth in their programs.

Opportunity and Obligation: A Role for Outdoor Educators in the Sustainability Revolution

A primary educational challenge of the 21st century is to inspire students to become socially and ecologically conscientious citizens who are empowered, responsible members of the larger world. Outdoor educators and, in many ways, outdoor recreation as a broader field are well-suited to take the lead in this educational enterprise that requires transcending the dichotomy between people and nature to see ourselves in the Leopoldian tradition as plain members and citizens of a larger community of life. Drawing on the strengths of constructivism as a pedagogical approach, outdoor recreation as a pedagogical context, and the inherent compatibility of the big ideas of ecology and recreation, we assert that outdoor educators, specifically those involved with higher education at the curricular level, have both an opportunity and an obligation to be vanguards of the sustainability revolution.

Institutionalizing interdisciplinary sustainability curriculum at a large, research-intensive university: challenges and opportunities

As universities and colleges seek to integrate sustainability into a broad range of programs, degrees, and certificates, they must overcome traditional academic silos, disciplinary boundaries, and funding constraints. This requires an unprecedented level of curricular innovation, creative funding streams, and directed facilitation of cross-campus collaboration and communication. This article describes and analyzes recent efforts at the University of Utah to dramatically enhance interdisciplinary sustainability curriculum by utilizing a broad set of tools, including the creation of new faculty and staff positions, faculty learning communities, and special seminars; the development of new degrees and certificates; and the innovative changes in University structure and administration. The authors focus on the role of program coherence, administration, and ongoing support and assessment, as well as network building and systemic innovation that incentivize interdisciplinary sustainability teaching and curriculum development.

Critical sustainability: incorporating critical theories into contested sustainabilities

In the Anthropocene, an age where the Earth is most clearly defined by human impacts on the planet, there is growing pressure to find more sustainable social, political, and environmental relations. Calls for greater sustainability have existed for decades, yet have consistently been embedded in capitalist processes and narratives that dilute their intentions and their impacts. Against this backdrop, we advocate for a critical sustainability, a form of sociopolitical and socioeconomic engagement that rejects the superordinance of capital accumulation over ecological integrity. Critical sustainability is developed as a series of nature-society relations that highlight social and environmental justice concepts and practices. While not entirely “new,” critical sustainabilities are distinct from existing literatures in that they underscore the necessity of engaging not only with socioenvironmental relations, but also with the dominant political economies that so powerfully shape these relations.

Guiding questions for critical sustainabilities

As interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners pursue research and forge perspectives that respect the urgency of complex planetary socioecological crises, the importance of critical sustainabilities is increasingly clear. Critical sustainabilities mandate that we create solutions beyond techno-fixes, beyond individual consumer behaviors, and beyond sustainability as a solely environmental project. To be effective, these sustainabilities must interrogate the workings of power at every scale, searching for root causes embedded in our relationships in and as nature, in our political and economic legacies, and in our practice as community members, citizens, and scholars working for new knowledge and social equity. Developing the questions and systems thinking skills needed to expose the sources of human and ecological degradation is essential to critical sustainability. In the table below (Table 1), we offer some key inquiries regarding the interrogation of power relations, and contrast common approaches to sustainabilities, often co-opted by capitalism, with critical sustainabilities. Throughout this critical sustainability symposium, each of the scholars have engaged these complex questions in different ways, working within various systems to understand the impacts of normalized power inherent in capitalist structures on issues of equity and justice. We have seen much overlap not only in their systemic analyses, but also in their approaches to knowledge generation. Giovanna diChiro (2018) illustrates the complexity of sociohistorical context and knowledge generation, focusing attention on how the stories we choose to tell can universalize an individualized and short-sighted human nature at the expense of stories that embed humans in nature and culture. She invites readers to develop the art of noticing how our stories influence who we are and what we do. Critically examining the popular Anthropocene narrative, she notes that the term fails to adequately represent all of human-nature relations and considers what/who is normalized and what/who is erased in this narrative. She suggests, BDeclaring that the planet’s core environmental problem is humanity, the Anthropocene story too readily conflates the exploitative cultures and extractive economies of the one percent of high-impact, high-extractive, and high-consumptive humans with the entire species. At the same time, it easily ignores the other large-scale story of global crisis: human inequality and the ongoing struggle for basic human rights for billions of people worldwide.^ She goes on note that this widely acknowledged story Blimits the possibilities for gaining critical insights from examples of sustainable lifeways, knowledges, and cultures that are achieved by those people who have been colonized, enslaved, or eradicated in the service of wealth and domination of the earth^ (2018: page #). The sociohistorical systems’ context she provides helps us see how stories can either disrupt existing power structures responsible for exploitation, cultural erasure, displacement, and colonization or quietly, and often without our noticing, reinforce them. Fernando Bosco and Pascale Joassart-Marcelli (2018) consider the critical nature of sociohistorical context in asking that we consider space not as a prescribed ormap-driven container, but rather as something that is produced and experienced by inhabitants, both past and present. They point out that Bfood deserts do not emerge overnight but are rather produced over time by a combination of factors including suburbanization and white flight, capital disinvestment, and political neglect^ (2018: page #). This relational conception frees us from the trap of oversimplified and even offensive notions of obesogenic environments and food deserts and instead allows us to understand relationships to food as inhabitants move through environments. They note B...young people in our study, journeying through their neighborhood on their way to school and buying snacks at a corner store or food at an ethnic market were both ways of affirming their personal identities and of contesting and resisting circumstances imposed * Adrienne Cachelin Adrienne.cachelin@utah.edu

Promotion vs. Education in Choosing “Real Food”

The global agro-industrial system contributes to an abundance of human and ecological health problems from social injustices and public health issues to global warming and ecological degradation. In response to these problems, universities across the country are joining the Real Food Challenge (RFC). The RFC is a national student-driven organization that defines “Real Food” as possessing at least one of the following four attributes: local, fair, ecologically-sound, and/or humane. By mobilizing the power of students on college campuses, the RFC aspires to shift up to one billion dollars in dining purchasing towards “Real Food” by the year 2020. One key element for the continued success of the RFC is a better understanding of factors affecting college student food choice. Our research explores these factors as well as the types of interventions that will most effectively impact them. Both educational and social marketing strategies were found to effectively increase the importance of Real Food factors affecting college student food choice decisions. In addition, the overwhelming majority of student participants believe that their personal food choices can have an impact on moving the larger industrial food system towards sustainability. Identifying strategies that encourage students to choose more “Real Food” can provide administrations with the necessary support to increase sustainable food purchasing while fueling the RFC on its industry-shifting path towards a more sustainable food system overall.