Amy Cutter-Mackenzie

Toward a Model for Early Childhood Environmental Education: Foregrounding, Developing, and Connecting Knowledge Through Play-Based Learning

Environmental education represents a growing area of interest in early childhood education, especially since the inclusion of environmental principles and practices in the Australian Early Years Learning Framework. Traditionally, these two fields of education have been characterized by diverse pedagogical emphases. This article considers how teachers in particular see different types of pedagogical play, such as open-ended play, modeled play, and purposefully framed play as providing opportunities for young children and teachers to develop knowledge through experiences about environmental education in early childhood settings. As a result of findings based on our qualitative research study involving early childhood teachers and children, an emerging model for thinking about environmental education in early childhood is proposed as a way of integrating these pedagogical emphases traditionally associated with environmental and early childhood education. Avenues for future research associated with this model are also identified.

'It's all about Ben10(TM)': children's play, health and sustainability decisions in the early years

In todays fast food, fast-paced consumer society, too few questions are asked about the influence of digital media on young childrens health and sustainability choices, and indeed how such choices are expressed in childrens play (and early childhood classrooms). By interviewing children and parents, and using such data to prompt teacher discussion, a team of interdisciplinary researchers have started to develop an understanding of the interconnectedness of these issues in the early childhood environment. Data reveal the strong relationship between childrens digital media viewing and their associated clothing choices, their food selections and the sustainability consequences of such behaviour. We conclude that early childhood education must move beyond silo approaches to digital literacy, healthy eating and sustainability messages.

Child-framed video research methodologies: issues, possibilities and challenges for researching with children

Video-based research methodologies in educational settings have been associated with the perceived user-friendliness of the technology for children, teachers and researchers. Video is considered an appropriate way of capturing the pedagogical complexity of classrooms, and a supportive medium for encouraging children to participate in research activity. In this paper, we present a research methodology that was applied to investigate the relationship between the pedagogy of play and childrens conceptual knowledge. The basis of the methodology centred on a play experience designed by teachers. Children (ages 4–5) were videoed while engaging in the experience and then invited to watch these recordings and to comment on their own play and learning. The discussions with the children were also video recorded and later shown to the teachers who designed the experiences. The videoed data of the children responding to their recorded play were used to generate discussion with the teachers around what they believed the children were learning through play and the childrens perceptions of their play. In this paper, we examine why the decision was made to video the play and the childrens reactions to their play. We explore the logistics of applying a video-based methodology, consider the challenges associated with this approach and suggest strategies for minimising the impact of researcher subjectivity and reflexivity in video research methodologies in a ‘children as researchers’ or ‘child-framed’ research context.

The historical, present and future ness of environmental education in India

What is distinctive or indistinctive about environmental education in schools and other formal education settings in India? In essence, what is the ness of environmental education in the Indian education system? Our responses to these important questions form the focus of this paper, shedding light on the historical, present and future directions (or ness) of environmental education in India. In effect, we attempt to capture the ness of environmental education by considering practice, policy and research developments throughout the various contemporary and traditional environmental education movements. In so doing, we identify a theory-practice gap and a dire lack of research as some of the pertinent issues facing environmental education in India. In conclusion we discuss possible future directions that environmental education might take in addressing these issues.

The socioecological educator : a 21st Century renewal of physical, health, environment and outdoor education

1. Starting with stories: The power of socio-ecological narrative.-2. Social ecology as education.-3. Becoming a socio-ecological educator.- 4. The ambitions, processes and politics of socio-ecological curriculum reform: An Aotearoa-New Zealand case study.- 5. Through coaching: Examining sports coaching using a socio-ecological framework.- 6. Through community: Connecting classrooms to community.-7. Through belonging: An early childhood perspective from a New Zealand preschool.-8. Through adventure education: Using the socio-ecological model in adventure education to solve environmental problems.-9. Through school: Ecologising schooling - a tale of two educators.-10. Outdoor education on Scotlands River Spey: A sense of place.-11. Through Physical Education: What teachers know and understand about childrens movement experiences.-12. Conclusions and future directions: A socio-ecological renewal.

Young children learning about well-being and environmental education in the early years: a funds of knowledge approach

Early childhood educators currently provide content focused learning opportunities for children in the areas of well-being and environmental education. However, these are usually seen as discrete content areas and educators are challenged with responding to children’s interests in popular-culture inspired food products given these influence their consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor and highly packaged food in the early childhood setting. This paper reports preliminary findings from a pilot randomised trial examining the interconnectedness of sustainability, well-being and popular-culture in early childhood education. Planning, assessment documentation and summaries from twenty-four learning experiences implemented by six educators over a six-week period were analysed using a deductive approach. Twenty well-being and environmental education topics were identified and shown to be generated by the educators when considering the children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ on popular-culture inspired food products. We argue that topics derived from children’s engagement with popular-culture may help educators to create an integrated approach to curriculum provision. This may impact child weight and facilitate obesity prevention and environmental sustainability as children create stronger connections between these content areas and their everyday choices and practices.

Social ecology as education

This chapter presents the historical and foundational elements of social ecology as it relates to physical and health education, outdoor and environmental education. Four foundational concepts central to the socio-ecological educator are introduced, namely: (a) lived experience, (b) place, (c) experiential pedagogies and (d) agency and participation. While socio-ecological models exist in diverse disciplines, our purpose is to introduce readers to an interdisciplinary philosophy and pedagogical approach that specifically considers the potential of social ecology to education. In doing so we acknowledge that a social ecology for education exists across multiple levels, embracing a broad array of social, cultural, environmental and geographical influences that shape individuals, identities, family, policies and the environment.

Children of an Earth to Come: Speculative Fiction, Geophilosophy and Climate Change Education Research

Over the last 3 years, the Climate Change and Me project has mapped children and young peoples affective, creative, and ontological relationships with climate change through an emergent and child-framed research methodology. The project has involved working with 135 children and young people from across Northern NSW, Australia, as coresearchers responding to the rapidly changing material conditions of the Anthropocene epoch. In this article, we position speculative fiction as a mode of creative research that enabled the young researchers to inhabit possible climate change futures. This node of the Climate Change and Me research was initiated by coauthor Jasmyne, who at the time was a year 7 student at a local high school. Through an ongoing series of visual and textual posts on the project web site, Jasmyne created an alternate world in which children develop mutant forces and bodily augmentations that enable them to resist social and environmental injustices. Drawing on these visual and textual entries in dialogue with Deleuze and Guattaris geophilosophy, we consider ways that speculative fiction might offer new conceptual tools for a viral strain of climate change education that proliferates through aesthetic modes of expression.

Feasibility of conducting a randomized trial to promote healthy eating, active play and sustainability awareness in early childhood curricula

ABSTRACT We sought to evaluate the feasibility of conducting a randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of a preschool/kindergarten curriculum intervention designed to increase 4-year-old childrens knowledge of healthy eating, active play and the sustainability consequences of their food and toy choices. Ninety intervention and 65 control parent/child dyads were recruited. We assessed the study feasibility by examining recruitment and participation, completion of data collection, realization of the intervention and early childhood educators’ experiences of implementing the study protocol; our findings suggest the intervention was feasible to deliver. In addition, childrens sustainability awareness of non-compostable and recyclable items increased. Children in the intervention group significantly reduced their sugary drink consumption and increased their vegetable intake at follow-up compared to control. We conclude with recommendations for revisions to the child interview and parent questionnaire delivery to ensure the roll out of the randomized trial is conducted efficiently and rigorously.

Education for what? Shaping the field of climate change education with children and young people as co-researchers

ABSTRACT Children and young people are often positioned as the next generation of leaders in whom the public imagines or expects to overcome the legacies of climate and environmental inaction. Increasingly analyses of progress in environmental education independently identify the need for researchers and teachers to ‘listen to children’s voices’. In this paper we argue that climate change education presents a significant platform not only for youth voices, but also for a genuine activation of children’s political agency in schools, universities, and the public domain. In so doing, we draw upon the government funded project Climate Change + Me, which has involved working with 135 children and young people from across Northern NSW, Australia as co-researchers investigating young people’s voices in climate change. We conclude that climate change education can open up an entirely new field of educational experience and inquiry when it is inclusive of and led by young people.