Annie Oxarart

The Importance of Teaching Ethics of Sustainability.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the importance of a focus on ethics in sustainability education and present results from a pilot graduate‐level course titled the Ethics of Sustainability.Design/methodology/approach – This is a case study presenting a qualitative evaluation from a pilot 14‐week Ethics of Sustainability course. Data are based on observations, surveys and interviews with students.Findings – Students from diverse fields found the ethical concepts new, stimulating and crucial for their careers. Ethical concepts provide a framework for thinking about sustainable practices in their personal and professional lives.Research limitations/implications – Findings are based on a single pilot course and post‐participation responses. Future research could explore different teaching strategies and different institutions, and use pre/post studies.Practical implications – This study suggests that a course on ethical principles related to sustainability is a useful and potentially critical...

Intermediate Collaborative Adaptive Management Strategies Build Stakeholder Capacity

Efforts to implement collaborative adaptive management (CAM) often suffer from challenges, such as an unwillingness of managers to share power, unresolved conflicts between stakeholders, and lack of capacity among stakeholders. Some aspects considered essential to CAM, e.g., trust and stakeholder capacity, may be more usefully viewed as goals for intermediate strategies rather than a set of initial conditions. From this perspective, intermediate steps that focus on social learning and building experience could overcome commonly cited barriers to CAM. An exploration of Springs Basin Working Groups, organized around major clusters of freshwater springs in north Florida, provides a case study of how these intermediate steps enable participants to become more reasonable and engaged. This strategy may be easily implemented by agencies beginning a CAM process.

A Role for Environmental Education in Climate Change for Secondary Science Educators

A survey of secondary science teachers in the SE United States (n = 746) suggests that teachers are interested in and willing to teach about climate change despite the challenges with associated with state standards and opposing perspectives. Many recognize this as an opportunity to teach students about the nature of science, as well as engaging them in data analysis, systems thinking and critical thinking skills. Since many of the existing lesson plans focus on earth science, opportunities exist to make climate change locally relevant by incorporating local ecosystem impacts and policy questions into teaching activities.

Using Community Forums to Enhance Public Engagement in Environmental Issues

As environmental issues become more complex, the public may be less interested in becoming knowledgeable enough to participate in decisionmaking. Yet its input can be critically important in some community-based issues. A community forum is one tool designed to provide information, enable participants to ask questions to experts and create an open atmosphere for discussing an issue that requires relatively little investment from the participants. We used this tool to explore the issue of using wood to create electricity. Our results suggest that participants gained knowledge about the issue. As long as their concerns were addressed, nearly twice as many participants felt positive about such a proposed facility after the forum (81 per cent) than before (43 per cent, n = 108). Such activities could be successful strategies to engage the public in decision-making because they respect the real limits on time, attention and knowledge and enable people to participate at an appropriate scale. To reproduce this community forum, we suggest using credible but neutral experts, creating a nonjudgemental atmosphere, allowing people to ask their questions and sharing the results with elected officials.

Identifying effective climate change education strategies: a systematic review of the research

Abstract Increased interest in climate change education and the growing recognition of the challenges inherent to addressing this issue create an opportunity to conduct a systematic review to understand what research can contribute to our ideas about effective climate change education. An academic database, EBSCOhost, was used to identify 959 unique citation records addressing climate change education. Of these, 49 sources met the criteria of focusing on assessment of climate change education interventions. Analysis of these sources examined the intervention purpose, assessment methodology, and identified strategies that might result in effective interventions. Two themes were identified that are common to most environmental education: (1) focusing on personally relevant and meaningful information and (2) using active and engaging teaching methods. Four themes specific to issues such as climate change were also generated: (1) engaging in deliberative discussions, (2) interacting with scientists, (3) addressing misconceptions, and (4) implementing school or community projects. Suggestions for addressing controversial topics like climate change are offered.

Agencies, educators, communities and wildfire: partnerships to enhance environmental education for youth

We studied seven programs that engage youth from 10 to 18 years old in wildfire risk reduction in their communities in the United States through in-depth interviews to examine the nature and role of community-school partnerships in resource-focused environmental education. While the programs use a variety of strategies, from Scout badge to summer school, they exhibit several common dimensions: they all engage youth in community projects; they all arise from partnerships between resource agencies, community organizations, and educators; they all began when people familiar with both wildfire and youth education saw an opportunity to improve the community and educate youth through action; and all partners are able to contribute to the common program yet retain their individual identity as they meet their own mission-based goals. We use themes and quotes to illustrate these common dimensions for establishing community-school partnerships that could build action competence through environment-based education projects.

From play areas to natural areas: the role of zoos in getting families outdoors.

ABSTRACT Zoos have the potential to help families recreate in nearby natural areas, increasing the likelihood of children playing in nature. The Paws On Childrens Exhibit at Brevard Zoo (Melbourne, FL) was designed to provide a fun, educational childrens play environment and to increase familiarity with and encourage family visits to the local upland and estuarine ecosystems. In this article, the authors explore through observation and survey data how childrens play at a zoo exhibit can influence parents’ knowledge, perceptions, and intention to visit nearby natural areas. Survey responses reveal that adults believe the exhibit allows children to play in a more educational and imaginative manner than typical play. Most adult respondents are very satisfied with their experience at the exhibit and report increased knowledge of and interest in visiting local natural areas with their family.

Innovative Instructional Module Uses Evaluation to Enhance Quality

The instructional module, Southeastern Forests and Climate Change, is an example of innovation in sustainability education. The module was designed for high school science teachers and developed as part of a research project on southern pine productivity in a changing climate. As a result, it combines climate science with pine ecophysiology and economic productivity. It also encourages classroom debate and role playing activities to explore relevant ethical issues. It deftly brings together science education and education for sustainability. The process of developing the instructional module utilized a needs assessment, experimentation, and evaluation which improved program quality. The summative evaluation provided insights about the success of the program. This tight coupling of evaluation and program development created a high quality product that educators are requesting and using.