How might post-secondary environmental education empower Canada’s incoming generation of change-makers to engage in meaningful environmental stewardship? Beth Grant and Emma Collette, two students in the SERS Master of Environmental Studies program, are tackling this question as part of a cross-institutional team of interdisciplinary researchers partially funded through the SSHRC Partnership Development Grant and based out of the Society Environment and Emotions Lab
Imagine a world where students are graduating from environmental education programs feeling informed, prepared, motivated and capable of tackling the environmental issues that await them in their careers using the emotional skills and knowledge they developed during their degree to foster positive outcomes within and beyond themselves. Imagine that educators are provided with the necessary training and resources to help foster these positive outcomes for students and to enrich their own teaching experiences.
If you feel as though this vision is only partially realized within the current state of post-secondary environmental education, you are not alone. Despite the emotional weight that accompanies the foundational content of environmental courses, we largely fail to address these emotions within post-secondary educational contexts, even with increasingly vocal interest and demand from student populations (Galway & Field, 2023; Kluttz, 2020).
In the face of urgent and severe environmental challenges, humanity is in desperate need of environmental stewards, activists, scientists, policy-makers and citizens who not only understand these issues, but feel capable of acting on that understanding. Given that graduating with a degree in environmental education does not currently correlate with graduates' willingness to take or sustain pro-environmental action in their personal or professional lives (Kennedy et al., 2009; Mulkey, 2017), it is clear that existing approaches to environmental education are insufficient. In efforts to address the continued disparity between awareness and engagement in environmental issues (Howarth et al., 2020; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002), careful examination of relevant social-psychological factors is required. Furthermore, emotion and cognition are deeply intertwined in the process of learning; as a result, our teaching practices and outcomes can be optimized by acknowledging and discussing the power of emotions in the classroom (Ojala, 2022).
Our research projects will examine the implications of current practices in environmental education courses across Canada using a variety of methodological approaches, including experimental design and descriptive research methods. Photovoice, a participatory action research approach based in participant photography, will be used to empower students and collect data on their emotional experiences of environmental education (Wang & Burris, 1997).
We are excited by the potential applications of our research to inform recommendations for curriculum and teaching approaches in environmental education programs. These recommendations will be shared in an educator’s guide, developed by our interdisciplinary research team, for post-secondary environmental educators in Canada. Stay tuned for updates on this exciting research endeavour!
References
Galway, L. P., & Field, E. (2023). Climate emotions and anxiety among young people in Canada: A national survey and call to action. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 100204. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JOCLIM.2023.100204
Howarth, C., Parsons, L., Thew, F. (2020). Effectively communicating climate science beyond academia: Harnessing the heterogeneity of climate knowledge. One Earth, 2(4), 320-324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.04.001
Kollmuss, A., & Agyeman, J. (2002). Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior? Environmental Education Research, 8(3), 239–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620220145401
Kluttz, J. (2020, August). Climate change and mental health: A systemic approach to action in post-secondary education. Report PDF.
Mulkey, S. (2017). Higher education in the environmental century. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 76(3):697-730.
Ojala, M. (2022). Climate-change education and Critical Emotional Awareness (CEA): Implications for teacher education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2081150
Kennedy et al. (2009). Why We Don’t “Walk the Talk: Understanding the Environmental Values/Behaviour Gap in Canada. Human Ecology Review, 16 (2):151–160.
Wang & Burris. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369-387. https://doi.org/10.1177/109019819702400309