This article explores and reconsiders the view of children's encounters with place as central to a place-based pedagogy that seeks to dismantle rather than support constructions of a nature-culture binary. I unpack the current fervour for reinserting the child in nature and nature-based education as a significant phenomenon in environmental and outdoor education. I will draw on recent literature on place-based research and theorise using new materialist and posthumanist approaches that seek to disrupt anthropocentric views and support new ways of considering our encounters with the more-than-human world. Then, using these new approaches, I will theorise a recent place-based research project with children in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, to illustrate how it is possible to challenge current assumptions that are firmly entrenched in the child in nature movement. I will conclude by considering what intra-species relations, place encounters and child-body-animal-place relations can teach us about questioning anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism. Finally, I consider how can we overcome these limitations of a narrow and nostalgic view of ‘child and nature’ and reimagine a more diverse approach to education for a sustainable future.

This paper describes a study of sixth grade children's conceptions of nature and the environment. In so doing, it asks that environmental educators pay more attention to children's preconceived notions of environment and nature. Should this occur the theory-practice gap in environmental education may be diminished. Learners' concepts of ‘nature’ and the ‘environment’ provide a needed perspective for the development of individually and contextually appropriate teaching and learning strategies in environmental education. Without knowledge of them it is not clear whose version of environment it is which the learner is being educated ‘in’, ‘about’, ‘with’ or ‘for’.

In June 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development will be held in Brazil. A follow up to the World Commission on Environment and Development, it will mark the twentieth anniversary of the first UN conference on the environment, held in Stockholm in 1972. Promoting environmental education is one of 23 objectives for the conference.

Conference delegates in Brazil are likely to hear that the global ecological crisis has worsened, that sustainable development is not being realised, and that there is a continuing need for education. Yet more initiatives in environmental education are likely to be advocated and some delegates will go away feeling happier.

What they and others may fail to realise is that much environmental education is part of the problem rather than the solution. Current practice fails to reveal the true causes of environmental problems and to educate pupils in ways which enable them to realise sustainable development. It is based on inadequate theory and practice yet receives increasing support from powerful elites who must manage the global ecological crisis in their own interests.

With the UN Decade in Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) approaching, the question is “how well positioned is Australia to respond to the challenge of educating for sustainability?”. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief summary of ESD status, needs and innovations at the national level within Australia. ESD is relevant to all major social groups and so this paper includes developments in a number of settings including, formal education, further and higher education, industry and community contexts. This paper has been informed by the recent findings of a national review of EE's contribution to sustainability in Australia. It incorporates the latest trends and recent national initiatives which are playing a significant role in developing frameworks in ESD nationally.

In this article, I offer a decolonial critique of the ethical and ecological limits of mainstream sustainability efforts in higher education. In doing so, I identify colonialism as the primary cause of climate change, and the primary condition of possibility for modern higher education. I further suggest that the abiding failure to address the centrality of colonialism in both climate change and higher education is not a problem of ignorance that can be solved with more information, but rather a problem of denial that is rooted in enduring investments in the continuity of existing institutions and a modern-colonial ‘habit-of-being’ (Shotwell, 2016). I argue that in order to face the ethical and ecological impossibilities of making higher education institutions sustainable, we will need to set our horizons of hope beyond the promises that they offer.

Ecotourism associated with wildlife is becoming increasingly popular. The effects on wildlife of this increasing popularity are causing concern. Environmental interpretation programs may be a means of minimising negative effects if they are able to change tourists' behaviour. A review of cognitive psychology literature and theories of learning shows that simply increasing information and understanding does not necessarily result in more appropriate human behaviour. However, there are several techniques, such as the creation and resolution of cognitive dissonance and the use of the affective domain, which may create more effective interpretation. This paper reviews relevant theories of learning and offers guidelines for the creation of effective interpretation programs in the context of tourist - wildlife interaction.

This article presents the findings of a research study with young adults who explored the connections between their early childhood experiences in nature and their attitudes and actions towards the environment in adulthood. Drawing on E. Wilson's (1984) work, environmental or ecological consciousness is theorised to connect to ecological identity and relates to an individual's deep reflection on, connection to, and engagement with the natural environment. The study's survey tool invited young adults to select various options that described their experiences in nature as children and their views of, and actions towards, the environment in the present. The findings illustrated connections between childhood experiences in nature and later views of, and actions towards, the environment. The correlations between expressed views about caring for the environment and environmentally friendly actions were surprising, however, as actions did not necessarily align with beliefs. The article concludes with recommendations based on the findings, outlining how positive attitudes and actions towards the environment may be fostered in childhood.

In this article framing the special issue on the global school strikes for climate, we ask: what if education is not the solution, but part of the system young people want to change? In conversation with school strikers and reflecting on the contributions to this issue, we argue that the strikes pose a reckoning for education. Five key themes emerge from this special issue: (1) students are striking because of the affective weight of climate injustice; (2) students learn through their participation in striking, in contrast to the often insufficient climate change education taught in schools; (3) young people are becoming climate change educators through their roles as strikers; (4) strikers are patronised through paternalistic structures (including schooling) that ostensibly exist to protect them; and therefore (5) we need to reimagine education. We then advance four propositions for education in response to young people’s modest demands for a liveable future: (1) young people are in and of the collapsing climate; (2) youth voices need to be taken seriously, without excusing adult and collective responsibilities; (3) multigenerational, more-than-human, intercultural collaborations must be practiced in education for climate justice; and (4) we must learn to navigate ontological uncertainty and attend to ethical complexity.

Environmental education has received widespread recognition over many years as being an important process in the preservation and improvement of the world's environment (Lucas, 1979; UNESCO-UNEP, 1988). Environmental education assumes this importance through its potential to involve people at local, national and global levels in a socially active, problem solving, critical and participatory process (Greenall, 1987, 1990; Robottom, 1987) to ultimately develop environmentally literate, responsible and active citizens (Hines, Hungerford and Tomera, 1986/87; Stapp, 1969). Obviously then, environmental education is much more than just a process of knowledge transmission about the environment and awareness raising of specific environmental problems. Rather, environmental education is described by many (e.g. Greenall, 1987; Huckle, 1983; Lucas, 1979; Robottom, 1987) as a process that facilitates the challenging of dominant environmental attitudes and behaviour patterns of individuals, groups and entire societies to bring about positive social transformation and the development of a new environmental ethic.

For environmental education to fulfil this role of social and ethical change, it is internationally recognised that environmental education must address knowledge, awareness, skill, attitude and participation objectives (UNESCO-UNEP, 1976, 1978, 1988). Much of the literature on environmental education encapsulates this range of objectives into three broad categories or forms - education in the environment, education about the environment and education for the environment. Education in and about the environment is intended to develop the knowledge, awareness, attitude and skill objectives, while education for the environment has its focus on the values, ethics, problem solving and action objectives.

The early childhood education field has been slow to take up the challenge of sustainability. However, Brisbane's Campus Kindergarten is one early education centre that is making serious efforts in this regard. In 1997, Campus Kindergarten initiated its Sustainable Planet Project involving a variety of curriculum and pedagogical activities that have led to enhanced play spaces, reduced waste, lowered water consumption and improved biodiversity. Such changes are not curriculum “add-ons”. A study of curriculum decision-making processes shows that a culture of sustainability permeates the centre. This has been by a process of slowly evolving changes that have led to a reculturation of many social and environmental practices. This study also shows that very young children, in the presence of passionate and committed teachers, are quite capable of engaging in education for sustainability and in “making a difference”.

In recent decades there has been an increase in opportunities for people to view wildlife in tourism settings such as wildlife tours, national parks and captive environments such as zoos. This in turn has provided increasing opportunities to educate people of all ages about the value of wildlife and their habitats. One concept useful for enhancing learning is that of mindfulness. This concept suggests characteristics of interpretation that attract and sustain the focused attention of visitors. Using open-ended descriptions of best wildlife experiences from 790 respondents, this study found that 84% of descriptions contained at least one element consistent with the mindfulness concept. This paper argues that a mindfulness model can be used to understand visitor responses to wildlife tourism and direct the design of experiences that enhance learning and enjoyment.

This paper presents the findings of a small-scale research project about student teachers' perceptions and experiences of environmental education. The context of this study is a pre-service teacher education faculty in rural New South Wales, Australia. A combined methods approach was applied, with a survey designed from rich data elicited through focus group interviews. The focus of this paper is on the findings of the survey, revealing that prospective teachers' preparedness in environmental education is diluted by their teacher education experience and that such experiences are not providing a stimulus for novice teachers to practice environmental education.

Two school strikers − Niamh and Harriet − come together with two environmental education academics − Peta and Joseph − to explore what it means to be young people enacting politics for the environment in Australia, and what this might mean for re-imagining education. Niamh and Harriet are leaders of, and were integral to initiating, the highly effective School Strike 4 Climate − Australia (SS4C) movement, enacting ‘principled disobedience’. Peta and Joseph work in teacher education, preparing future teachers who will teach students who are increasingly climate savvy and politically active. In coming together and through the lens of pragmatism, we highlight the political nature of what Niamh and Harriet have been undertaking as they negotiate social, cultural, educational and environmental issues implicated in the climate crisis. Collaborative autoethnography framed our exploration of motivations for action, politics and education within our communities. Through Niamh’s and Harriet’s experiences, we explore how young people express agency while developing identity. Our autoethnographic conversations highlighted the experience and political agency that many of our young people demonstrate and led to us reflecting on the resulting opportunity for educators to ‘dare to think’ differently about education.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have a major advantage over larger organisations in regard to addressing sustainability issues – their size means they are able to react very quickly to changes in the business environment. They are disadvantaged, however, by lack of information on marketplace changes that make sustainability an opportunity to innovate, and to inspire employees. While some SMEs are leaders in sustainable practices, others lack the sort of strategic mindset which views changes in the business environment as opportunities – seeing the tasks which require more change as an additional burden, rather than a source of potential advantage.

The National Centre for Sustainability has worked with a group of SMEs (with sponsorship through a Research Agreement with Sensis) in a series of workshop environments. Through this work a set of indicators was developed to measure their progress towards more sustainable practices. Key members of industry associations and government agencies were engaged in an advisory capacity to ensure that the work undertaken was relevant and innovative.

In addition, a comprehensive industry research study was undertaken to determine the key priorities for business and government relating to sustainability. This work provided insight into the needs and trends in sustainable practices in various sectors including manufacturing, service industry, education and government. The outcomes of the research have determined the need to develop flexible, adult centric and work-based learning models to educate for sustainability and create organisational change.

This paper explores the value of innovative and engaging educational practices to create an environment which is most conducive to facilitating the implementation of economic, environmental and social aspects ofwork practices.

Despite good intentions, many environmental education (EE) projects seem to fall short in realising ambitious learning goals such as “helping citizens become environmentally knowledgeable, skilled and dedicated people who are willing to work individually and collectively, toward achieving and/or maintaining a dynamic equilibrium between the quality of life and the quality of the environment.” (Harvey cited in Hungerford et al., 1980). Without always challenging the nature and content of these goals, many researchers and practitioners are trying to resolve this discrepancy between the theory and practice of EE. Some have tried to instrumentally structure EE content matter by using hierarchical levels of universal goals and objectives (e.g. Hungerford et al., 1980; Marcinkowski, 1990) whereas others who question the value or the status of universal goals and objectives, have put emphasis on contextual development of EE within the school community (e.g. Bull et al., 1988; Robottom, 1987). However, relatively little attention has been paid to the way young people come to make sense of their own environment through their everyday interactions with(in) the lifeworld.

For more than fifty years constructivist approaches to learning have suggested that the pre-instructional perceptions (also referred to as “mini-theories” and “misconceptions”) of the learner play a key role in successful learning or lack thereof (Ausubel, 1968; Driver and Oldham, 1986; Freyberg and Osborne, 1981; Gilbert and Watts, 1983; Hasweh, 1986; Novak and Gowin, 1984, Wals, 1987) Yet, unlike the English teacher who is very capable of determining at what “level” her students are, environmental educators have little understanding of students' perceptions of the environment and environmental issues, and the “mini-theories” to which they lead.

In their seminal 2002 paper, Kollmuss and Agyeman asked the important question ‘Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour?’ The article has had a remarkably high rate of readership, with 64,900 electronic views to date, and 16 years later, this question remains significant. But are environmental educators and researchers any closer to understanding why people engage in pro-environmental behaviour? For this special issue of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education and its focus on ecologising education, it is timely not only to re-explore but to (re)story the concepts of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour, in order to generate fertile ground for the creation of new understandings and practices in environmental education. After considering relevant literature published between 2000 and 2018, this article offers an original framework for considering the complex, varied, and interconnected influences on the development of pro-environmental behaviour by (re)storying the development of pro-environmental behaviour through articulating it as a living forest.

Research is increasingly identifying the issues of ecological distress, eco-anxiety and climate grief. These painful experiences arise from heightened ecological knowledge and concern, which are commonly considered to be de facto aims of environmental education. Yet little research investigates the issues of climate change anxiety in educational spaces, nor how educators seek to respond to or prevent such emotional experiences. This study surveyed environmental educators in eastern Australia about their experiences and strategies for responding to their learners’ ecological distress. Educators reported that their students commonly experienced feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, anxious, angry, sad and frustrated when engaging with ecological crises. Educators’ strategies for responding to their learners’ needs included encouraging students to engage with their emotions, validating those emotions, supporting students to navigate and respond to those emotions and empowering them to take climate action. Educators felt that supporting their students to face and respond to ecological crises was an extremely challenging task, one which was hindered by time limitations, their own emotional distress, professional expectations, society-wide climate denial and a lack of guidance on what works.

The climate strikes of 2019 motivated millions worldwide onto the street and provided a platform for youth voices that demanded global climate action. This article explores the experiences of climate strike leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand questioning the motivational factors behind the youth action. In-depth interviews with 15 climate strike leaders identified emotions that influenced engagement and could motivate action. Climate strike leaders reported experiencing a series of turbulent emotional stages from apathy to action. Their experiences suggest that anxiety and anger are important stages in the emotional journey towards action. Using Boler’s Pedagogy of Discomfort, this paper examines these emotional stages that can disable or enable action. Considering youth perspectives increases our understanding of a suitable climate change educational framework that potentially supports both educators and students on this challenging journey.

This paper explores some of the ideas that underlie different conceptions of sustainable development. It suggests the notion of ‘sustainable living’ may provide direction for the role of environmental education in the transition towards a sustainable society. Aspects of the emerging concept of ‘education for sustainable living’ are used to analyse some widely-held assumptions about environmental education practice. In doing so the paper seeks to contribute to the process of identifying a vision and practice appropriate to environmental education for a new millennium.

This essay critiques the relevance of historical antecedents about children's play in nature and how these historical and political mechanisms create cultural rovoked by Taylor's (2013) exploration of the pervasive influence of romanticised images of innocent children in nature and our own experiences of never-ending ‘nice’ stories about young children in nature, here we trouble how nature experiences may or may not preclude children's meaningful and agentic participation in sustainability. We question is engagement with nature, a tangible and easily accessible approach in early childhood education (ECE) promoting a ‘nature by default paradigm’ and potentially thwarting a fuller transformative engagement with sustainability. Thus, we argue the case for shifting our frames beyond idealised romanticised notions and human–nature dualisms to a ‘common worlds’ (Haraway, 2008; Latour, 2004; Taylor, 2013) frame guided by collectivist understandings within connective life worlds. Such a shift requires a significant recasting of ethical human–nature understandings and relationships in ECE.