This article explores innovative praxis in Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) in four preservice teacher education programmes in Canada. ESE is finding its way into teacher education in a variety of innovative and interdisciplinary ways, as both part of mainstream programmes and in their co-curricular margins. Using a case study approach, each case builds on unique connections to Indigenous education, art education, cultural learning or educational gardening, which supports a variety of differing aspects in relation to ESE. These cases share a common theme of building relationships at the heart of ESE teaching and learning in the mainstream and the margins of the academy. Brought together through a Canadian network of faculty, researchers, policy-makers and community educators that was formed in 2016, these cases demonstrate a deep commitment and imaginative capacity for embedding ESE in Canada’s teacher education systems.

We tell the story of an experience Kate Dawson, her students, and three eagles had at an outdoor preschool. The experience profoundly affected Kate, and prompted us to ask the following questions: What made this experience feel so magical, and what caused it to happen? Why are these magical moments valuable, and how might they impact our pedagogical practices? We posit that magical moments in outdoor early childhood education depend upon relational and pathic knowledge, and understanding of place, rather than intellectual or cognitive knowledge about place. We suggest conditions and practices educators may employ to foster magical moments, including slow ecopedagogy and embodied, sensory, and spiritual attunement to place. We consider our role as educators in the educator-students-place system, particularly when acknowledging that place is agentic, and acts as learner, knower and teacher. To understand place pedagogically, we must think of ourselves as learners and as the objects of learning, as much as thinking of ourselves as knowers. This requires a pedagogy of embodied responsiveness and a surrender to place as teacher. Far from simplifying the work of the educator, living within a relationship of educator-students-place complexifies the practice of teaching.

Preservice teacher education courses provide an opportunity for the development of knowledge, skills, and confidence in classroom and behaviour management. This study reports the change in classroom management sense of efficacy (CMSE) of a small cohort of Australian preservice primary teachers at 4 time points (precoursework, preprofessional experience, postprofessional experience, and postcoursework), during a semester-long course focused on managing challenging behaviours in the inclusive classroom. CMSE increased between the time points, significantly so, pre–post course. The sources of efficacy information available and the learning activities completed during each intervening time point are explored as possible explanations for the changes in CMSE reported. Issues in measuring preservice teachers’ efficacy related to coursework are discussed.

Education for Sustainability (EfS) has been prioritised in the School of Education at James Cook University (JCU), Townsville, Australia. This article presents a case study that explores the ways in which teacher educators integrate EfS in their teaching in the Bachelor of Education (BEd) (Primary) at JCU, and their perceptions of enablers and constraints. Two key findings arose from the analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with four subject coordinators, and their subject outlines: (1) teacher educators at JCU integrate EfS in different ways through their choice of assessment, content and/or pedagogy; and (2) constraints operating at the school level, namely teacher educators’ perceptions and understanding of EfS, were perceived to be salient challenges to the integration of EfS in the program. Vision, leadership and funding at the university level were also identified as enabling factors that warrant further investigation. Findings contribute to existing literature regarding the integration of EfS in preservice teacher education, and serve to inform practice at JCU and universities more broadly.

Developing an understanding of the importance of a sustainable future is vital in helping children to become ‘global citizens’. Global citizens are those willing to take responsibility for their own actions, respect and value diversity and see themselves as contributors to a more peaceful and sustainable world. Children's literature — picture and story books in particular — can be used as a powerful tool to help even the youngest citizens become aware of the need to assume responsibility for creating and enjoying a sustainable future through global citizenship. Children's literature can be utilised to help children examine and change personal lifestyles to secure a sustainable future; to identify, investigate, evaluate and undertake appropriate action to maintain, protect and enhance local and global environments; to challenge preconceived ideas, accept change and acknowledge uncertainty and to work cooperatively and in partnerships with others. This article explores and examines ways in which some examples of Australasian children's literature, specifically Storm Boy (Thiele, 1963), Lester and Clyde (Reece, 1991), The Waterhole (Base, 2001), Window (Baker, 1991) and Belonging (Baker, 2004), have been used in a literacy focused preservice teacher education course to assist preservice teachers entering their internship school placements to develop children's understandings of an ecologically sustainable future. It provides further insight into methods for embedding teaching for a sustainable future into pre-service teacher education.

The growing emphasis on sustainability in school curricula in Australia reflects international trends in education. Teacher education is a vital strategy for the incorporation of Education for Sustainability (EfS) in school curricula. Research to identify drivers and barriers to embedding EfS across a primary teacher education program in an Australian university is the focus of this article. Using a mixed methods approach, data were gathered through document and unit outline audits, a self-efficacy pre-service teacher (PST) survey, and staff and PST focus group interviews. The audits identified a foundation of EfS principles and content across units. Lecturers identified societal and personal drivers and blockers to embedding EfS across the course, with lack of time considered the biggest blocker, which is also consistent with existing school-based research on the nature of teachers' work. PST responses described successful learning outcomes; however, confidence towards teaching sustainability varied. PST reported that the incorporation of community networks in their course provided enriching experiences. Embedding EfS involves values, sustainability concerns and appropriate knowledge and skills. Successful implementation will depend on the development of appropriate understandings of teacher educators.

With a commitment to establishing collaborative relationships with a local special education community, a consultation process was undertaken to ascertain what practising educators considered essential special education graduate characteristics. This consultation occurred against the backdrop of broad-scale university organisational restructure, faculty level program redesign, and the reported lack of an empirical basis for special education teacher attributes as distinct from general teacher education attributes. Special education professionals in a regional Australian city were invited to participate in two workshops to generate and analyse the qualities they considered essential for graduates of special education teacher preparation programs. The attributes identified by participants as essential were in agreement with many of those identified in the literature, yet behaviour support and resilience, which are typically subsumed within other categories in the literature, featured as stand-alone areas in this study. The processes and outcomes described in this article are discussed in relation to the potential value of special education teacher attributes for the field, and establishing a bridge across the perceived gap between the field and universities.