by editor | Jan 23, 2026 | Environmental Literacy
What is Good Environmental Education?
Our students need to be ready to invest in building positive futures for the communities to which they belong – household to global.
by Peter Hayes
(originally published in CLEARING Feb 17, 2016
he choice to become an educator brings with it a career-long sentence to the blessing and curse of endlessly deciding what our students need to learn and how we will best help them learn it. At a recent conference, I was confronted with the honorable misfortune of joining a panel of speakers charged with provocatively stirring thoughts and feelings on the question of “what is good environmental education?”. I found the adventure to be both difficult and easy. It was difficult because the terms environment, environmental education, or environmentalist make no sense to me. They are words and concepts that have meaning only in a culture which clings to the illusion that human well-being does not depend on the health of the nature we are part of.
Because I believe that deep-seated confusion over these words and ideas is a major barrier to building a positive future, I choose to be an educator, community member, and citizen instead of accepting the destructive labels of environmental educator and environmentalist.
It was easier for me to form and share the answers that follow to the question of what makes for good education about how nature works and how humans fit into it. A simple, clear, and accessible yardstick for assessing the success of student learning is always available to us: how well do we help students become ready to do what they need to be ready? Ability – a fabric woven from the strands of knowledge, skill, and attitude – is important but not adequate; ability must be combined with motivation to create readiness.
To illustrate my belief that clues to our educational responsibilities are everpresent, and to ground these comments in the realities of my daily responsibilities, two simple, true stories – shared on the installment plan – seem helpful.
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Story 1 – Part A:
It’s mid-February and Seattle’s rains are pouring down on a confused-looking ninth-grade student standing knee deep in the muddy waters of Thornton Creek. In the final hours of a weeklong study of this urban creek and its watershed, she stands in a forested wetland slated to be developed as a driving range for the adjacent golf course.
She describes her confusion over whether the best use for the land is for it to continue as a wild wetland or to be developed as a driving range: “I’m so confused – I don’t know what the right thing to do is; I began this week believing that the world was much simpler than I now see it is – that there were good guys and bad guys – and that I was a good guy – now I see that choices are more complicated, that in many ways my choices make me part of the problem. I’m no longer sure what is the right thing to do.”
Story Two – Part A:
The early morning calm at our house is punctuated by the scuffing sound of a small person’s feet on the stairs. A three foot, sleepy eyed apparition settles in at the breakfast table – tousled brown hair, fuzzy, pink, one piece pajamas “with feet” – the kind that sweat. Slurping the last of her cereal – the kind where eating the box provides more nutriment than eating the cereal – she looks across the table. Her presence asks a single, clear, unspoken question to me: “you aren’t going to let us down are you? You are responsible for helping us grow up to be ready to successfully meet the challenges ahead; will you do it?”..
If we accept that readiness is the goal, then the next question is: Ready for what? What needs doing?. Given our understandable human self absorption, we know that our students need to be ready to provide for their own needs, that is their own “self-wealth”. Because self-wealth depends on a web of relationships with fellow humans and other species, our students also must be ready to understand, maintain, and build “common wealth”. The wealth that we share in common is the blend of such diverse treasures as the love of a neighbor who brings dinner over on the eve of our first child’s birth and the lifegiving qualities of the swirling atmosphere and oceans. Our students need to be ready to invest in building positive futures for the communities to which they belong – household to global. They need to be ready to do what no preceding generation has done before: satisfy their needs and wants in ways that don’t compromise Earth’s ability to support life.
The best way to narrow this challenge from the immense and vague toward something that we can get to work on in class tomorrow, we can ask and answer the questions of where and why are we failing, or have we failed, to maintain our common wealth? Though there are remarkable cases of success in maintaining our common wealth, I will focus here on examples from each of five concentric rings of community where we have lost, or are currently losing, common wealth – situations where humans were challenged to do the right thing in relationship to the rest of nature, and failed. What would need to be different for these to be on the list of successes instead?
The cases are:
– Global: Current efforts to reach cooperative agreements about reducing emissions of greenhouse gases which are causing warming of the atmosphere.
– Continental: The failure of cooperation in water use leading to the drying of the Aral Sea in Central Asia and the race to pump from the rapidly dropping waters of the Ogallala Aquifer under the Great Plains in the central United States.
– Regional: The current struggle to reverse the trend of Pacific Salmon’s descent toward extinction, with hopes of not replicating the crash of North Atlantic fisheries.
– Local: The choice at the school where I teach not to match our actions as world-class consumers to our stated commitment to conservation contributes to the invisible but real erosion of common wealth around the planet.
– Next Door: Our neighbor seeks to tranform two acres of forested wetlands at the headwaters of a salmon supporting creek into five lawn- and driveway-surrounded homes, while arguing that there is no connection between his choices and the future of salmon struggling to retain their home in the creek downstream.
What do these five cases of loss of common wealth share? Why do they happen?
Decision makers failed to understand, value, and tell the story of the common wealth. Decisions were based on oversimplifications of the complex and interdependent systems of nature. Too much emphasis was placed on guaranteeing self wealth and too little on preserving common wealth. Diverse individuals and cultures failed to achieve cooperation necessary to understand and solve problems – often despite honest and major effort. Decision makers lacked integrity as defined as the agreement between actions and stated values. Participants had insufficient determined, enduring hope to solve the problem. And finally, participants believed our culturally ingrained myths of the separateness of humans from nature, of super abundance, of control, and of wilderness.
Mainstream analysis commonly describes such cases as economic, political, or environmental problems, but looked at in total, the root causes of each of these cases is our failure to understand and value community and citizenship and, taken one step further, the failure of our educational systems to help graduates be ready to do what they need to be ready to do. They are the consequence of educational systems which are more effective at equipping youth to be self-wealth pursuing predators through domination of nature than investing in education which maintains and builds our common wealth. These and other failures of community highlight where we as educators most need to concentrate our efforts. Transposing the seven common “failures” from above into positives, our students need to be ready to know and love our common wealth, recognize and be humbled by complexity; learn to balance their investment in self wealth with necessary investment in common wealth (and to see them not as a zero sum), use diversity as an asset not an impediment; have, demand, and value integrity; have an enduring sense of hope, and replace the four myths with reality. Education is now a major contributor to unworkable relationships between humans and the rest of nature; it is our challenge and opportunity to make it become a major component of the solution.
If our reasoning leads us to conclude that these outcomes are what the SATs, APs, and GREs of the future should test for, then the final step is to move from describing the desired outcomes to learning what educational experiences most effectively and consistently lead to successful student learning in these areas. The combination of personal experience and study of past and current educational practice make this task more straightforward than it would appear. While specific approaches must be adapted to match the unique needs of students and settings, education with the following characteristics appears to take us in the right direction:
1) Involving students in the real work of being active, informed citizens of the concentric, geocentric rings of community to which they belong. The smaller the unit, the sooner students learn through experience that the choice to care can lead to real change.
“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see it as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” – Aldo Leopold
“There is an uncanny resemblance between our behaviour toward each other and our behavior toward the earth. …It is impossible to care for each other more or differently than we care for the earth.” – Wendell Berry
“The watershed is the first and last nation, whose boundaries, though subtly shifting, are unarguable and the life that flourishes within it constitutes the first kind of community.” – Gary Snyder
2) The thread of understanding of the balance between self-wealth and common wealth runs throughout the curriculum and life of the school.
Daily school life provides an excellent learning lab for this topic, and the study of history and current events provides endless cases of the tension between self wealth and common wealth.
3) The curriculum is driven by asking, understanding, answering, and acting on real questions. Constructing knowledge and meaning from the rising sea of information and building wisdom from studying the relationship between intent, action, and consequences are central.
4) Teachers aspire to the impossible goal of non-advocacy through teaching the important skills of asking and answering questions instead of preaching personal answers.
5) Schools with clear missions are solidly connected to their surrounding community, and student generated new knowledge travels across well worn bridges of cooperation to be used by receptive members of the governmental, businesses, and general communities.
6) Educational goals are reached through the real work of building “way things work” understandings of community health.
7) Integrity – the matching of actions and beliefs – is modeled and highly valued.
“Many people want to change the world, but few want to change themselves.” – Tolstoy
8) Students develop an enduring sense of hope through experience in turning positive ideas into tangible success.
“A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. A vision and a task is the source of real hope” – Lennox
9) All ways of knowing – mathematical, artistic, scientific, historical – are blended, and real experience stirs student’s hearts as much or more than their minds.
10) Education is “story” based with students learning to be critically aware of both why we tell the stories we tell and what stories we need to tell and pay attention to in order to successfully track the health of our communities. All explanations of phenomena, even the most rule-bound science, are a form of “story”. The ability to “read”, understand, and describe the health of a landscape is given as much emphasis as the ability to read and understand written words. Cause and effect lessons from history provide necessary basis for belief that individual action can shape a positive future.
11) Materials that perpetuate the four deep seated myths of separateness of human well-being from the well-being of nature, of superabundance, of control, and of wilderness are replaced by materials that communicate the assumptions of interdependence, limits, incomplete knowledge of nature, and the reality that both human influence and wildness are found everywhere.
“To treat wilderness as a holy shrine and Kansas and East Saint Louis as a terrain of an altogether different sort is a form of schizophrenia. Either all of the earth is holy or none is. Either every square foot deserves our respect or none does.” – Wes Jackson
12) Students develop a sense of awe and reverence for nature through consistant, patient practice of the skills of observation and communication (see past CLEARING articles by Saul Weisberg, Bob Pyle, and Tony Angell “Artist as Advocate for Nature”)
13) The success of students‚ learning and teachers‚ teaching is assessed through tangible results that are of real value to others. Eg. Students demonstrate mastery in research, mathematical, and writing skills through developing a report on trends in the health of the local neighborhood instead of through academic, standardized tests.
14) The language of “environment” is quietly replaced by language which more accurately communicates our beliefs and supports student learning.
The organizing concept of community, with humans as one part of larger living systems, replaces our current common use of the distinct and deceptively inaccurate concepts of “environment”, “economy”, and “culture”.
I share these approaches as ones which appear to work for me and the schools and projects with which I am involved in, not as a prescription for others. Though there are many working examples of how the approach described above is succeeding, there is much need for improvement and continued innovation. Since results, not talk, are what ultimately matter, the completion of our two opening stories will bring us back to the realities of the current students, and students yet to come, who are counting on us.
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Story 1 – Part B:
The student climbed out of the creek, dried off and acted on the passion that she had discovered. Her remaining high school years were filled with mastering and adding to the knowledge of the creek and watershed, conceiving of and successfully leading a “Creek Keepers” summer camp for middle schoolers, and contributing to the recent decision to rename the golf course after the creek (instead of turning the creek into a golf course.). On graduating she reflected “It [the watershed] is a living system that I have connected with. ..[My work with it] makes me feel part of something bigger than myself”.
These comments stand out in contrast to the bluntly honest – and depressing – comments that we regularly hear from students studying the current human relationship to nature: “Like I might care if I thought I could make a difference.” (“I choose not to care about anything other than self-wealth because experience hasn’t taught me to believe that I can make a difference”). The student in the creek has gone on to apply her citizenship skills to new places and might be considered a model for American Dream 2 where success is seen in lives where investment in self wealth and common wealth merge as one.
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Story 2 – Part B:
Breakfast is finished, lunch made, hair brushed, and we wait at the end of the driveway for the school bus. The unstated question is still there. What our children need to thrive and survive is a deep connection to a living system – their home community – where the questions of whether salmon will return to spawn in our river and whether any children will come to school hungry are seen accurately as one question, not two. They need to learn from experience that this place needs them and that they need it. They need to know and love where their breakfast and shoe leather comes from as much as the alpine meadow in the Glacier Peak Wilderness or the most magical rapid in the depths of the Green River Gorge.
The bus arrives. She climbs through the open doors and up the steps to settle into a seat beside a lunch box clutching friend. Waves are exchanged as the heads grow smaller in a cloud of diesel smoke. I have an enduring hope that we won’t let her down – that family and school will help our children be ready to do what they need to do – but I don’t sleep easily, knowing that there is much to be done and that we live in a world that doesn’t wait.
Peter Hayes, after 20 years of indoor and out of doors teaching and principaling in public and independent schools, as well as serving as Environmental Studies Coordinator at Lakeside School in Seattle, and as Co-coordinator of the Thornton Creek Project, now runs a family woodlot in the Coast Range of Oregon.
by editor | Jan 20, 2026 | Conservation & Sustainability, Critical Thinking, Environmental Literacy, Inquiry, Language Arts, Place-based Education, Questioning strategies, Sustainability
Healing Waters
An Oregon educator breaks the logjam of environmental conflict
by Matt Love
The rain stops and my 7th and 8th grade combined English class hikes down Nestucca Spit, a finger of drifting dunes on the north Oregon Coast. We are there to stimulate our senses for
a poetry writing exercise.
It takes us an hour to reach the mouth of the bay. Across the water, high up on the cliffs, a 10,000-square-foot mansion faces out to sea. Before construction began, an elk herd grazed this headland.
In unison we stare up at the fortress. “I wish we could dynamite that place,” says one student. We all hear him, and we all know who built and owns the house. The owner’s daughter is standing 10 feet away.
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It’s election time and a measure on the ballot calls for a ban on all clearcutting on state and private forests. Oregon annually produces a majority of the nation’s timber supply, so war has been declared. In my social studies classroom, I lead a deliberate discussion on the measure. Within a few minutes, the discussion devolves into yelling and generalizations. Nobody listens. The last comment I hear before I shut it down it “Hey, you live in wood houses and burn wood for heat. You’re a hypocrite!”
Before leaving Portland to teach at Neskowin Valley School on the coast, I never imagined student conflict over natural resource use had the potential to tear my classroom apart. Part of my naiveté was ignorance of rural values, and the other part was sanctimony for my own “enlightened” environmental views.
I had taught social studies in large suburban high schools for a decade and moderated many discussions on environmental issues. But passions rarely flared, and the disagreements never became personal — unlike debates on immigration, abortion and the death penalty, which often generated rancor, confrontations and put-downs despite my efforts to maintain civil dialogue.
In my new community, the stakes — and the rules — were different. I came here to teach English, social studies and environmental science at a school that borders a national forest and a creek that once boasted a legendary salmon run. This was the country, and I was very green.
But I seasoned quickly. I learned that my students have parents or other relatives who raise cows for meat and milk or who log, fish, develop property or work for businesses that service those industries. The Future Farmers of America and 4-H are still part of the culture here, and occasionally students come to class with manure on their knee-high rubber boots. Yet I also have students whose parents moved here from urban areas because of a strong commitment to protecting and restoring the natural world.
These conflicting visions of our shared natural resources divide my students as deeply as more visible differences do in many other places. But why? Virtually every American believes in the sanctity of private property — it’s right there in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. As I have observed in my new environment, where people own much more acreage than a typical suburban lot, it’s about a land ethic. What does each person feel about the role and responsibility of humans in the natural world? Are the land and water and wildlife meant to serve human needs at any cost, or do we have a moral and ecological duty to uncompromisingly protect and even restore the environment? Is there a middle ground?
In practical terms, the conflict often comes down to questions like this: Should a parcel of old-growth forest be preserved, or logged and then replanted, or developed into a home site of golf course? Can the government require livestock operators to fence their cattle 30 feet away from streams? In my experience, dialogue that focuses on specific use plans quickly breaks down along hard lines. As a teacher attempting to help students see beyond the impasse, I ask instead: What about the environment do we value in common, and what can we do together to support that?
Costs and Values
Tillamook County, where I live, is situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Range. It’s a place where many families make a proud living from natural resource industries. Boats troll the ocean, bays and rivers for a variety of seafood: salmon, crabs, tuna halibut. Sale of timber from a nearby state forest provides revenue for schools. Every working day, log trucks loaded with spruce, fir and hemlock roll through the small towns.
The county has 25,000 human residents, 25,000 dairy cows and has given its name to the famous local cheddar cheese. Tourism is important, too. People are attracted to the area because of its beauty and outdoor recreation opportunities. In recent years, a booming Oregon economy has led to the construction of many spacious second homes and commercial enterprises near the shore.
But there is another side to the natural resource economy and real estate development. Clearcut hills blight the landscape and lead to erosion. Only 1 percent of the wild salmon from pre-settlement days now return to spawn in the watershed. Nearly a dozen rivers in the county qualify for the state’s “water quality limited” list, which in slang means “messed up.” New luxury housing for weekend vacationers destroys wildlife habitat.
Tillamook County serves as a perfect example of a rural Northwest community riding the roller coaster of natural resource economics and staggering from tough regulations imposed under the power of new state rules and the increasing enforcement of the federal Endangered Species and Clean Water acts. Life and livelihoods are changing in these small towns, and many folks don’t like it. New laws require 50- to 75-foot building setbacks from streams. Manure can’t be sprayed where it used to be. Beachfront property owners can’t riprap boulders to save sliding homes. There is substantial talk of tearing down dams on the Snake River to save salmon, ending grazing on federal land and turning forests into parks — notions that were inconceivable just a few years ago.
A chorus of other voices echo Tillamook High School senior Jacob Day, whose editorial in the school newspaper advocated dredging a bay and criticized environmentalists for opposing it. “I believe that human beings were put onto this earth to rule and alter our environment however we see fit to make it useful and valuable to us,” Jacob wrote. In the student parking lot of Jacob’s school, which is located between a dairy farm and a timber mill, a bumper sticker reads: “I eat spotted owl for breakfast.”
Your Own Backyard
In my observation, students in these affected rural communities who despise environmental regulations on private property and on natural resource industries vastly outnumber those who favor them; intimidation felt by those who don’t share the majority view is real. Cheryl Roraback-Siler, who teaches biology at Tillamook, encourages structured discussions on local natural resource conflicts but often finds ecology-minded students reluctant to voice their opinions. A dedicated environmental activist who was arrested in 1998 for protesting the Makah tribal whale hunt off Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Roraback-Siler avoids presenting the pro-ecological perspective unless none of her students will.
“I find myself having the present the other side to many issues,” she says, “because some students feel uncomfortable,” She reports that many times students come up after class and say they wanted to contribute but felt afraid to voice an opinion that might stigmatize them. As one student at Tillamook High observes, “I think there are more people who want to speak up, but they also don’t want their car keyed (scratched).”
Joan Haley, acting director of the North American Association for Environmental Education, emphasizes the importance of balance. “We support the ideal that teachers are not advocates, that they let students make up their own minds,” she says. Haley’s organization urges teachers to present a broad range of information and tie curriculum to “their own backyard.”
She admits that teaching about conflict over natural resources can be challenging. “ think environmental education is misperceived in rural areas. Many people feel it’s going to be an attack on what they do.”
Rural areas are not the only places with natural resource conflicts. Recently, cities such as Portland and Seattle, where endangered salmon swim through the shadows of skyscrapers, have been forced to confront municipal policies like pesticide use and storm sewer drainage that can contaminate rivers.
Although the Northwest’s environmental conflicts make national headlines, other regions experience similar resource-related disputes that impact classrooms. In Florida, for example, the embattled Everglades and its threatened wildlife present many natural resource conflicts that pit farmers, developers and conservationists against one another. In the Southwest, issues like water allocation and reintroduction of wolves create tension, and Rocky Mountain states face dilemmas over managing the Yellowstone bison heard, ski resort development and mining. Teachers and environmental education organizations all across the country report the same story we experience in the Northwest.
Larry Beutler, the editor of Clearing, a magazine for Northwest environmental educators, notes that, as pressure to restore watersheds and protect threatened species increases, teachers everywhere will have the opportunity to look at an issue close to home. For Beutler, the most important common denominator for educators across regions, in big cities and small towns, is this: All parties to natural resource management conflicts have children who attend schools, These students bring traditions, new ideas, disputed scientific facts and different opinions into the classroom. If teachers choose to teach about local resource conflicts, they need to have well-developed strategies for handling tension and promoting meaningful environmental education.
Localizing the curriculum is essential, but local “hook” isn’t enough, Beutler says. It’s essential to build in strategies for managing conflict, not just open the floor to wild debate about a story in the newspaper that most students have never read. For many, this is not a “current events” topic — it’s about their families’ lives and property.
He offers a further caution: “You have to be careful of special interest groups that produce materials that tend to be inflammatory.” A number of environmental education curriculums have received negative attention recently because of their association with corporations or environmental activist groups.
Action Plans
The great advantage or teachers everywhere is that many public and nonprofit agencies involved in natural resource management have developed plans calling for collaboration among the public sector, private industry and advocacy groups in practicing and promoting ecology. These plans can be easily adapted to serve as the hands-on culmination of a unit of study.
At my school we use the local watershed council’s action plan. Because it was developed through consensus, it has credibility in the community. What has worked well for me is using the action plan’s recommendations to bring students (and parents) together to create learning and service opportunities that promote the health of local watersheds and build an ethic of stewardship.
Many teachers who want students to consider all sides to a natural resource conflict use role-plays. To make them topical, I conduct interviews and other research and write my own scenarios. This takes time, but it allows me to add realism — especially if locals are invited to contribute narration and judge presentations. And like all effective role-plays, my scenarios mandate solving a real problem. It’s not enough for students to pretend they are a logger or an activist who lives in a tree. They need to research a local problem, talk to real people and collect scientific facts. After the presentations, the goal needs to be real public outcomes that include gathering hard data, which in turn leads to actions that heal damaged watersheds and reduce conflict between interest groups.
Here, it’s about water — more than 100 inches of rain falls annually in some parts of the county. One point all sides agree on is that, with that much water flowing over land to the sea, water quality is seriously compromised by logging, livestock and development, which in turn threatens wildlife and people and the special character of Tillamook County.
My class studies water quality and ways to go about improving it. Often we find practices (many performed by the students’ parents) that contribute to poor water quality. But we don’t blame or castigate. We decide together what we can accomplish to help our local watershed. We then labor to transform the water and ourselves.
The labor we perform is nonconfrontational and, as I see it, apolitical. I have yet to encounter anyone who objects to having students plant trees and native grasses; remove non-native plants; assess culverts that block fish passage; conduct spawning surveys for salmon; test water for high temperature, sedimentation and fecal coliform bacteria; monitor macro-invertebrate populations; and — my personal favorite — sling fish carcasses into nutrient-deprived streams. All of these activities provide students with exciting and legitimate field experience in science. And, to me, they have sort of an evangelical feel, because they rely on great faith that our efforts will matter.
In fact, I call what we do a baptism because it is about a cleansing and forming a new covenant for the watershed and the people who use it. “Baptize yourself in the watershed!” is my rallying cry, which surprises me, since I’m not religious. Even the children of loggers and ranchers who want to keep on doing what their parents do can get behind my slogan. Together we can save the watersheds for all of us, including wildlife, and wash away any conflict that stands in the way of — well, salvation.
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At the time this article was written, Matt Love was an environmental educator and writer based in northwestern Oregon. This article is reprinted from the Fall 2000 issue of Teaching Tolerance Magazine, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery AL 36104.
Activity: Watershed Awareness
Bringing a local focus to education about environmental conflict starts from the ground up — literally. A good way for students to begin is by mapping the natural resource uses (private, public and industrial) in a given watershed. Here are some basic steps that can be adapted for use at all grade l
Map your watershed. After students have a basic scientific grasp of what a watershed is (especially how topography plays a role), have them map from memory the watershed they live in and what goes on there.
Go deeper. At an age-appropriate level, make a complete geographical, scientific and cultural study of your watershed. have the class explore topics ranging from elevation, water quality, endangered species and politics to oral history and local natural disasters (to name a few), so they can gain a complete picture. Remember, watershed awareness involves much more than just science.
Create a model. Have students construct a scale model of their watershed, using clay, sand, Legos, cardboard or — my personal favorite — ginergerbrea. With the gingerbread, use icing of various colors of distinguish waterways, forests, farmland and developed areas. an edible map can prompt a lively discussion about the “consumption” of natural resources.
Take action. A detailed examination of any watershed almost invariably reveals significant environmental problems. Fortunately, many of these problems have been the focus of intense study by government agencies.
Have students research local environmental assessments and compile proposed solutions for healing damaged watersheds. Many of these action steps, such as tree-planting, reduction of pesticide use and removal of non-native plants, are ideal for service learning projects.
by editor | Dec 29, 2025 | Critical Thinking, Environmental Literacy, Experiential Learning, Gardening, Farming, Food, & Permaculture, Indigenous Peoples & Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Dr. David Zandvliet, Ph.D.,
Simon Fraser University
Professor and UNESCO Chair
Chantal Martin
Director, Education & Research
Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association
Poh Tan PhD (UBC, Exp. Medicine), PhD (SFU, Education)
Scientist, Researcher, Educator, Author, Entrepreneur
Research Associate, Institute for Environmental Learning
Founder and CEO, STEMedge Academy
Shaila Shams
Doctoral Student, Faculty of Education
Simon Fraser University
Akiko Inui-Ohta
Doctoral Student, Faculty of Education
Simon Fraser University
Photos by Tina Chin
(except where noted)
Prologue
I was filled with excitement upon first hearing that the Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association would be working with the Institute for Environmental Learning to form a new fellowship opportunity at VanDusen Botanical Gardens and Bloedel Conservatory. It also came with many questions focused on how participatory action research would work between a team of passionate environmental educators and academic fellows, each with their own goals and desired outcomes. Five years later, as Director of Education and Research, I have firsthand observed the evolution of a wonderful partnership between academia and community through the fellowship program, and the far-reaching impacts I could have never predicted.
Introduction
Th
e context for this research program is the Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association (or VBGA) a non-profit organization that promotes biodiversity and connections to plants through education in botanical gardens among its many other conservation related functions. With the establishment of the VBGA fellowship program, VanDusen Botanical Gardens and the Bloedel Conservatory (located in Vancouver, Canada) have become important sites for research on the potential for botanical gardens as diverse and inclusive learning environments. For the past few years, a number of graduate fellowships have been enacted by the Institute for Environmental Learning (or IEL) undertaking a program of participatory action research in these urban botanical gardens. In our research, we use a lens of biocultural diversity to frame our work. Put simply, this idea suggests that the diversity of life is made up of the diversity of plants, animals, habitats and ecosystems, but also of the diversity of human cultures and languages
As joint operating partners of VanDusen Botanical Garden and Bloedel Conservatory alongside the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, the VBGA is a charitable not-for-profit responsible for; education and research, a botanical library, volunteer programs, and fundraising all which supports Garden and Conservatory programs, services, and conservation. The VBGA has a mission to engage people of all ages and walks of life in the importance of biodiversity to our lives, and to foster a lifelong love of plants and gardens by virtue of their participation in our programs and services. Our educational offerings include adult, youth, and family programing, community outreach, and teacher professional development. The VBGA education team is intentional and thoughtful to ensure that our programs are accessible, high quality and have short-term and long-term impacts that fulfill the VBGA’s mission. This is where the research fellows conducting participatory action research (PAR) have helped us flourish.
VBGA Preschool Wonder Walk.
The idea of creating a research program centered on environmental learning activities in (and around) botanical gardens, is a relatively recent phenomenon. This research responds to an educational condition that many botanists refer to as ‘plant blindness’ though recently some scholars have rejected this term as negative preferring the term ‘plant awareness disparity’ for this phenomenon. However termed, plant blindness refers to the largely overlooked idea that plants are essential for human survival. As an example of this line of research in botanical gardens, we examine Sellman and Bogner’s research which evaluated an education program in a European garden, studying the impact of learning on high school students’ (cognitive) achievement. This study demonstrated the potential of urban gardens as an effective learning environment in that it was shown to complement formal school-based learning settings: adding richness to classroom activities both before and after the garden experiences. However, studies like these typically evaluate only a short visitation to one garden and do not describe in detail the context or types of pedagogies utilized . Further, they do not consider implications for longer term, immersive programming in botanical gardens, or the potential for catering to the educational needs of teacher-educators or other types of adult learners.
We sought out answers to our burning questions, the types of questions and answers which fuel our fire as informal environmental educators in a botanical garden. The types of questions that research fellows have the expertise / knowledge to find answers to … the questions that can be answered collaboratively by academics and community organizations exploring STEM education together in a garden.
- How do life experiences / worldviews inform the practice of educators working at a botanical garden?
- How do we cultivate a culture of care for nature / community belonging when delivering our programs?
- How (can we inspire a) long-lasting connection to plants through various pedagogies (or strategies)?
Michael Bonnett’s philosophical stance asserts that responsibility for learners’ incomplete understanding of environmental issues stems from a “technologizing of education” that emphasizes abstract ideas over social processes.
He advocates for a change in teaching and learning environments, where the subject matter is shifted away from standardized material to broader curricula based on creativity, intuition, and values. Others argue further that, what is needed is a focus on interpersonal and community factors that reflect value, fairness, respect, and collaboration . This indicates the importance of continuing to study and do research on community programming in botanical gardens – whether this is offered at the individual or community level.
Similar to the informal context of botanical gardens, zoos and aquaria too have begun shifting their educational focus to some of the unique attributes of their informal learning environments: taking a new role in promoting wildlife conservation and conservation learning among visitors as informal environmental education. Research in these types of settings providing insights into the potential impact of such encounters on visitors’ conservation attitudes and behaviour.
Still, research of this type describing the potential use of botanical gardens for either formal or informal environmental education practices remains relatively undescribed and under-theorized.
In the face of climate crisis and loss of biodiversity, connecting people to plants through education is crucial. I am known to share that I believe you can teach any concept in nature including science, technology, engineering and math. Formal educators often respond with a challenge, “prove you can teach about fractions, or aerodynamics, or architecture with plants” they say. “How about counting the number of pomegranate seeds per fleshy fruit quadrant, or how about testing out the floating power of various maple seeds, or how about learning about biomimicry such as lotus effect treatment for metal to prevent corrosion?” I might reply.
Following my time working with the VBGA research fellows, my answer would now also include “How about teaching environmental STEM concepts through ethnobotany, storytelling, and incorporating biocultural diversity.” PAR has provided academic resources to our organization that contribute to achieving a sustainable future, including new and innovative ways of thinking and sharing STEM concepts. PAR empowers organizations such as botanical gardens, community members, and researchers to act as co-researchers, while contributing lived experience and knowledge to the research process.
Participatory Action Research
In our research, it is recognized that environmental learning processes should be described as both an art and a science. In this, environmental learning programs consider multiple models for teaching and learning, as well as teachers’ own pedagogical content knowledge that forms a unique blend of disciplinary knowledge combined with knowledge about specific learning contexts. For the VBGA fellowship program, the model we selected for our educational inquiry is community-based research that has been termed participatory action research or PAR.
Over the past thirty years or so, researchers have developed at least five different approaches to participatory action research (or PAR) including the following: (1) action research in organizations, (2) participatory research in community development, (3) action research in schools, (4) farmer participatory research, and (5) participatory evaluation.
Storytelling with Kung Jaadee.
Medicine Wheel Ceremony with Phil L’hirondelle.
From traditional Vietnamese storytelling, Hawaiian epistemology, bio-cultural diversity, youth perspectives, using non-anthropocentric approaches and language, and more, Participatory Action Research (PAR) was the creative glue that bonded our diverse perspectives together (in the research). During times of adversity such as the pandemic, PAR allowed the VBGA to continue to engage our community in innovative ways.
Through PAR we have robust community informed evaluations, which allow us to better meet the communities needs and provide high quality effective programming. Through PAR, we work on communicating STEM concepts in approach and language that explores harmonious co-existence of humans and non-humans. In the end, this fellowship has not only provided results, but also built our resiliency and capacity in providing programs for an ever-expanding community.
Conceptually, PAR originates from critical and neo-Marxist perspectives that have been raised in the social sciences over many years. This model stands in stark contrast to traditional approaches in educational research which sometimes is seen as maintaining hierarchical roles for researchers/subjects and teachers/students. PAR questions the unequal power relationships inherent in these traditional models and offers an approach to research that recognizes the inequalities in modern society.
Autoethnography as Method
As has likely become apparent in the presentation of this text, research conducted by the VBGA research fellows is shared in this work using a unique narrative structure and methodology known as autoethnography. In this research method, relevant personal life experiences of participants inform the design of the research program and the activities of the researcher (both as educators and academics). Now as in the past, these processes are continuing to unfold in the VBGA fellowship program and are deeply intertwined. In relating the practice of autoethnography, the research team uses methods in which: “researchers constitute their own object of research so that the knowing subject and the research object become one”. This inquiry also relates to the ‘lived experience’ of the research team as people and as academics, alongside other relationships. Each of these are described here as they relate to the research program and its relationship to other learning outcomes associated with VBGA programs.
Auto-ethnography has similarly been used to examine concepts of pedagogy, and place with environmental educators. Using similar methods, this research highlights research fellows’ experiences within and alongside educators working alongside the VBGA programs. In this, a reflexive process provides an entry point into how ‘place’ might be treated pedagogically in the programs. Narrative discourse is also used to share findings related to the on-going developments with the VBGA and its programming.
Notably, the use of autoethnography and narrative for research in education is increasing, although some researchers believe that its potential for theory and practice has not been fully explored. In this case, the research team used auto-ethnography to relate personal accounts of their experiences to generate key findings about the research program itself. For example, in one method, these data emerge from the interpretation of narrative texts using a technique known as structured vignette analysis.
Autoethnography can also be described as an approach to writing and research that describes and analyzes personal experience to clearly understand cultural experience. This approach challenges traditional forms of research and positions the research as a political and socially conscious act. As attempted here, researchers often use principles of autobiography and ethnography to do and write an autoethnography. Thus, as a method, autoethnography should be considered both a process and product.
A Collaborative Research Narrative
Importantly, auto-ethnography allows researchers to write in a personalized style, drawing on their experience to extend understanding about the social phenomenon under study. As a method, it is grounded in postmodern philosophy and is linked to growing debate about reflexivity and voice in research. The intent of this auto-ethnography is to acknowledge the link between the personal and cultural and make room for nontraditional inquiry and expression around the research program conducted with the VBGA.
Importantly, autoethnography (as a writing style) also borrows from autobiography in making its texts aesthetic by using techniques of ‘showing’, intended to bring readers ‘into the scene’ —particularly into thoughts, emotions, and actions of the author or researcher. In contrast, ‘telling’ is a strategy from ethnography that provides some distance from the events described, allowing for further analysis and/or interpretation. For the purposes of this research, the research fellows use both techniques to elucidate their meanings.
Collaborative autoethnography (or CAE) is a newer (and more social) version of auto-ethnography and is a technique we attempt to illustrate in this paper. CAE is unique in that it involves ‘researchers pooling their stories to find commonalities and differences and then negotiating meaning among these stories to discover deeper understanding of the stories in relation to the socio-cultural context under study in this case, the research and development is undertaken by our VBGA research fellows.
Student studying plants.
Some Projects Emerge
The VBGA runs a number of programs, for example it organizes guided tours and field trips for elementary and high school education, but also prepares and shares teaching kits, especially for elementary teachers, to be used at local schools. The purpose of the nature kits is to introduce students to (nearby) nature and the variety of local plants and species. The project that one of the research fellows (Shaila) undertook was aimed at developing a more holistic perspective with the kits by including Indigenous expressivism described by Deluze and Guttarian posthumanism, and ecofeminism as her guiding philosophies. The goal being to prepare the teaching kits to help young learners develop and nurture a non-anthropocentric philosophy with their learning. This lens enabled the program to adopt a decolonizing perspective toward education and nurture a holistic worldview through the use of non-anthropocentric language.
Congruent with our biocultural lens we understand that language, can shape our beliefs, views, perspectives, and practices. A traditional anthropocentric worldview can be seen as promoting a hierarchical relationship between humans and non-humans that we wanted to disrupt and challenge. For this project, the team developed four nature kits- spring, summer, fall and winter for elementary school students across BC for their science class. We designed activities and inquiry questions for the teachers. All the activities are in alignment with the respective grades’ course curriculum and goal. We further adopted an inquiry lens and incorporated questions and activities using language in a way that promotes Indigenous and holistic understanding of the natural world among the students.
Shaila’s story: Sense of place, belonging and finding connections with nature and relations through introspection and reflection
My journey with the VBGA and the Institute for Environmental Learning is fairly a new one. It started with an initial conversation with the lead researcher (David) and VBGA director (Chantal), and another research fellow (Poh) about building relationships between academic research and community. Their approach to share and mobilize environmental education with the community and not confining research only within academia resonated strongly with me. I was very fortunate to have received the opportunity to join the team as a research fellow and explore ways to forge my connection with the environment and education.
My work as the VBGA research fellow was inspired by a range of spiritualities, philosophies, values, beliefs, and practices from the Indigenous nations of Turtle Island, and from the east and the west about life and education. The key point being conceptualizing education holistically and as a life phenomenon, and not to segregate and confine education within the four walls of classrooms. With that understanding of education and my training in language studies, I aimed to explore how traditional teaching and learning materials promote human centred world views and knowledge, see humans as superior to nature, and how such concepts are embedded in human languages that subconsciously continue to promote anthropocentricism intertwined with the promotion of capitalism in a neoliberal economy. From an ecological perspective, deep environmental awareness and harmonious co-existence with nature is important for sustainable living. The awareness needs to be developed from an early age so that the next generation sees the connection between human and nature and learns to appreciate the value of co-existence for a sustainable future. Thus, the aim of my project was to develop teaching and learning materials for the VBGA that will facilitate young learners develop deep appreciation for the natural world, identify and understand the connections humans share with nature, develop respect for Indigenous holistic perspectives toward life, and lastly, disrupt the human centredness in the current knowledge production system. The goal of the project is well-aligned with British Columbia’s K-12 curriculum that emphasizes understanding Indigenous ways of making sense of the world and knowledge production.
My coming to the understanding of life, our relationship with nature, and holistic education is an ongoing journey that can be traced back to my early life experiences. I grew up in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh at a time when globalization and capitalism had not hit it hard, and it was still a small city with ample greenery and close-knit neighbourhoods where everyone knew each other. I also had the opportunity to travel all over Bangladesh with my family and make frequent visits to my father’s village home where my extended family lives still today. I witnessed the relationship of people with their surrounding nature from an early age; but truth be told, I did not consider it something special back then. Or, it could be said that that was the way of life for people around me and it seemed so natural and normal. I realized the urge and the need to be mindful of our relationship with the environment and nature years later when I felt an alienation which existed in the urban society of Dhaka that grew to be a city of millions by then obliterating the age-old neighbourhoods, community living, and any greenery that was left from the natural environment.
Fast forward two decades, I came to British Columbia, Canada as an international student to pursue my graduate studies. This was the first time I realized the sense of place, physical nature, and what they mean to us. It is true that I did not know any humans here, but it was painful to realize that I was not familiar even with the trees and plants and the physical environment around me. I came to the realization that to grow connection with a place, we need not just human connection but more than that. It was at this point, with all my ideas about education, environment, growing roots in and connecting with a place mish mashed, I had this conversation about the participatory emerging research project with the VBGA and Institute for Environmental Learning at SFU and became a proud and grateful team member.
There were a few defining moments in my journey (to becoming) a VBGA research fellow. Some of them include our conversations about education, research, environment, some of them include my experiencing the garden and the richness it offers, and some of it includes my observation of VBGA’s education programs, all the while my experiences from Bangladesh were in the background. Being a doctoral student in education specializing in language studies, I was faced with the question about my contribution to the team. Upon having extensive discussions with the research team and VBGA’s education team, I thought we could develop educational resources for elementary students adopting a non-anthropocentric perspective and language.
Akiko’s story: A Journey of Growth through the Fellowship Experience
My first encounter with the fellowship was an interview with the lead investigator (David), and the Director of the VBGA (Chantal). During the interview, I was asked about my perspectives on biocultural diversity in Japan, knowing I had grown up there. His question transported me back over twenty years, to a life I had almost forgotten. One vivid memory surfaced: a conversation with my grandfather, a gardener by trade and a man of few words. He once shared a profound lesson with me: Japanese gardeners never shape trees merely to please the owners. Instead, they prioritize the health and natural beauty of each tree. This approach contrasts sharply with some Western gardening styles, where trees are often trimmed into neat, geometric shapes or even animal forms. My grandfather spoke with pride about the gardener’s role in understanding and enhancing the inherent beauty of nature, a philosophy that mirrored the broader Japanese ethos of respecting and coexisting with nature.
Reflecting on this memory after the interview, I realized how deeply it had influenced my views on biocultural diversity. The interview prompted me to think critically about this concept as a research theme and how it related to my personal experiences. After consulting with the research and education team, I decided to focus my fellowship project on evaluating the VBGA’s field trip programs. My background in program evaluations for non-profit organizations and local school boards, particularly for programs supporting refugee and immigrant families in Canada, provided a solid foundation for this task. Familiar with community-based program evaluations, I quickly devised a plan for the steps and data collection needed. As I delved deeper into the evaluation process, engaging with students, teachers, parent chaperones, and various VBGA staff, I began to realize that this fellowship offered far more than I had anticipated. I discovered multiple connections with the garden, immersing myself fully in the experience and the people involved.
The fellowship provided me with opportunities to explore my relationship with nature, biocultural diversity, and environmental education through various roles. Firstly, as a fellow conducting a program evaluation, I enjoyed gathering diverse perspectives on the field trips. The VBGA education team was passionate about providing hands-on learning experiences that complemented classroom education. Teachers valued the field trips despite the logistical and financial challenges, while parents and guardians appreciated the unique opportunities these trips offered their children. The children’s candid feedback, highlighting their joy in observing turtles and learning about trees and insects, was especially heartening.
While I conducted the evaluation as a researcher, I couldn’t ignore how my personal experiences and perspectives helped me understand each participant’s viewpoint. The students’ excitement reminded me of my daughter’s curiosity, the parents’ gratitude echoed my appreciation for nature as a mother, and the teachers’ dedication mirrored the commitment of educators like myself. These connections enriched the evaluation process and made it more meaningful. Beyond the formal project, the fellowship invited me to various enriching experiences. I participated in the VBGA volunteer appreciation day and assisted with Pollinator Days, an event educating visitors about pollinators and their environments. These events showcased how VanDusen’s programs foster biocultural diversity and create opportunities for people to connect through nature.
One of the most personal moments came when I visited the Sakura Days Japan Fair at VanDusen with my daughter, who was in grade three at that time, and our family friends. Sharing the tradition of Hanami, admiring the Sakura blossoms, while explaining its cultural significance, made me realize how much I wanted my daughter to experience this part of her heritage. This was especially precious as we cannot see Sakura in Japan unless we visit during a specific time of the year. Similarly, exploring Bloedel with her and using a new education kit (developed by Poh) allowed us to bond over shared discoveries and stories from different cultures.
These experiences profoundly enriched my fellowship. When analyzing the program evaluation data, I approached it objectively. However, my recommendations were deeply informed by my multifaceted perspectives as a fellow, an educator, and a mother. This holistic view enabled me to understand the participants more deeply and envision how the program could be enhanced to provide meaningful learning experiences, tailored to meet the diverse needs of schools and students. In conclusion, this fellowship was a journey of professional growth and personal discovery. It allowed me to reconnect with my cultural roots, understand the importance of biocultural diversity, and appreciate the intricate ways in which we relate to nature. The insights gained from this experience continue to influence my work and my life, making this journey truly unforgettable.
Poh’s story: Reflections of Malaysia and Vietnam, Hibiscus and Lotus
As I reflect on my most recent research, it’s hard not to feel a sense of awe at the twists and turns in my project, the people I met and collaborated with, and connections with the community that emerged and formed through mutual and authentic commitment to understanding and stewarding our planet. My name is Poh and I am the longest serving of the three VBGA/IEL research fellows. As this story is written, I have been part of the VBGA and Bloedel community for three years. My project is specifically focused on bringing accessible and technology enabled virtual learning experiences to Bloedel Conservatory for educators in the formal / non-formal teaching space to learn about tropical plants and how they play a role in understanding temperate plants in our environment. In my previous fellowship project, I helped plan, create and develop Bloedel’s first virtual field trip experiences. These experiences were created to address accessibility challenges for classroom access to the conservatory and more so, to have access to culturally relevant plant science activities. These experiences had a positive response from teachers, and so in my current fellowship, I focused on an expanded Bloedel experience that included pre-, during, and post- learning prompts for the students.
Poh teaching hula at Bloedel Conservatory
I have many memorable moments during the fellowship that either sparked my curiosity, tested what I thought I knew about certain topics, and engagement with teachers and students from a blended learning approach. There were moments where I brought in my experience with other learning communities like Science World (a local science museum), Hawaiian hula dance family (a group I co-teach and dance with), or my Malaysian-Nyonya heritage to bring together science, culture, Indigenous worldviews, and arts. I had the opportunity to work with a design student who also had a passion for citizen science, and together we designed an activity booklet specifically for Grade 3-5 students to experience Bloedel Conservatory in a more engaged way. My student, Hoang and I worked every week over summer, meeting multiple times at the Conservatory to observe different plants, to listen to the birds’ chirp, to feel the warm and humid air, and to touch the smooth trunk of the banana plant. Hoang and I created Bloedel Conservatory’s first curricular aligned activity booklet with the intention of extending a student’s learning before, during, and after their visit to the Conservatory. These experiences were built in an online platform called ArcGIS StoryMaps, a tool that I stumbled upon during my research studies, that has become a digital storytelling tool used for the Bloedel experiences.
Among the many plants to choose from in the conservatory, the banana plant has been a key plant of focus in the last virtual experiences because of its significance in both Hoang and my own culture. The banana plant and the banana are not only eaten as a treat, but its leaves are used as wraps for cooking, it’s flowers in curries, and the fibre from its trunk is used as rope. After one of our visits at Bloedel, Hoang and I sat down in the shade under a tree just outside of the conservatory to talk about creating an activity booklet for students. As our conversation progressed, we began to talk about the banana plant and similarly our families use the different parts in our culture. I shared a scary story my grandmother told me about the banana plant and this story reminded Hoang of a Vietnamese story about how the shape of bananas came to be. We spent that afternoon talking about the many similarities and differences between the Vietnamese and Malaysia culture.
Although our meetings were focused on the technical task of creating the virtual experience, we learned more about each other’s culture through stories told to us by our grandparents, parents, and community. We learned that even though our cultures are similar, there are significant differences because of historical impacts, environment, climate, and language. I learned that although Vietnam was geographically close to Malaysia, I knew very little about its history or its independence and rise from being a colonial state from France. I also learned that like Malaysia, Vietnam’s national flower is the lotus blossom because it symbolizes purity, elegance and strength. Malaysia’ national flower is the red hibiscus, called Bunga Raya in the local language (Bahasa Melayu), which symbolizes the courage and vitality of the people, and celebrated unity after gaining independence. Working with Hoang has been an eye-opening learning experience on how closely related and vastly different our cultures are. Our home countries are only separated by 680 kilometers of ocean between the two closets cities, but our culture, language, and practices evolved differently over time.
Analysis and Findings
As discussed earlier, collaborative autoethnography (or CAE) is a newer (and more social) version of autoethnography and is a technique we illustrate in this paper. CAE is unique in that it involves ‘researchers pooling their stories to find commonalities and differences and then negotiating meaning among these stories to discover deeper understanding of the stories in relation to the socio-cultural context under study. In this section, we as researchers (and fellows) analyse our experiences in a collaborative way drawing several themes from our work together. These emergent themes include evaluating and valuing experience, using scientific and cultural perspectives, and finally, seeing through a non-anthropocentric lens. Each of these are presented in narrative format (though shared in the passive voice) to emphasize that these findings were collaboratively derived. Each analysis originates from earlier narratives shared by VBGA research fellows.
Teaching plant dyes in VBGA Learning Garden.
‘Evaluating and Valuing’ the Fellowship Experience
Akiko, shares that while reflecting on her experience as a fellow, that facilitating participatory-action research on VBGA field trip programs marked an invaluable and pivotal juncture in her academic career. For her, the endeavour reinforced a commitment to collaborating with diverse local communities to enhance program evaluations aimed at improving lives through education. Typically, Akiko strives to maintain a neutral, third-party perspective in program evaluations to ensure unbiased analysis and equitable engagement with all stakeholders. However, in engaging with VBGA staff, volunteers, teachers, parents, children, and fellow researchers, she increasingly felt integrated into the community — developing a profound connection to diverse perspectives and a shared passion for making the field trip experience enriching and enjoyable for all participants.
Learning Garden Eco Dye Workshop. Photo by Chantal Martin.
Through interviews and conversations with community members, Akiko discerns that each individual harbours a unique relationship with nature, shaped by their distinct backgrounds and experiences. Her role evolved from that of an external evaluator to a community member, tasked with extracting their knowledge and experiences to provide insights on optimizing a community’s visits to the garden. Viewing the project through the lenses of her identities as a mother, immigrant, researcher, and educator, she resonates with the participants’ enthusiasm for nature education and their candid feedback on the field trip program. Unlike typical research endeavours focused solely on data collection, this participatory-action research aimed to enhance the field trip experience for the community. The participants’ willingness to share their observations and suggestions for program improvement is particularly enlightening.
During the fellowship, many parents, especially those with immigrant backgrounds, visited the garden for the first time with their children’s class, mirroring their children’s learning journey in a new country. After a visit to the garden, parents often engage in discussions about the field trip at home, which provides opportunities to share their childhood experiences with nature, akin to conversations Akiko has with her daughter after visits to the garden and the Bloedel Conservatory.
Throughout this process, she recognizes that her role within the community transcended mere research conduct; she is actively contributing to the participatory-action research’s objective of community improvement. This realization fosters a deeper level of engagement and self-reflection throughout the research process, as she attentively listens to participants’ contributions. It is inspiring to contemplate how we can extend our efforts to include those who have not yet visited the garden (due to various challenges) and to integrate their perspectives into future VBGA field trip programs.
Akiko summarizes that overall; her fellowship experience is profoundly fulfilling on both personal and professional levels. It facilitates a reconnection with nature amidst a busy life, prompting reflections on how to live harmoniously with the natural world. It also provides an opportunity to share the joy of being surrounded by nature with her daughter and to revisit childhood experiences with nature in Japan—experiences many children rarely have access to. Further, it enables her to connect with and learn from the participants in an evaluation study, while gaining insights into their collective wisdom and experiences through nature and environmental education. Ultimately, she learns that as a community, we provide the best for future generations by collectively preserving and enhancing our natural environment while supporting field trip programs that serve to facilitate children’s learning in nature.
Scientific and Cultural Perspectives on Plants
Poh shares that in the beginning of this fellowship, she tries starting her research from a structured and scientific methodical approach as she makes an attempt to place a linear understanding of her pedagogical approaches about plants and people. She quickly learns that to understand why and how people form connections to plants requires a more fluid and embodied understanding through story and art — allowing time for these connections to form. As her fellowship continues and throughout the other years she works alongside the education team and other research fellows, she learns the importance of allowing realizations, learnings, and connections to form requires moments of organic reflection — finding the “right” time and timeliness to cultivate meaningful connections between people and plants. In addition to allowing time to flow through story and performance (e.g. her performances of Hawaiian hula dance), it is also important for Poh, as a researcher, that she be aware of and act upon the biases that she holds for certain plants and her special relationship with these plants because of her background as a scientist and her Nyonya heritage. Much like the hibiscus and the banana plant that are key features in her project, she feels and experiences time differently – a non-linear and spiral patterned experience as co-learners and co-participants in these moments of critical meaning.
Poh’s analysis begins with the hibiscus flower which cycles through a circadian-rhythmic process called nyctinasty where this flower opens and closes in response to light and synchronization with its pollinators. It’s beautiful bloom only lasts between 24 – 36 hours before the flower wilts and falls to the ground. She is reminded of this as she shares stories about the hibiscus — and depending on the time of the year, students visiting the Conservatory and experiencing a virtual field trip may not see the hibiscus in bloom. She posits that we could offer a picture of a hibiscus or even attempt to preserve a hibiscus flower for students to see in the flower’s absence, but this would not be the same. As an educator, she asks herself, what is her intention for students when learning about the hibiscus? Was it to see its beautiful colours? Was it to feel its delicate petals and witness its cycles? Yes and no. Although she designs the learning experience with an intention for students to come to the conservatory to learn about the biology of the flower and plant, it is even more important for them to learn about its meaning to different cultures, its role as symbol of strength and courage, and a reminder of the planet’s beauty and its resilience as humans moved this plant species to diverse locations on the planet. At the same time, Poh is reminded that as a Nyonya from Malaysian heritage, the red hibiscus was chosen to be her country’s national flower. Bunga Raya (or Celebratory Flower) signifying the unity and courage of the Malaysian people: its five red petals embodying the spirit, resilience, and bravery of the nation. Through this experience Poh develops a much deeper appreciation and connection to the flower after immigrating and living in Canada for more than 30 years – a connection she notes was starting to fade due to geographical and cultural distance.
Finally, she shares that her time spent at the Conservatory, engaging with diverse narratives and participating in participatory action research, facilitates an organic emergence of patterns and insights, rather than her initial attempts to produce predetermined or expected outcomes. Her relationship and realizations within the education team, with other fellows in the program, and with the plants and animals in the Conservatory, leads her to an enriched understanding of time and patience. These also underscore the importance of capturing pivotal moments of connection far beyond the gardens – into her life as a mother, scientist, educator, and researcher.
Seeing Through a Non-Anthropogenic Lens
Shaila’s deep appreciation for Indigenous expressivism and the use of a non-anthropocentric lens are also key to this analysis. She realizes that these themes are rooted in her childhood memories observing people with a deep connection to nature — to the extent that their food habits were guided by the seasons. Yes, to some extent this is because only seasonal food was available back then — as the agro-economy was local. Still, because people practised this knowledge/wisdom about a connection that our bodies and minds have with the different seasons, that certain foods grow in season, and the reasons to include these habits can enhance our overall well-being. For example, Shaila sees the tradition of picking and cooking certain types of leafy greens together as ‘welcoming in’ a season. These food items were not cultivated but instead grew on their own –here and there – something that we have come to label as weeds (in the Western sense) thanks to modern and urban forms of education. She shares that it was traditionally a women’s duty to collect those leafy greens and though this may seem like a folk ritual — there is a deep meaning and purpose in the harvest. The growth of those leafy greens in a specific season indicates a healthy balance in the ecosystem of a particular place including the idea that a human cultivation system is in balance and does not destroy the natural growth of other species.
Shaila shares that it is women who ensured that this balance was intact – and so a women’s participation and care for the ecology exists where a patriarchal capitalist world denies it. She posits that there is a close and complex relationship between nature and the people who care for it. The relationship that people share with nature and the wisdom they gain from their relationship with the environment is documented and reflected in the knowledge of Ayurveda that focuses on the body, mind, and environment relationship. In her childhood, Shaila saw orchards and forests situated in the villages that were considered community property on which everybody had the right to harvest. Thus, our relationship with nature and our dependence on the environment, impacts people’s concept of property, rights, and ownership. These may seem disconnected observations, but all of these highlight the point that our relationship with nature is one of intricate co-existence and of knowledge production and a complex sharing that anthropocentrism denies.
Shaila sees such cultural practices fading away in Canada (and in her home country) and feels the hollowness created among humans when they become alienated from nature. She further reflects that upon her arrival to Canada, as much as she longed for human connection, she suffered also due to her unfamiliarity with local nature. She did not know which species to plant in which season, when they would bloom, or how she would take care of them. While there is an abundance of nature in BC, she feels fortunate to wake up in the morning and be amazed at the sight of BC’s mountains, and she laments that there was no connection for her in her early years in Canada. Her life experiences learning here in BC are gradually ‘taking root’ and she is learning more about nature and the local environment every day. She now knows the name of ‘that flower’ blooming in spring whose fragrance she used to inhale at night but never knew how to identify, she also learns how to walk on the unceded territories of Canada’s Indigenous nations, and how a summer night in this part of the world feels.
Summarizing all of this, Shaila’s time as a research fellow with the VBGA is a time of exploration, reflection, and understanding. She has encouragement from members of the research team to weave her thoughts and philosophies and to apply these in the creation of educational resources that help children have a more holistic view of nature and to understand that we humans are part of nature, not separate from it. It gives her the opportunity to explore new ideas and connect them with her cultural background and understanding of humans, society, and nature. Finally, she learns about and explores the participatory research method that encourages an organic development of research; a process that deeply resonates with us all as it forces us to rethink our role as researchers and our relationship with our immediate surroundings. Overall, the fellowship opportunity allows Shaila and other researchers a unique chance to experience an urban garden and explore its potential for education in a holistic sense that leads to a shared journey of personal growth and relationship building.
Campers washing harvested beets.
Summary and Conclusions
Analysis of our experiences with the VBGA fellowship program help make a case for the enactment of a more inclusive, ‘ecological’ framework for research in environmental programming. Put simply, this idea highlights an ‘embeddedness’ of humans in natural systems: an idea held by Indigenous cultures worldwide since time immemorial. Ecological frameworks view humans as one part of the natural world and human societies and cultures as essentially an outgrowth of interactions between our species and particular places. Such an approach to learning in the VBGA gardens has allowed educators to consider multiple perspectives on an issue under study. This line of inquiry also allowed our research fellows to more deeply consider the concept of ‘biocultural diversity’ which is central to our work.
Biocultural diversity, as defined by Luisa Maffi, is ‘the diversity of life in all its manifestations: biological, cultural, and linguistic’ which she shares are interrelated within a complex socioecological adaptive system. Maffi relates that this diversity is made up not only of the diversity of plants and animal species, but also of the diversity of human cultures and languages. This point must be highlighted in our work as our narratives have demonstrated that the cultural backgrounds of each of our research fellows were deeply influential in their research as we worked together to enact participatory methods in our action research conducted in these urban gardens.
VGBA Education team at Grouse Mountain.
Providing quality environmental education in our communities is something the dedicated team of educators at the VBGA holds near and dear to our hearts, after all it is this passion that brings us all together. That passion, however, is formed through our unique life experiences and worldviews. Letting researchers into our world was exciting and new, and with that also came worry. This stemmed from the fear that our team’s unique blend of educator perspectives may be judged, undervalued, or not be truly seen for our successes. We could not have foreseen that not only have our programs improved because of this PAR-based partnership, but we are encouraged in our passion, supported in our uniqueness, and challenged in our complacency. We are better informed by community, we value the evolution of language as a tool for belonging, and we look towards opportunities for growth as individuals, as an organization, and for community. The VBGA and the researchers that work here once seemed to be two separate pieces working alongside each other. Together, we came to see that the researchers, the VBGA, and community members all make up a thriving ecosystem reflective of our own biocultural diversity — collaboratively achieved while working together in these urban botanical gardens.
In all of this, we now regard biocultural diversity as a provocation for narrative forms of research such as this. In our work, we view the concept of bio-cultural diversity as dynamic in nature –taking as a start the local values and practices of different cultural groups (or individuals) as its starting point for doing participatory research. For educators, the idea is to work to preserve or restore important practices and values and to modify, adapt and support diversity in ways that resonate with diverse urban communities as they experience this learning in urban botanical gardens. In our research, bio-cultural diversity is conceived as a reflexive and sensitizing concept used to assess the different values and knowledge of all people – as a reflection on how we may live sustainably now, and in the future.
Endnotes
Maria Albuquerque, Jacqueline Kwok, Chantal Martin, Hailey Moran, Gladys Runtukahu, Poh Tan, and David Zandvliet, “Biocultural Diversity in Botanical Gardens: A Journey Through Stories,” Langscapes Magazine (2022, April) https://terralingua.org/stories/reverence-for-nature-a-biocultural-journey-in-botanical-gardens/
Luisa Maffi, ‘Biocultural Diversity and Sustainability,’ in Sage Handbook on Environment and Society, eds. Pretty, J. Ball, A.S., Benton, T., Guivant, J.S., Lee, D.R., Orr, D., Pfeffer, M.J. and Ward, H. (London: Sage, 2007), 267–77.
James Wandersee and Elizabeth Schussler, National survey on the public perception of plants. (Portland, OR: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Botanical Society of America, 2000, Aug.)
Kathryn Parsley, “Plant awareness disparity: A case for renaming plant blindness,” Plants, People Planet 2(6), (2020), 598-601, https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10153
Daniela Sellman and Franz Bogner, “Climate change education: quantitatively assessing the impact of a botanical garden as an informal learning environment,” Environmental Education Research, 19-4, (2013), 415–429, DOI:10.1080/13504622.2012.700696
Michael Bonnett, “Lost in space? Education and the concept of nature,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 23, (2004), p125.
Gregory Smith and David Sobel, Place- and Community-based Education in Schools. (New York: Routledge, 2010).
Robert Stevenson, “A Critical Pedagogy of Place and the Critical Place(s) of Pedagogy.” Environmental Education Research, 14-3, (2008), 353–360.
Brian Watchow, B. and Michael Brown, “A Pedagogy of Place: Outdoor Education for a Changing World,” (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2011).
Roy Ballantyne, Jan Packer, Karen Hughes and Lynn Dierking, “Conservation learning in wildlife tourism settings: Lessons from research in zoos and aquariums,” Environmental Education Research, 13(3), (2007), 367–383, DOI: 10.1080/13504620701430604
Daniele Sellman and Franz Bogner, “Climate change education: quantitatively assessing the impact of a botanical garden as an informal learning environment,” Environmental Education Research.
John Gaventa and Andrea Cornwall, Power and knowledge: The Sage handbook of action research: Participative action research, (London: Sage, 2008).
Wolff-Michael Roth, Auto/biography and auto/ethnography: Praxis of research method, 109 (Rotterdam: Brill/Sense Publishers, 2005).
Max van Manen, Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. (N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1990).
Robbie Nicol, “Returning to the richness of experience: is autoethnography a useful approach for outdoor educators in promoting pro-environmental behaviour?,” Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning, 13:1, (2013), 3-17, DOI:10.1080/14729679.2012.679798
Jayne Pitard, “Using Vignettes Within Autoethnography to Explore Layers of Cross-Cultural Awareness as a Teacher,” Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17, (2016), Art. 11.
Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner, “Autoethnography: An Overview,” Forum: Qualitative Social Research 12, (2011), Art. 10.
Sarah Wall, “An autoethnography on learning about ethnography,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(2), (2006), https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/ijqm/index.php/IJQM/article/view/4396
Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner, “Autoethnography: An Overview,” Forum: Qualitative Social Research.
Heewon Chang, Faith Ngunjiri, and Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez, Collaborative Autoethnography.
Simone Bignall, Steve Hemming, and Daryl Rigney, “Three Ecosophies for the Anthropocene: Environmental Governance, Continental Posthumanism and Indigenous Expressivism,” Deleuze Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4 (2016), 456-477, https://www.jstor.org/stable/45331750
Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism, (London: Zed Books, 2014).
Heewon Chang, Faith Ngunjiri, and Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez, Collaborative Autoethnography.
Farhad Mazhar, Daniel Buckles, P.V. Satheesh, and Farida Akhter, Food Sovereignty and Uncultivated Biodiversity in South Asia : Essays on the Poverty of Food Policy and the Wealth of the Social Landscape. (International Development Research Centre, 2007)
David Zandvliet, Shannon Leddy, Cate Inver, Victor Elderton, Brittney Townrow, Lori York, “Approaches to Bio-Cultural Diversity in British Columbia,” Sustainability, 15-8 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086422
Gregory Cajete, Indigenous Community: Rekindling the Teachings of the Seventh Fire, (Living Justice Press, 2020).
Luisa Maffi, ‘Biocultural Diversity and Sustainability,’ in Sage Handbook on Environment and Society.
by editor | Dec 28, 2025 | Data Collection, Environmental Literacy
How do we train educators to successfully interface technologies with the outdoor experiences that they provide their students?
by R. Justin Hougham,
Marc Nutter,
Megan Gilbertson,
Quinn Bukouricz
University of Wisconsin – Extension
Originally published January 2020
Technology in education (ed tech) is constantly changing and growing in impact in classrooms across the globe. While ed tech holds great promise for closing achievement gaps in sectors of the education community, it remains yet to be seen how this will truly live up to its potential (“Brain Gains”, 2017, July 22). Ed tech is anticipated to grow to a $120 billion market by 2019, which will largely be spent in software and web services. How might we hope to see this show up in out-of-classroom field experiences?
Unaddressed in these articles and what we explore here are the specific impacts that the conversation of technology in environmental education brings as well as a case study that shares strategies we have found to be effective when an education considers the merging of hardware (inquiry tools), technology application in professional development, and web-based collaboration tools. Important questions for environmental education ask include How does this scale for education for the environment? What considerations need to be taken to ensure that investment works? How would we know if it does? How do we train educators to successfully interface technologies with the outdoor experiences that they provide their students? In an article published here in Clearing in 2012, we explored the instructional framework for merging field based science education with mobile pedagogies in the framework entitled Adventure Learning @ (Hougham, Eitel, and Miller, 2012). In the years since, this model has informed a collection of hardware kits that supports the concepts in AL@ as well as an examination of the questions outline above, these hardware kits are called Digital Observation Technology Skills (DOTS) kits.
In the middle fork of the Salmon River in Idaho you’ll see Steelhead, rushing rapids and hot springs that all tell the story of the landscape. Similarly, along the Wisconsin River, you will see towns, forests and fields that have a link to the industries that have shaped the state over the last 150 years. If you’re in the right spot at the right time, you can find inquisitive young people and bright yellow cases filled with gadgets taking data points and crafting Scientific Stories about the watersheds in their state. Regardless of whether it is a wild river or a small tributary outside a schoolyard- scientific stories wait to be told in these places and technology that is appropriately considered helps unlock and share these experiences.
A naturalist assists youth with a water quality test while on a canoe trip. Photo credit: DOTS participant.
In a world where technology is almighty, wielding digital literacy is practically a requirement in our understanding of just about everything. The students of today are able to navigate through web pages and apps with ease, information at their fingertips like never before. Here, we can find ourselves removed from that information, disconnected from those data sources and collections, stifling our desire to wonder and inquire more. By investing in digital tools that can enhance inquiry of the natural world, educators can bridge this divide of both information and the ability to be a primary data collector. In equipping students with touchscreens and interfaces familiar to youth of today, they are able to partake in not only real world application of scientific observation, but also experimental design and efforts moving toward the future.
Young people in Wisconsin have been contributing to the development of this idea of digital data collection and inquiry, through DOTS. The DOTS program has been developing in Wisconsin since 2014, engaging both youth and adult demographics in digital literacies, and connecting the dots from data collection to inquiry and analysis. By involving youth in the visualization and comparison of their data collections, they are able to begin to accomplish higher order learning such as developing their own hypotheses and synthesize the meaning of their findings. DOTS has been developed for students in 4th through 8th grades but has been modified for audiences in 2nd through high school, including adult learners, continuing education, and professional development.
Case studies of this application vary widely in scale, location and content. Currently DOTS kits are used in Idaho and in Wisconsin by youth to examine water quality. A full-scale implementation is underway currently in Wisconsin to connect youth from many different watersheds. Held this past August, the Wisconsin Water Youth Stories Summit brought together students from across the state of Wisconsin who are interested in not only environment and ecosystems, but also water quality and sharing their “water stories”. Supported by an EPA grant, this Summit was a culminating experience for many of the youth, getting to collect and share their findings over their 3 day period at Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center (Grant Number: EPA-00E02045). This two year grant has trained and equipped educators with DOTS tool with an emphasis on water quality monitoring. Throughout the year, youth from around Wisconsin collect data and share their findings with others in real time on the web. At the Water Stories Summit, each group brought their DOTS kit to explore the environment and compare collected data sets. This experience not only brought together young scientists with a vested interest in the future of water, but also allowed students to share stories of local water quality that affects their own communities around the state.
A student uses a water quality test to find the amount of phosphorus at a Wisconsin River location. Photo credit: DOTS participant.
Many shared stories about urban run-off pollution, such as lawn fertilizers and road salt, E. coli contamination, and they discussed the ways in which humans alter natural waterways. At the end of their experience one student said they learned that, “science is being precise and unbiased about nature and numbers.” Another student said of a different Upham experience, “We went to Blackhawk Island for our project. The tools helped us take photos of what was under the rock. The tools help to see what animals were living there. We came up with a lot of new questions after we did our research and we can’t wait to find out things like, if the temperature affects what animals we will find living under a rock, and what animals live at different depths.” Through these collaborations of student generated data, participants were able to make connections between each other and drive further inquiry questions such as how to improve water use and consumption, and how the water affects all other life.
While the kits themselves are certainly an enhancement to a variety of curriculum, the training that accompanies the deployment is just as important as the tools themselves. Educators that partner on DOTS projects are supported with (1) Equipment, (2) Training and (3) a Web platform for collaboration. It is the interrelationship between the inquiry tools, inquiry methods and inquiry artifacts that provide the support for transformative outdoor science experiences.
A DOTS kit consists of a select set of digital tools to equip youth and educators with everything they need to take a basic data set of an ecosystem and microclimate. Contained in a water-proof, heavy-duty case, the tools selected are chosen for their utility, cost effectiveness, and ease of use. Any suite of tools can be selected for an individual’s classroom purposes, this is first and foremost, a framework to scaffold inquiry and observational skills. DOTS users gain field experience with hand held weather stations, thermal imagers, digital field microscopes, GPS units, and cameras to contribute to local citizen science monitoring (Hougham and Kerlin, 2016). A DOTS program training is facilitated by program staff and has evolved over time to include these six goals. While these are used in DOTS, nearly any technology implementation would benefit from these goals being outlined.
- Establish functional and technical familiarity with DOTS Kit hardware
- Orientation to DOTS Kit web interface, data uploading, and site visualizations
- Examination of mobile, digital pedagogies in historical as well as applied contexts
- Advance instructional capacities in application of observation and inquiry facilitation applicable to experiences outside the classroom
- Production of digital artifacts that contribute to Scientific Storytelling
- Facilitation of initial curricular design considerations for integrating kits into existing programs
After the training, educators have access to a suite of tools that can be lent out for deeper science connections in outdoor spaces. Further, trained educators can use grab-and-go lessons from the project website to launch the concepts with their students and watch videos produced and hosted on the site that provide further instruction on applications of the tools.
Lastly, a web-based collaboration platform is hosted to support the development of additional inquiry. To continue this mission of enhancing student inquiry and promoting collaboration, data sets can be uploaded to an online public access platform. As users enter their data online, the map displays in real time the coordinates and information of each data point. Viewers can easily navigate a Google map with their and other’s data points for comparison and post-experience observation. This immediate viewership not only falls in line with today’s student’s understanding of a fast-paced, immediately available world, but also allows no stagnation in the learning process as inquiry can continue instantaneously. Through engagement by use of digital tools collecting data in the field, reflection on process and methods through data entry into the web-based model, and through analysis and refinement of hypothesis for further inquiry, students take ownership of their data and have a voice in sharing their discoveries with others. These inquiries have been qualified in the DOTS programming through use of a “scientific story”.
The scientific story helps to build connection between qualitative and quantitative data and their respective ways of understanding. As humans we have told stories for millennia to entertain, educate, and remember. Combining these elements of storytelling with the scientific method of developing hypotheses and data collection, a story is created to share. These stories are generally 3-5 sentences and include photos taken by camera and tools such as the handheld microscope and thermal imager. In taking a closer look with digital tools, a deeper appreciation is gained and honed in on through these scientific stories and it is through these words that we can harness stories in what they do best: share. They can be digitized and easily shared across social media platforms, creating interest in the environment and science in family and community members.
This story written while at Upham woods during the aforementioned Water Stories Summit, and describes the location and inquires the youth had.
We investigated two different locations as a part of the water study blitz at Upham Woods. The first location was the Fishing shore on the Wisconsin River, and the second location was a stagnant inlet only 100 feet away. We noticed several differences between the two locations. We wanted to know more about the animal life in both locations. What kind of animals live in these habitats that we couldn’t see during the blitz? What would we find if we studied the location where the Fishing Shore and Inlet connect?
This story highlights the questions students wanted to investigate further and spurred their desire to continue comparing locations in the context of animal life. Another story from the Water Stories Summit illustrates a group of high school students making connections between ideas and places.
When doing the data blitz at camp, we tested water for all kinds of factors (pH, Conductivity, Salinity and others). The cool thing we noticed was the differences in PH levels of the water that equaled a 9.49 level that makes water a base. This reminded us of what would happen if water had a unbalanced and non neutral PH level, that was out of control… One example of this is a sulphur pit, like in Yellowstone national park. The pH of this water is as low as 1.2, which is almost equivalent to battery acid.
By encouraging students to develop their own scientific story, they create a deeper connection with that place and nature in general. This connection evolves to a jumping off point for further inquiry and hypothesis development which can be fleshed out into full empirical science studies or harnessed into environmental service projects. Additionally, as data sets can be shared, these students in Wisconsin can use the data collected in Idaho to further their hypotheses and promote scientific collaboration.
A naturalist teaches an Escuela Verde student how to take a water quality reading. Photo credit: DOTS participant.
Throughout the use of this approach research suggests that digital tools should be adopted in environmental education whenever possible (Hougham et al., 2016). To assess participant perspectives, DOTS uses a modified Common Measures instrument (National 4-H Council, 2017) to examine student attitudes towards technology and towards nature. In a 2015 study conducted by the DOTS project research team (Hougham et al., 2016), students where engaged in two iterations of an environmental studies curriculum- one was with traditional analogue toolsets and one was with digital toolsets. In an analysis of pre/post-test evaluation responses (n= 135), students showed statistically significant and positive shifts in attitudes towards technology, the use of technology outdoors, and towards investigating nature. In a review of the data from DOTS users for both profession development and youth workshops (n=71), it was found that 97% of participants of all ages agreed or strongly agreed that they “better understand how science, technology, or engineering can solve problems after using the DOTS tools”, and 89% said they agreed or strongly agreed that they “liked learning about this subject”.
This survey data provides insight on scaffolding and curiosity building techniques. In this way, it was found that lessons on observation were most useful when they began with broad scale observations and students were invited to make more focused observations. This system allows for students to explore a part of the world that they find interesting, making them more invested in a narrative authentic to them. The practice of up close observation is nothing new in environmental education, notably Adventures with a Hand Lens was published in 1962, advancing outdoor science instruction to engage the learner in their own investigations of the world up close. Today, this observation scaffolds easily onto data collection, with students studying parts of the ecosystem that they find interesting with encouragement to find how these seemingly individual pieces coalesce into a larger system.
In moving environmental education into the digital age, educators should look to empower youth with the tools and responsibility to examine their surroundings, and in encouraging youth to take and use technology outside, educators can capitalize on students collecting their own data sets to develop deeper, more meaningful inquiry questions. And when they can begin developing their own questions that they want to answer rather than following a worksheet or handout, the exploration becomes that much more desirable and satiating. Those young people wielding handheld weather stations and thermal imagers on the Salmon River or on the Wisconsin may appear to be kids collecting some information for science project, but don’t be fooled, the next generation of scientists and scientific thinkers is out there, already developing their inquiries into the natural world.
References
- Brain Gains. (2017, July 22). The Economist. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21725313-how-science-learning-can-get-best-out-edtech-together-technology-and-teachers-can
- Headstrom, R.. (1962). Adventures with a Hand Lens.
- Hougham, R. J., Eitel, K. B., & Miller, B. G. (2013). AL@: Combining the strengths of adventure learning and place based education. 2012 CLEARING Compendium (pp 38-41).
- Hougham, J. and Kerlin, S. (2017). To Unplug or Plug In. Green Teacher. Available at: https://greenteacher.com/to-unplug-or-plug-in/.
- Hougham, R., Nutter, M., Nussbaum, A., Riedl, T. and Burgess, S. (2016). Engaging at-risk populations outdoors, digitally: researching youth attitudes, confidence, and interest in technology and the outdoors. Presented at the 44th Annual International Symposium on Experiential Education Research, Minneapolis, MN.
- National 4-H Council. (2017). Common Measures 2.0.
- Technology is transforming what happens when a child goes to school. (2017, July 22). The Economist. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21725285-reformers-are-using-new-software-personalise-learning-technology-transforming-what-happens
Dr. R. Justin Hougham is faculty at the University of Wisconsin- Extension where he supports the delivery of a wide range of science education topics to K-12 students, volunteers, youth development professionals, graduate students, and in-service teachers. Justin’s scholarship is in the areas of youth development, place-based pedagogies, STEM education, AL, and education for sustainability. See other content by this author.
Marc Nutter manages the facility of Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center located in Wisconsin Dells, WI which serves over 11,000 youth and adults annually. With the research naturalist team at Upham Woods, Marc implements local, state, and federal grants around Wisconsin aimed to get youth connected to their local surroundings with the aid of technology that enhances observation.
Megan Gilbertson is currently a school psychology graduate student at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville. While working at Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center, she collaborated on grant funded projects to create and curate online data platforms for educational groups and facilitate programs for both youth and adults on the integration of technology with observation and inquiry in environmental education.
Quinn Bukouricz is a research naturalist involved with technology-integrated programming statewide, funded on grants and program revenues. He is also responsible the creation and care of programmatic equipment which includes the “Digital Observation Technology Skills” kits, and the implementation of grants.
