In this paper, I explore how histories of colonialism are integral to the Euro-Western idea of wilderness at the heart of much outdoor environmental education. In the context of canoe tripping, I speculate about why the politics of land rarely enters into teaching on the land. Finally, because learning from difficult knowledge often troubles the…

Freire's influential text, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," relies on both anthropocentric and speciesist arguments to articulate a pedagogy for human liberation. While Freire's anthropocentric understandings of "nature" have been more thoroughly critiqued, less attention has been given to his construction of nonhuman animals, in particular. I argue…

As part of the 2009 North American Association of Environmental Education Research Symposium, this article addresses the cultural and theoretical frameworks that we bring to environmental education, the web of ideas and experiences that define the scope and purpose of the work in its geopolitical context. Originally delivered as a keynote address…

Together with ubiquitous agent evocateurs, Coyote and Raven, the authors engage trickster discourse and narrative shape shifting as they share research protocols and community conversations based on their research with the four Lower Stl'atl'imx communities (Xa'xtsa, N'Quat'qua, Skatin and Samahquam First Nations) of British Columbia, Canada, in…

Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue offers an epistemic and ontological orientation upon which an ecological identity can be established as part of an integrated, environmental education. I consider here the significance of a relational self in establishing this ecological identity, as well as the benefits from doing so. This relational,…

This article discusses how the cultural commons that exist in every community, both rural and urban, carry forward the intergenerational knowledge and skills that enable people to live more mutually supportive lives that are less dependent upon consumerism and that have a smaller ecological footprint. Also discussed is why public schools and…

This article presents a collection of postcards, titled "postcartographia," which is excerpted from an atlas of Mapwork and is one component of a gallery exhibition with the same title. Incorporating photography and poetic text, the postcards explore aesthetic approaches to knowing in the world, specifically, aesthetic ways of knowing places and…

In this article, the author examines the notions of "loss" and "place" in relation to the mourning of one's personal and historical pasts. In doing so, the author draws upon the psychoanalytical writings of Julia Kristeva in an analysis of Jane Urquhart's 2005 novel "A Map of Glass"--a story about emplacement, displacement, and change. Here, the…

A Blackfoot woman, caught in the act of adultery, was condemned at this site to have her nose cut off as a penalty for her actions. People do not know her story. The tribe cast it on the ground. And so She, Nose Hill, was named. John Laurie Boulevard holds her mound in a circlet of asphalt, defining the map of her "terra incognita." She is a park…

Sailing, a harnessing of wind with canvas to propel a sailboat across distances of water, in winds shaped by landforms, airflow and temperature, requires constant renegotiation by skipper and crew in response to the wind's changeable presence. In a choreography of movement, sails secured by sheets are loosened or reined in by hand to allow wind…

Walt Whitman defies ontology: he strives to be eternal, to journey ever in the now, and thus to forswear beginnings. And there is a great deal of "place" in Whitman, space both concrete and metaphorical, Alabama and Maine, body and "kosmos." But Whitman the man was born in Huntington, Long Island, which is a good a place to start exploring how…

This article explores the intersection of art education and place-based education as a means of developing ecological literacy. The author advocates the development of a model of place-based art education, one that integrates the real-world, community-centred learning of place-based education with the affective, subjective orientation of art…

The School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism at Lakehead University offers a third-year course on ecological literacy. The course evolved from one with a predominant scientific approach to studying the bioregion to one that embraced a broader epistemological stance, giving greater authority, voice, and presence to nearby landscapes. This…

The vast majority of literature and practices in environmental education focuses on places and spaces. Little attention has been paid to time and temporalities as elements of environments, and the ways in which how we experience time affects our experience of place. This paper is an examination of the ways in which reflection on time can be…

Sri Dattatreya, who Lord Krishna quotes in "The Uddhava Gita", has been evoked as a guru for environmental education. Sri Dattatreya gained enlightenment by observing the world, which provided Him with 24 instructors. These taught Him the futility of mundane attachments, the benefits of contemplation and forebearance, and a path towards the…