Almost 20 years after Bill Mason's death, the writings and films of this legendary Canadian canoeist, filmmaker, and artist remain popular: "Few people of any nation have been so influential in creating a sense of responsibility for the environment" (Buck, 2005, p. 12). Supported by statements in Mason's writings and films, this paper presents…

Environmental educators are beginning to consider how to incorporate religious resources into their curricula. Common concerns about religion pose a challenge for integration, but these concerns are manageable. Reflection on the precursors of environmental citizenship behaviour provides a framework for considering some of the ways that religious…

The question posed by the "Canadian Journal of Environmental Education" volume 11, "where is the place for religion in environmental education?" is rephrased in this essay to become, "where is the place for a religious view of the order of nature in environmental education?" Relying on the writings of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a proponent of the…

Deep ecology arises from the personal intuition that one's self is part of the world's environmental wholeness. This awareness may be constructed upon scientific foundations but it is more commonly thought a spiritual concept. Deep ecology pedagogy emerges from its three-step process of ecological Self-realization. This paper traces the roots of…

Catholics increasingly appear to agree with the most passionate defenders of the environment. The ecological problem for Catholics is essentially moral: it comes down to respecting the value of life and the beauty of the cosmos, practicing meekness, and controlling one's desire for dominion. This point was stressed a great deal by John Paul II,…

This paper argues that an anthropocentric fallacy permeates thinking within both technological and ecological approaches to environmentalism. In consequence, sustainable development is an incoherent concept through the weakness of its anthropocentric ethical grounding. Using the Judaeo-Christian tradition as an example, this paper examines the…

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: (a) to deepen environmental educators' understanding of the possibility and process of developing a sense of place in a transient culture, and (b) to encourage all environmental educators to explore their sense of place transformations. A personal anecdote of a rooted New England surfer and educator who…

Sense of place is lauded as critical to developing an environmentally conscious and responsive citizenry. Calls for place-based education have often arisen from an emotional plea to reconnect to the land, become rooted, and conserve natural places. However, in reality, sense of place encompasses a multidimensional array that is not only…

This paper describes the partial results of a research project which investigated conceptions of nature and the role of place in environmental education in children who attended Camp Arowhon. Through interviews and observations, utilizing a hybrid research drawing from phenomenography and ethnography, local common wild animals emerged as playing…

In this narrative essay, I explore some fundamental assumptions in my understanding of environmental education. Questions are raised concerning the nature of perception, experience, and the interplay between the world and ourselves. The narrative is based on a recent trip down the Coppermine River in the Barrenlands of Canada's Arctic. The…

This paper reflects on the process of developing a pedagogy that uses experiential learning and disruption in environmental education practice to challenge students to develop critical thought. We examine our practice with university students in an "Environment and Culture" course, and focus on the processes that can transform disruption into an…

"The Lorax," written by children's author Dr. Seuss in 1971, has been used extensively by educators with participants of all ages in outdoor and environmental education. This paper results from a critical reflection upon my own practice of employing "The Lorax" as a teaching resource with senior secondary and tertiary students in Australia. The…

All forms of organized outdoor activity can--and perhaps should--be evaluated as if they were environmental education, because they may significantly generate and distribute knowledge of, beliefs about, and attitudes towards particular places. Safety guidelines for outdoor activities provide one possible indication of hidden "environmental…

This paper describes an ecological framework for environmental education and uses the example of a recent summer institute for teachers conducted on "Haida Gwaii" to describe how the framework can be enacted. In our description, we use a narrative approach to "tell the story" of how this framework can organize experience with/in environmental…

The purpose of this article is to bring to light and celebrate the richness of the environmental education field, thereby paying homage to the pedagogical creativity of its architects over the course of the last thirty years, as well as to their contribution in reflecting on the meaning, problems and possibilities of our relationship to the…