Formal climate education without consideration of the ocean is incomplete. The effectiveness of a new climate lesson for youth that includes the ocean-climate nexus was examined by delivering the lesson to nine classes situated in separate British Columbia, Canada public schools and assessing the students' understanding of basic climate concepts…

Protecting coastal ecosystems and communities requires the engagement of ocean literate citizens. Along the St. Lawrence Estuary, in Canada, a rural community mobilized to save its middle school by creating an innovative program connecting the existing curriculum to the ocean. This research explores the rationale, barriers, and enablers of…

This qualitative case study examines the effectiveness of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) pedagogical strategies used in two Université de Saint-Boniface pre-service teacher education Curriculum and Instruction courses. The methods used to teach these ESE pedagogical strategies are described. Findings from interviews with former…

This study reviews the Ontario secondary school curriculum in light of recommendations made by the 2007 Bondar Report, "Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future." It analyzes curriculum expectations and enrollment data for the purpose of reporting upon and providing recommendations for place-based environmental education. The extent and…

The importance of imagination in understanding sustainability has often been overlooked. This paper examines acts of imagining in teaching and learning that elicit and enable the emotive experience of empathy. I frame ways of thinking about imagination and empathy through theoretical perspectives of otherness. I report on research findings into…

During 2011 at Simon Fraser University, the Faculty of Education hosted the implementation of a pre-service teacher education program with an emphasis on sustainability and environmental learning. This cohort, termed SEEDs (Sustainability Education in an Environment of Diversity), enrolled 32 teacher education students in an intensive 12-month…

In recent decades, indigenous knowledge has been added to the environmental education agenda in an attempt to address the marginalization of non-western perspectives. While these efforts are necessary, the debate is often framed in terms of a discourse of victimization that overlooks the agency of the people we refer to as marginalized. In this…

In Canada, there exists a noteworthy educational initiative referred to as Environmental Studies Programs (ESPs). These secondary school programs are interdisciplinary, helping to link subject matter and encouraging student responsibility. This paper will present student reports from five case studies where I investigated how ESP participation…

This article provides an overview of the context, methodology, and theoretical framework of a research project conducted with coastal Newfoundland children living in communities deeply affected by the collapse of the marine ecosystem. Through a participatory engagement with bioregional poetry, the author investigates how children grow in their…

"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 a recent review of school grounds research, Dyment (2004a) highlights a lack of studies on the "process" of school grounds improvement, particularly in the secondary school context. This paper seeks to respond to this gap in the literature by reporting emerging findings from a three-year action research study of six English secondary…

In 2000, the Ontario Ministry of Education removed "Environmental Science" from the secondary school curriculum as single-focus, stand-alone courses. Instead, the Ministry chose to integrate or "infuse" ecological concepts in other science and geography courses. In this study, surveys were sent out to science and geography…

This study primarily aimed to suggest a theoretically and empirically valid definition for the construct of teachers' competence in environmental education. The study was designed and developed in two phases. We first attempted to formulate a hypothetical model of teachers' competence in environmental education, based on a specification of the…