Here's a link to another of the thoughts from Morgan Phillips about his time with NAAEE in Madison. This is how it begins:
"The NAAEE Annual Conference is in its 45th year, fourteen years ago conference decided it needed to create exclusive time and space to explore environmental education research. The Research Symposium was born, it is now in its 13th year. It is a packed programme. Around 150 researchers from right across North America and around the world were here today. Bearing in mind that researchers deliberating about how they research is pretty niche, I'm not going to dwell on those discussions too much here. I am instead going to highlight two pieces of innovative practice that I came across.
Climate Change and Me - Southern Cross University Australia
Empowering learners as educators and 'the researched' as researchers was discussed several times today. Climate Change and Me is a good example of this. This is how the project runs:
Today’s children and young people require new kinds of knowledge, skills and experience in order to effectively respond to rapidly accelerating social and environmental changes. The Climate Change and Me Stage 2/3 curriculum addresses this pressing need for a research-based and student-driven climate change curriculum in Australian primary schools. As it stands, climate change has been cut from the Australian National Curriculum for children under 14 years of age. International studies have also indicated that didactic, science-based approaches to climate change education have not been effective in changing the environmental attitudes and behaviours of students. The Climate Change and Me research found that students were much more likely to engage with the topic of climate change through creative, student-driven and experiential project-based learning activities which were structured into a collective inquiry. The Climate Change and Me Curriculum, Southern Cross University.
This is an example of what seems to be a growing trend in Education for the Environment - a science based approach to climate change education (and sustainability education more broadly) is giving way to approaches that recognise the need and effectiveness of engaging learners on an emotional level. ..."
There's much more of this thoughtful stuff; just use the link above.
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