Reflections on integrating the political into environmental education through problem-based learning and political ecology

Abstract

This paper reflects on an undergraduate module at the University of Exeter (2018–2019) trialing a problem-based learning approach to the political ecologies of land. It found that this approach offers significant value for teaching and learning complex socio-ecological interdisciplinarity and instilling in learners a deep and reflective sense of the political in all considerations of land and nature. Team-based co-production of ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ imbued learners with a sense of personal agency, though many found problem-based approaches an unfamiliar and challenging approach to path dependent modes of teaching and learning. The principal contribution is to show how problem-based pedagogies have the potential to empower learners as change agents, to better engage with socio-ecological complexity, and gain greater insights into the deep political in conceptions of nature. It offers environmental educators a pathway for replication of this approach, and for introducing learners to problem-based pedagogies for a political ecology of education.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2020.1825919.

Keywords:

• Political ecologies of environmental education
• political ecology
• problem-based learning
• reflective
• politics of land

Acknowledgments

An early draft of this paper was presented at the Political Studies Association/American Political Science Association Joint International Teaching and Learning conference (2019) and explored through the FASoS teaching and learning blog at the University of Maastricht. The authors would like to thank those that conference attendees who offered feedback and comments on the manuscript ahead of publication and Patrick Bijsmans at the University of Maastricht.