Making connections: a conference approach to developing transformative environmental and sustainability education within initial teacher education

Abstract

Children today face significant challenges in response to living in a globalised world and the predicted environmental threats to the planet. However, implementing environmental and sustainability education (ESE) within schools can be complex and is often ignored within initial teacher education (ITE). In response, this project aimed to evaluate pedagogies for developing transformative learning for ESE within the context of university-based ITE. We ran a conference for trainee teachers informed by critical, participatory and arts-based pedagogic approaches. Alongside this, we undertook an interpretive case study, collecting data through questionnaires, focus groups and in-conference spoken reflection. Findings suggest trainee teachers gained a more nuanced understanding of the value and nature of ESE, as well as more affective and informed engagement with it, across the conference. Implications for ESE within ITE focus around the potential of pedagogies which provide affective experiences, in particular participatory and arts-based pedagogical approaches, for inspiring and empowering trainee teachers to enter into schools and develop their own ESE practice as classroom teachers.

Keywords:

• Environmental and sustainability education (ESE)
• initial teacher education (ITE)
• transformative learning
• conference
• arts-based pedagogies

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Anglia Ruskin University for the Global Sustainability Institute ‘Be the Change’ Grant and Faculty Course Leader Funding which funded the conference. A huge thank you also goes to the conference presenters for making the keynotes and workshops so informative and inspirational, as well as to the participants for the enthusiasm with which they approached the day. We are also particularly grateful for the constructive comments that the anonymous reviewers provided on earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicola Walshe

Nicola Walshe is Head of the School of Education and Social Care at Anglia Ruskin University. Prior to this, she gained a PhD in glaciology and worked as Head of Geography in three secondary schools in the UK before going on to teach and lead the Geography PGCE course at Cambridge University. Nicola’s current research interests include students’ understandings of sustainability, the pedagogy of environmental and sustainability education, and curriculum and pedagogy within teacher education more broadly.

Victoria Tait

Victoria Tait is Education for Sustainability coordinator at the Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University. Her role is to ensure that sustainability is embedded across all courses at Anglia Ruskin in line with the University’s Academic Regulations. Prior to this Victoria worked at SEEd, a Sustainability and Environmental Education charity, at the time one of only two UK institutions to be a member of the UNESCO Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development.