https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5046-4338
Abstract
Digital technologies have become increasingly ubiquitous within environmental education and research settings. Alongside their notable affordances, the significant pedagogical, social, health, and environmental impacts of digital technologies must also be considered. This special issue provided a forum for authors to share related research and critically discuss such tensions and dynamics from a range of perspectives and contexts.
Introduction
The influence of digital technologies on environmental education (EE) research and practice has yet to be collectively explored, discussed, and debated. Despite the increased presence of digital technologies in EE and past efforts to introduce and invite critical perspectives (e.g., Greenwood & Hougham, Citation2015; McKenzie et al., Citation2010; Orr, Citation2017; Payne, Citation2003), there is a persistent need for more fulsome consideration. The aim of this special issue of the Journal of Environmental Education (JEE) was to foster a discussion of this nature.
Digital technologies have proved indispensable, at times, amidst the arguably ubiquitous online crisis teaching contexts that formed around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have also allowed us to reimagine conferences and other gatherings in online formats that result in lower ecological impacts than those held in person (Miya et al., Citation2021). However, challenges related to inequitable access to technology on individual, regional, national, and global scales (Rodrigues & Lowan-Trudeau, Citation2021) along with excessive strain on and associated burnout of educators, learners, and parents (Krien, Citation2020)—often with critical gender subtexts and implications—have illuminated the potential dangers of over-reliance upon digital platforms in efforts to maintain the status quo. In response, some have turned away from the digital world in varying degrees to creatively reconsider local and outdoor approaches to pedagogy and daily living (Quay et al., Citation2020).
Digital technologies have emerged more generally in EE through, for example, the availability of software such as the leafsnap plant identification app (https://plantidentifier.info) and simulacra in the form of virtual hiking programs (e.g., https://thegreattrail.ca/parks-canada-virtual/). Digital technologies may also serve as powerful tools to collect, monitor, and share important ecological data and trends with students and the broader public through citizen science programs or similar (Greenwood & Hougham, Citation2015). Such technologies may understandably appeal to some educators and learners who are reticent to leave the confines of a classroom for a variety of possible reasons ranging from lack of experience, knowledge, funds, or accessibility, to institutional risk management concerns. However, we must vigorously question what is lost when locally relevant ecological literacy and immersive experiential learning are replaced by virtual alternatives (Quay et al., Citation2020).
Digital technologies have also been adopted in the deeper interests of environmental justice. For example, land and environmental justice advocates and activists have employed digital cartography to facilitate and share counter- and communocentric mapping efforts that challenge colonial and corporate epistemologies, boundaries, and practices (Lowan-Trudeau, Citation2021). Contemporary environmental activists also routinely utilize digital technologies and social media platforms to organize initiatives and share photos, videos, and other information that may counter or augment perspectives presented by mainstream media, government, or corporate interests (Hodges & Stocking, Citation2016; Kahn & Kellner, Citation2004; McKenzie, Citation2022). Environmental educators, scholars, practitioners, artists, and activists are also increasingly engaging with and bridging digital and non-digital traditions to create visual artifacts that represent, contest, and disrupt socioenvironmental challenges, injustices, and hierarchies (e.g., Dávila, Citation2019; Kollektiv Orangotango+, 2019).
While acknowledging the achievements and potential of such innovations we must continue to critically consider important caveats regarding both the “promise and perils” (Eisner, Citation1997) of digital technologies for EE (Greenwood & Hougham, Citation2015; Kahn & Kellner, Citation2004; Orr, Citation2017). Although extensive consideration of digital technologies in EE research is relatively scarce, scholarship in related disciplines such as environmental studies (Pellow & Park, Citation2002), environmental humanities (Parks & Starosielski, Citation2015; Starosielski & Walker, Citation2016), environmental communication (Milstein et al., Citation2017), and critical science education (De Freitas et al., Citation2017) has provided important critiques of the socioecological impacts of digitalization that we may draw upon to further inform such discussions.
Technology theorists such as Feenberg (Citation1991) also offer important grounding for considering the (potential) relationships between digital technologies and EE. Feenberg identified three primary perspectives on and approaches to contemporary technologies. The first is the instrumental perspective which holds that technologies are value-free tools to serve human needs. The second is the substantive view which regards all forms of technology with deep suspicion out of concern for their increasingly pervasive and inadequately recognized influence upon our lives. In response to the instrumental and substantive positions, Feenberg proposed a critical theory of technology which encourages us to judiciously consider every technological manifestation on a case-by-case basis. Feenberg’s critical approach thus allows people to decide if and how they might engage with a given technology, keeping in mind its potential benefits for and challenges to social and environmental systems.
Given the theoretical and applied contexts, dynamics, and tensions described above, submissions to this special issue of the JEE were welcomed from supporters, critics, and theorists of digital technology in EE alike.
Initial themes and ongoing discussions
Possible manuscript themes for this special issue that were identified in advance included:
Digital technologies and experiential EE
Digital/virtual EE as simulacra
Digital technology, citizen science, and EE
Digital communication, environmental activism, and EE
Digital technology, environmental communication, and EE
Digital EE and accessibility
Digital colonialism and environmental justice
EE and the (hidden) socioecological impacts of digital technology
Critical gender perspectives on digitalization in EE
Digital, counter-, and communocentric mapping and EE
Digital visualization technologies in EE
More-than-human interaction with and agency related to digital technologies and EE
Alternatives to/push back against digital technologies in EE
These themes also relate to important questions germane to the present and future of environmental education practice and research that have been developed, considered, or alluded to in other recent JEE special issues (e.g., see Payne, Citation2018; Payne et al., Citation2017; Rodrigues & Lowan-Trudeau, Citation2021; Rodrigues et al., Citation2020; Russell et al., Citation2018) such as:
How will digital exclusion and inclusion affect EE and EER in the coming years? What are we (quickly) learning about the possibilities and limitations of online, remote teaching, and how does it help us (re)think contemporary (digital?) EE?
How can the use of digital technologies in EE and EER lead to different (richer, poorer, complementary) understandings of the environment (in its diverse permutations) compared with firsthand experiences?
Regarding privilege and access to nature–who holds it; what defines it; when, where and how is it (re)enforced? How is technology (and the access to it) used to enact and ratify the privilege of access to nature? And how is technology being used to cope with the lack of access to nature?
To what extent is EE (research) praxical, or just academic performative abstract theoretical textualism? (e.g., see Rodrigues et al., Citation2020). What are some of the fundamental (preferably, “simple”) questions for a “practical theory” of environmental/ecological justice?
How well do we, as a global community, practice environmental laws and environmental politics in responding to the question of “what is in it for Nature?”
Are collective actions that respond to environmental issues (aesthetically-ethically-politically) aligned with the principles of justice historically claimed within social movements, and of ecological justice historically claimed within the environmental movement?
What research evidence do we have, and where can it be found (in different geo-epistemologies), that can be used to defend experiential learning and education within interdisciplinary framings of EE (or outdoor education, health education, sustainability education, etc …)?
Do we have empirically based examples of more-than-human agency altering environmental education and research? Are there potential ecopedagogical drives in social change brought forth by more-than-human agencies?
Many of the themes and questions presented above were reflected in the initial submissions that we received and subsequently selected through the review and assemblage process described below.
Review and assemblage process
This special issue followed an assemblage methodology (see, e.g., Payne, Citation2018; Payne et al., Citation2017; Rodrigues & Lowan-Trudeau, Citation2021) that involved ongoing conversations between the editor(s) and authors, and amongst the authors themselves as their manuscripts emerged and developed. Strong interest in the special issue was evident as we received over thirty abstracts in the fall of 2021. Drawing from the initial abstracts, a smaller number of authors were invited to submit full manuscripts in the spring of 2022. After further editorial vetting, selected manuscripts were then sent out for blind external review. Authors of manuscripts that were favorably reviewed then worked on revisions over the summer prior to submitting updated drafts in early fall 2022. Following another round of editorial vetting, six manuscripts were accepted to move into the final assemblage process wherein the authors had the opportunity to read each other’s drafts for possible cross-referencing and further inter-issue discussion.
Contributions
Contributors to the digital technologies and environmental education special issue shared insights from a range of sociocultural, geographical, disciplinary, and methodological perspectives. Critical theories of the environment and technology (e.g., Feenberg, Citation1991; Greenwood & Hougham, Citation2015) echo within all of the manuscripts explicitly or implicitly. A range of views regarding the potential benefits and challenges inherent to, and relationships between digital technologies and environmental education were expressed.
Corres Gallardo and Ruiz-Mallén (this issue) extend discussions from a previous JEE SI related to environmental justice and COVID-19 (Rodrigues & Lowan-Trudeau, Citation2021) through an exploration of formal and non-formal environmental educators’ experiences with digital technologies before and during lockdowns and other restrictions in Barcelona, Spain This approach affords interesting comparative insights related to educators’ experience and comfort with digital technologies, technology related flexibility—or lack thereof—in formal and non-formal contexts, educator burnout, and concerns regarding inequitable access to digital devices for students.
Renshaw et al. (this issue) share findings from a study into children’s experiences with nature and enchantment in Brisbane, Australia. As part of a broader research initiative, youth participants were invited to provide a video tour of their own backyard during a period of isolation due to COVID-19. The resultant productions were varied with a range of personas emulated and perspectives expressed, from television science-style productions to feelings of enchantment and a deep sense of attachment to the greater-than-human world. In response, Renshaw et al. raise important insights and questions related to the role of technology-mediated environmental education and nature-based experiences more broadly.
Continuing with considerations of nature-based attachment and enchantment, Kumpulainen et al. (this issue) explore children’s experiences with environmentally-related digital storytelling in Finland. They share findings from a school-based study that involved children using a digital app (MyAR Julle) to create digitally-augmented images and associated stories by superimposing Julle, a popular character from Finnish folklore, on photos of natural and built environments. Kumpulainen et al. draw upon Barad (Citation2003, Citation2007) and other theorists to consider and expand upon insights provided by the participating children regarding environmental awareness and associated practices in connection to the MyAR Julle app and other social and digital media.
López (this issue) directly engages with digital lifecycles and associated socioenvironmental impacts in his description of an undergraduate media and environment course in Italy that is grounded in his theory of ecomedia literacy. López also discusses the influence of Indigenous epistemologies and Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophies on his research and practice in striving to inspire students to “see the clouds” in digital technologies (Nhat Hanh & Levitt, Citation1988) as they explore everything from slow technology to their own consumption and use of digital devices and associated effects on the water cycle and other ecological systems.
Aguayo & Eames (this issue) share findings from a comparative study in Aotearoa/New Zealand that explored a mixed reality (XR) immersive learning approach through engagement with a range of digital technologies in marine education. Interviews with students, educators, and parents provide insight into their experiences at a marine learning center that ranged from a non-digitally mediated snorkeling excursion to the use of virtual and augmented reality technologies and bring your own device (BYOD) approaches. Aguayo and Eames found that XR-mediated marine education that provides a selection of self-directed heutagogical choices and sensory experiences for participants can result in increased learning outcomes. They also discuss the potential challenges encountered by educators in engaging with advanced digital technologies.
Finally, Lin & Ardoin (this issue) take up the underexplored topic of familial engagement with digital technologies for environmental learning in the United States (US). They report on a study that employed a digital app (dscout) to better understand the experiences of families across the US that use digital technologies for environmental learning. One notable insight from Lin & Ardoin’s research is that “joint media attention”—when children and caregivers actively engage with media together—results in stronger learning outcomes.
In keeping with the assemblage approach of this SI, many authors also considered and engaged with each other’s work. These individual and collective efforts have added to the rapidly emerging and expanding conversations regarding digital technologies, environmental education, and related areas (e.g., Ardoin & Heimlich, Citation2021; Hills et al., Citation2022; Kumpulainen et al., Citation2022; Reed et al., Citation2022).
Future possibilities
Several authors within this special issue identified future directions for research and practice in relation to digital technologies and environmental education in relation to their own work and the field more generally. These insights also relate to broader dynamics within and beyond environmental education and research.
For example, Kumpulainen et al. (this issue) note that further research into intersectional nuances and considerations related to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and other dynamics in the context of digital technologies and environmental education is needed. In pursuing such inquiries, we might also consider the work of scholars who critically explore the intersections of gender, popular media, educational futures, and science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM; Gough et al., Citation2022; Kim et al., Citation2019).
The time and technological limits of and associated strain placed upon environmental educators in both formal and non-formal contexts was also highlighted as an area requiring further attention by several special issue contributors (Corres Gallardo & Ruiz-Mallén, this issue; Aguayo & Eames, this issue). As a result, Corres Gallardo and Ruiz-Mallén (this issue) suggest that future research into effective professional development of digital competencies for environmental educators would be beneficial. They also note that further longitudinal inquiry into environmental educators’ engagement with digital technologies as COVID-19 restrictions are reduced would be insightful.
The need to further investigate and address inequitable student accessibility to digital technologies in environmental education settings was also raised by several contributors to this special issue (Corres Gallardo & Ruiz-Mallén, this issue; Kumpulainen et al., this issue).
In relation to their reflections on nature-based enchantment, Renshaw et al. (this issue) trouble the social media trend of posting photos or videos from natural places which they argue can lead to superficially brief experiences and overuse of sensitive environments. This could be another area for further examination.
Lin & Ardoin (this issue) discuss increasing and refining the scope of research into families’ engagement of digital technology for environmental learning across language and age groups. They recommend further inquiry into the factors that lead to high quality joint media engagement with particular digital devices as well as the strategies that adult caregivers’ employ to search and access various digital resources. Additional inquiry into familial engagement with environmentally-related social media might also prove illuminating (Léger & Martin, Citation2020).
Initially identified potential themes that weren’t addressed within this special issue include the potential for and challenges of engaging with digital cartography in environmental education, and connections between EE, activism, and digital technologies. As such, these topics warrant future examination.
The influence of critical theories of technology and environment (Feenberg, Citation1991; Greenwood & Hougham, Citation2015) is apparent in the diverse contributions of the authors to this special issue. The authors have made important contributions to the ongoing discourse regarding digital technologies and environmental education that respond to and extend beyond the motivating themes and potential topics initially identified above. However, given the complexities, challenges, and future research opportunities raised by the authors, as well as the undeniable social, health, and environmental impacts of digital technologies (López, this issue; Pellow & Park, Citation2002), it is evident that further investigations and discussions are required.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
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