Applying a resilience systems framework to urban environmental education

Abstract

A growing body of literature on community gardening, watershed restoration, and similar ‘civic ecology’ practices suggests avenues for integrating social and ecological outcomes in urban natural resources management. In this paper, we argue that an environmental education programme in which learning is situated in civic ecology practices also has the potential to address both community and environmental goals. Further, we suggest that civic ecology practices and related environmental education programmes may foster resilience in urban social‐ecological systems, through enhancing biological diversity and ecosystem services, and through incorporating diverse forms of knowledge and participatory processes in resource management. By proposing interrelationships among natural resources management, environmental education, and social‐ecological systems, we hope to open up discussion of a research agenda focusing on the role of environmental education in systems processes and resilience.

Keywords:

• resilience
• systems
• urban
• diversity
• participation
• natural resources management
• civic ecology

Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to Kendra Liddicoat and to three anonymous reviewers. Much of the work described in this paper was funded by the National Science Foundation Informal Science Education Program (ESI 0125582), the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education programme of the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Department of Agriculture Federal Formula Funds programme.

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