Learner-Centered Teaching Activities for Environmental and Sustainability Studies

Learner-Centered Teaching Activities for Environmental and Sustainability Studies
Author: Loren B. Byrne
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2016-03-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319285432

Learner-centered teaching is a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the roles of students as participants in and drivers of their own learning. Learner-centered teaching activities go beyond traditional lecturing by helping students construct their own understanding of information, develop skills via hands-on engagement, and encourage personal reflection through metacognitive tasks. In addition, learner-centered classroom approaches may challenge students’ preconceived notions and expand their thinking by confronting them with thought-provoking statements, tasks or scenarios that cause them to pay closer attention and cognitively “see” a topic from new perspectives. Many types of pedagogy fall under the umbrella of learner-centered teaching including laboratory work, group discussions, service and project-based learning, and student-led research, among others. Unfortunately, it is often not possible to use some of these valuable methods in all course situations given constraints of money, space, instructor expertise, class-meeting and instructor preparation time, and the availability of prepared lesson plans and material. Thus, a major challenge for many instructors is how to integrate learner-centered activities widely into their courses. The broad goal of this volume is to help advance environmental education practices that help increase students’ environmental literacy. Having a diverse collection of learner-centered teaching activities is especially useful for helping students develop their environmental literacy because such approaches can help them connect more personally with the material thus increasing the chances for altering the affective and behavioral dimensions of their environmental literacy. This volume differentiates itself from others by providing a unique and diverse collection of classroom activities that can help students develop their knowledge, skills and personal views about many contemporary environmental and sustainability issues. ​ ​ ​

The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It)

The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It)
Author: Charles Saylan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2011-05-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0520265386

“The hope for the future depends on teaching current and future students the analytical and critical thinking skills for dealing with the most critical problems. My own hope is for this book to be read by everyone, even those outside the field of environmental education. Read this book, read it again, share it widely, and do something - anything - to help our needy and wounded planet."-Marc Bekoff, author of The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons For Expanding Our Compassion Footprint "Saylan and Blumstein provide a compelling vision of what can be, and what should be, if we have the courage to open our eyes and the boldness to act.”-Peter Saundry, Ph.D., Executive Director of the National Council for Science and the Environment “A clarion call to incorporate environmental education in all grades K-12, across all academic disciplines, in order to produce future generations of environmental stewards."-Mark Gold, President, Heal The Bay "We need a sea change in the educational system. After all, if we can teach schoolchildren that vandalism is wrong, why can we not teach them that environmental destruction is wrong? This book is a haunting call to action. A beautifully written manifesto that gets it right."-Ron Swaisgood, Director of Applied Animal Ecology, Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo Global “The greatest threat to the future of all species on the planet is the huge gap between what is understood about global climate change by the scientific community and what is known about climate change by the people who need to know -- the public. The sound prescriptions in this book need to be read now. We are running out of time.”-Dr. James Hansen, world-renowned climatologist and author of Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity “Environmental education is a disaster and educating the public on environmental issues is the greatest challenge facing humanity today. This book will help us understand why we are headed toward the collapse of civilization, and more important, how to fix it. Packed with sound science, useful information, and brilliant ideas, it is a book we must read, and give, to our local school boards and principals nationwide. Our children will thank us."-Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb and Humanity on a Tightrope

Environmental Studies: Experiments, Projects, Activities: Book 1

Environmental Studies: Experiments, Projects, Activities: Book 1
Author: Vidhu Narayanan
Publisher: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2016-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 817993506X

Environmental Studies: Experiments, Projects, Activities – Book 1, includes a variety of Do-It-Yourself ideas, games, surveys, audits, projects, experiments, and nature walks. The activities are based on an array of themes, such as food chains, plants, birds, animals, endangered species, soil, water conservation, pollution, 3Rs, waste management, weather, and natural environment. These themes highlight environmental challenges, offer solutions, and aid learning in a fun way. In a nutshell, the book: Cultivates a deep understanding and awareness about environmental issues.Includes curriculum-specific concepts in a step-by-step, easy to follow format.Serves as a guide to environmental science projects and coursework during school vacation.Provides ideas, which can be modified by instructors, for project submissions, and eco-club activities.Develops cognitive and psycho-motor skills through observation, classification, inference, and experimentation.Adheres to the Integrated Approach, and follows various objectives laid down in the National Curriculum Framework 2005, NCERT.

Hands-on Nature

Hands-on Nature
Author: Jenepher Lingelbach
Publisher: University Press of New England
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2000
Genre: Education
ISBN:

This long-awaited revision of a popular book provides information and activities to assist educators and parents in exploring the local environment with children. Fact-filled essays introduce each subject, followed by field-tested, experiential activities that engage students in learning about the natural world. 115 illustrations.

The Handbook of Environmental Education

The Handbook of Environmental Education
Author: Philip Neal
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2003-10-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1134871333

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Urban Environmental Education Review

Urban Environmental Education Review
Author: Alex Russ
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1501712780

Urban Environmental Education Review explores how environmental education can contribute to urban sustainability. Urban environmental education includes any practices that create learning opportunities to foster individual and community well-being and environmental quality in cities. It fosters novel educational approaches and helps debunk common assumptions that cities are ecologically barren and that city people don't care for, or need, urban nature or a healthy environment. Topics in Urban Environmental Education Review range from the urban context to theoretical underpinnings, educational settings, participants, and educational approaches in urban environmental education. Chapters integrate research and practice to help aspiring and practicing environmental educators, urban planners, and other environmental leaders achieve their goals in terms of education, youth and community development, and environmental quality in cities. The ten-essay series Urban EE Essays, excerpted from Urban Environmental Education Review, may be found here: naaee.org/eepro/resources/urban-ee-essays. These essays explore various perspectives on urban environmental education and may be reprinted/reproduced only with permission from Cornell University Press.

Early Childhood Activities for a Greener Earth

Early Childhood Activities for a Greener Earth
Author: Patty Selly
Publisher: Redleaf Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2012-07-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1605541192

This resource teaches children about sustainability and environmentalism with green-oriented lesson plans, art activities, literature connections, and classroom projects.

Environmental Education in Indonesia

Environmental Education in Indonesia
Author: Lyn Parker
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2019-08-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0429674759

Indonesia’s wealth of natural resources is being exploited at breakneck speed, and environmental awareness and knowledge among the populace is limited. This book examines how young people learn about the environment to see how education can help to develop environmental awareness and avert vast environmental destruction, not only in Indonesia, but also in the Global South more generally. Based on in-depth studies conducted in the cities of Yogyakarta and Surabaya, complemented with surveys of students in secondary schools, Environmental Education in Indonesia examines educational curricula, pedagogy and "green" activities to reveal what is currently being done in schools to educate children about the environment. The book investigates the shortcomings in environment education, including underqualified teachers, the civil service mentality, the still-pervasive chalk-and-talk pedagogy and the effect of the examination system. It also analyses the role of local government in supporting (or not) environmental education, and the contribution of environmental NGOs. The book establishes that young people are not currently being exposed to effective environmental education, and the authors propose that the best and most culturally appropriate way forward in Indonesia is to frame pro-environment behaviour and responsibility as a form of citizenship, and specifically that environmental education should be taught as a separate subject. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of contemporary Indonesia and Southeast Asia, education for sustainability and environmental education, as well as sustainability and sustainable development more generally. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9780429397981, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.