The time children spend indoors with nature-based children's literature is as important as the time they spend outdoors. Children's literature traditionally has been replete with pastoral, animal, and wilderness stories that nurture a sense of wonder and excitement about the world we share. Such literature encourages a high regard for the…

Science Recreation Workshops (SRW) are engaging activities intended to create scientific experiences for participants, who play with natural phenomena while they explore, discover, discuss, and learn about them. They take people into a first-hand scientific adventure. SRW's do not demand a lot of resources to develop, that is why SRW's groups can…

The escalating planetary crises of human-induced climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and declining biodiversity call for urgent actions to be taken at all levels of society and by the global community. The current political strategy for a sustainable future that emphasizes economic and technological progress is insufficient to…

Research supports the benefits of exposing children to nature, yet classroom teachers indicate they do not possess the time, monetary resources, or space to construct an ideal outdoor space. An underutilized resource is the non-traditional educator who has: knowledge about the outdoors; space, especially in state parks; and time since the primary…

The recent increase in the number of mathematics museums has given rise to a need for tools with which to design and assess mathematics educational proposals in this non-formal context. This study proposes the use of the van Hiele model, a benchmark in mathematics instruction, for the design of interactive museum models focusing on mathematics…

The social dimension of higher education seems to have been highlighted in the most recent documents of the European Higher Education Area. Furthermore, the interest in providing future graduates with the competences necessary for their future jobs seems to have grown in recent decades. In this context, the key questions are what social…

This article describes how I, an American music teacher educator, visited the classrooms of eight Musical Futures Champion Teachers in the United Kingdom and observed their teaching with a focus on informal music learning and nonformal teaching. Musical Futures, a professional development organization in the UK, is the original organization that…

Exposure and experience with ethical dilemmas and controversial socioscientific issues provide a link to students' lives or a pathway for sympathy/empathy and care, where youth use emotion to engage with the scenario and develop critical thinking skills to respond to ethical issues. For this theoretical paper, I focus on how informal science can…

'Disaster education' has been studied in various disciplines such as disaster risk management and environmental studies. However, disaster education is a relatively 'new enquiry' in the field of education. Particularly, the literature that conceptualises 'disaster education' in education is minimal. This paper aims to fill this gap by synthesising…

Since its inception in 2005, YouTube has grown to become one of the most trafficked online platforms in the world. Accordingly, second language (L2) research interest on the topic has also increased, with studies investigating its use in formal and informal settings. Given this, the goal of this conceptual paper is to identify patterns within L2…

Gunther Kress's multimodal and social semiotic theory of communication has moved beyond the realm of linguistics, which originally framed his work, and has reached out to inform other fields, such as those of education, museum studies, as well as the humanities and social sciences more broadly. This article brings together our insights in relation…

In her 2019 address, Ann Marie Ryan, president of the Organization of Educational Historians, examines historical consciousness and educational spaces. Historical consciousness requires historiographical knowledge--coming to an understanding of history after considering multiple historical accounts and interpretations. Historical theorist Jörn…

Playing video games is one of the most popular leisure activities across the world. Video game music (VGM) is a musical art form prevalent in popular culture, and there is potential to use it for the music education of students. Using informal music learning (Green, 2002) and online participatory culture (Jenkins, 1992/2013) theories as grounds…

The National Strategy for Financial Literacy report released in 2020 by the U. S. Financial Literacy and Education Commission (USFLEC) crafted a new definition of financial education (FE). The report defines FE as the process by which "people gain information, skills, confidence, and motivation to act through various means including classroom…

Nearly every student today is coming into informal education programs with some form of trauma. This is especially true as we examine the long-lasting impacts of climate change, the pandemic, and identity-based prejudice on children. In response, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has undertaken a transformative journey in its education programs. This…