Current environmental risks, such as climate change and nature loss, force us to look for solutions in every sector of society. A successful sustainability transition requires the manipulation of deep systemic leverage points. Hence, a deep leverage point framework based on sustainability competencies is needed to conceptualise sustainability…

Beyond correlational studies exploring the benefits of nature exposure, there have been studies assessing interventions that aim to improve nature connection in children and adolescents. A feeling of connection with nature or 'nature connectedness' describes our attitude towards nature, primarily reflecting the emotional, cognitive, and…

This essay outlines some of the key themes and ideas developed in in the above title. These include: the influence of scientism and a "metaphysics of mastery" in late modern times; a phenomenology of nature that focusses on the native "occurring" of things in nature; the development of a notion of environmental consciousness in…

Engagement with nature is crucial for child development and kindergarten educators' pedagogical beliefs about nature play significantly affect children's access to and experiences of nature in kindergarten. This study examines the role of nature play in children's holistic development, engaging 12 Chinese kindergarten educators through in-depth…

Children and young people today are growing up in an increasingly urban, technical, virtual and ecologically precarious world, leaving many feel disconnected from nature yet anxious about its degradation at the same time. Two distinct bodies of knowledge -- namely youth human-nature relationships and youth eco-anxiety -- are concerned with the…

This study seeks to add to our understanding of preschool students' experiences in urban spaces. Very few studies, including educational research, have directly addressed what urban nature spaces, specifically urban parks, mean to young children and even fewer have focused on children's own perception. The study presented here was conducted with…

Humans use stories to explain natural processes, to explore alternatives, to resolve issues, and to imagine different possibilities and futures. Stories are a fundamental way people connect to their natural surroundings. But are some stories better for this than others? This study uses an experimental design to explore the impact of three types of…

Might interacting with relatively wild forms of nature help move our world away from its largely domination-oriented and destructive sensibilities? Toward broaching this question, this study used an Interaction Pattern Approach to model child-nature interaction in a Hong Kong nature program. Observational video data were collected of 54 children…

In the present study, we explore the perceptions of urban middle school students' representations of nature using participatory photography and their nature connectedness. Preadolescents (N = 108, 6th grade, age 11-13) were asked to take a photo of what nature is to them and write a short description of what is in the image. In a mixed method…

We investigated direct experiences with nature and socialization as predictors of preschool-aged children's environmental moral reasoning. Children (n = 146; 52.7% male) from three U.S. states completed biophilia and environmental moral reasoning interviews. Parents (n=98) completed surveys about their children's activities in natural areas and…

This article aims to understand how students aged 14-17 from different contexts in France consider the issues related to the Seine. 20 interviews were carried out focusing on the implementation of an educational approach enabling students to grasp the priority issues associated with the sustainable development of the Seine. The analysis brings out…

Many previous studies have measured elementary-aged students' connection to nature (CTN), but few have explicitly considered how the use of different terminology (e.g. 'nature' "versus" 'the outdoors') can influence those connections. We utilized a quasi-experimental design to test for differences in affective and self-reported…

School-based climate change and sustainability education are widely understood as a vital response to the triple environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. This current research analyses over 700 responses from a national survey of teachers working in England to explore teachers' curriculum making activities and the…

To develop targeted climate change curricula, it is imperative to understand how students perceive and observe the localized effects of climate change. Our work used a quantitatively driven, parallel mixed methods research design to study potential factors that contribute to undergraduate biology students seeing the local effects of climate…

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as those in the Caribbean are vulnerable to environmental threats. Engaging pedagogic strategies are needed to connect students with nature and energise them to take pro-environmental actions. This qualitative case study explored the use of art to connect students with nature in an undergraduate…