Inspired to guide students toward more ethical relationships with the living world, this article looks at maps as a common tool used in outdoor environmental education. I argue that maps are tools laden with European Enlightenment ideologies and reinforce a type of human being who has lost their way within an ecological web. To balance these…

This project uses critical place inquiry (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015) to examine the Hanford Site to demonstrate the potential in wild pedagogies to engage not just immaculate and inspiring wildness places but also sites of ruin. Attending to places of ruin can illuminate the ways that the social, historical, and political are intimately…

Protecting coastal ecosystems and communities requires the engagement of ocean literate citizens. Along the St. Lawrence Estuary, in Canada, a rural community mobilized to save its middle school by creating an innovative program connecting the existing curriculum to the ocean. This research explores the rationale, barriers, and enablers of…

This article summarizes the results of interviews concerning intersections found among social studies and history education, climate education, and Indigenous studies. We explore what may be involved in curricular and pedagogical reform that better features these intersections, and what considerations arise in approaching reform in schools,…

Recent scientific studies demonstrate conclusively that our planet faces an ocean crisis and efforts to mitigate this crisis should be addressed urgently. As many species are lost to extinction, conservation steps need to be taken and are indicated by targets such as those outlined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainability and Development. Similarly,…

Place-based education (PBE) promises greater social and ecological justice at a time of great planetary need. This paper explores the experiences and beliefs of eight teacher educators from Canadian teacher education faculties who were invited to give their perspectives on PBE as they theorize and deliver it in their teacher education programs.…

This article is about the Squamish Ocean Canoe Family and is based on stories shared by the Skwxwú7mesh Chiaxten ("Protocol Keeper"), Wes Nahanee, and the President of the Squamish Ocean Canoe Family, Larry (Shucks) Nahanee. The article tells the story of a revival of the Skwxwú7mesh ocean-going canoe and traditions, particularly through…

Place is often seen as a location of meaning. But whose meaning fills the location? Who defines meaning? What kind of meaning do we seek? These questions inadvertently call on place-based education to reflect on the often-unexamined meaning of place prevailing in the field. This paper draws substantially on the work of critical feminist…

With the recent and dramatic changes to our K-12 curriculum in British Columbia (B.C.), there is an essential need for pre-service teacher education to lead the transformation of practice in our schools and communities. Education with sustainability as a core foundation is also gaining traction in B.C. and around the world. At the University of…

This study reviews the Ontario secondary school curriculum in light of recommendations made by the 2007 Bondar Report, "Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future." It analyzes curriculum expectations and enrollment data for the purpose of reporting upon and providing recommendations for place-based environmental education. The extent and…

This paper explores the ways that place-based pedagogies can facilitate dialogue on colonization, or some of the "dark matters" of environmental education, specifically by engaging non-Indigenous adults in decolonizing dialogues. I share findings from an action research project with Kitsilano Neighbourhood House in Vancouver, British…

This paper considers a person's endogenous and emotional relationships to outdoor childhood or adolescent (trans)formative places. By revisiting the (trans)formative places of four citizens and filming the experiences, I gained an understanding of how these places engage emotional learning. The emotional data were explored through phenomenology…

Considering (a) the many potential connections between hunting, culture, and environmental thought, (b) how much hunters have contributed to the conservation movement and to the protection of a viable land base, and (c) renewed interest in hunting as part of the wider movement toward eating local, non-industrialized food, we seek to bring hunting…

As cities and urban areas increasingly become the locus for contemporary society, there is a growing necessity for environmental education to adapt to meet the challenges and needs of an urbanized world. A key part of this adaptation means acknowledging the nuanced legacy of environmental and social injustices involved in the growth and…

Many have observed that the curriculum is a mile wide and scarcely an inch deep. This article provides a rationale for including in-depth study of a place-based/local topic within educational programs aimed at cultivating ecological understanding. Following a brief exploration of some of the obstacles to in-depth learning, it describes the ways in…