Climate change is complex and controversial in nature, yet seen by educators and policymakers as an important topic to be taught within secondary science education. Teachers' beliefs about the instruction of climate change are unclear. The presence of controversy can influence teachers' instructional decisions causing confusion about the science…

Limited knowledge exists on participant outcomes relating to citizen science programs. Using the ClimateWatch: Scientist for a Day program as a case study, we sought to understand participant behaviors and attitudes post-program, and evaluated the program's post-engagement initiatives. Phone interviews were conducted with 15 former participants.…

This paper explores the value of cooperative games in enhancing knowledge and generating pro-environmental engagement in students. For this, an educational board game related to global change was developed, validated, and subsequently evaluated using future primary school teachers. The board game was validated and evaluated in two phases. Phase I…

Have you ever noticed trash collecting in streams or waterways? How does trash influence our environment, and what can be done to enact change? These are questions middle school students explored as the authors launched the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) task. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch activity involves an urgent environmental issue that…

Indianapolis, Indiana is a sprawling city making it an exceptional locale to pursue environmental learning and stewardship research, particularly in the urban context. To achieve improved understanding of people's attitudes and behaviors towards their natural environment and resources, research was conducted on different local populations of…

Despite growing calls for greater inclusivity and cultural responsiveness, little is known about how environmental education (EE) may differentially affect diverse audiences. As part of a national study of 334 environmentally focused day field trips for adolescent youth in the United States in 2018, we examined how outcomes differed for students…

This qualitative study chronicles one of the fundamental pillars of the Curriculum and Community Enterprise for Restoration Science (CCERS). The professional development is focused on curricula that are grounded in the community-based environmental restoration of the waterways of New York Harbor. Centered on the restoration of the native oyster…

Nearly a decade ago, the "Framework for K-12 Science Education" argued for the need to intertwine science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts in performance expectations. However, there are few empirical examples for how intertwining three dimensions facilitates learning. In this study, we used a…

Plant awareness disparity (PAD, formerly plant blindness) is the idea that students tend not to notice or appreciate the plants in their environment. This phenomenon often leads to naïve points of view, such as plants are not important or do not do anything for humans. There are four components of PAD: attitude (not liking plants), attention (not…

This longitudinal quantitative study investigated teachers' development of self-efficacy and teaching practices relating to education for sustainable development (ESD) in four compulsory schools in a Swedish municipality. The teachers participated in a professional development program over three school years designed to support them in…

A statewide coalition of nearly 50 experts -- including doctors, medical and environmental health researchers, educators, youth and community groups -- worked together to explore the challenges of climate change from the perspective of children's health and education. The insights and recommendations are published in this report. It is presented…

Amid fires, wildfire smoke, extreme heat, and other climate-driven disasters and health hazards, California's leading experts in children's health and education have come together to call for a cost-effective, ten year $150 billion investment to ensure K-12 public schools can remain open and provide safe and healthy places for California's…

For a sustainable future, equipping sustainability change agents with relevant sustainability competencies is crucial. Among these competencies is system thinking competence -- the understanding of complex interrelationships among the dimensions of sustainable development and the impacts of the interrelationships. Learning approaches relevant to…

This article centers on the use of place-based education (PBE), an internationally known and employed pedagogy. This yearlong, mixed-methods study centers on a grant-funded program aimed at supporting secondary teachers' implementation of environmental place-based education (PBE), specifically meaningful watershed education experiences (MWEEs).…

The framing of education and learning in sustainable development has evolved out of global environment and development discussions to shape how knowledge, learning and action are applied in efforts to address complex socio-ecological and sustainability challenges of the times. Such framings have over time contributed not only to the establishment…