New school buildings often grab headlines that highlight their green features and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, yet nearly 90% of schools in the United States were built before 1985, with the largest portion built from 1950-69 to accommodate the baby boom generation (National Clearinghouse for Educational…

In this article, the author introduces another key and, to-date, largely neglected stakeholder in high-school integrated curriculum programs (ICPs). If one wishes to have a deeper understanding of the unique, powerful, and lasting impacts of these programs, the author suggests to include the perspective and input of participants' parents. The…

Traditional secondary science education draws on markedly different pedagogies than those made use of in contemporary environmental education, therefore, embedding environmental education within secondary science curriculum presents both epistemological and practical difficulties for teachers. This ethnographic study examines the work of six…

There is a growing interest in addressing moral aspects in the research and education of socio-scientific issues. This paper investigates students' interpretations of climate change from a moral perspective. The students were 14 years old, studying at Green Schools in the Beijing area, China. The study was based on semi-structured group interviews…

This article focuses on mobile computing with a tablet PC, drawing from over five years of experience teaching with tablets in outdoor, field-based classes. In this article, the authors discuss three courses--Environmental Science, Ecology, and Biology--taught at three colleges. Each course is treated as a vignette from the point of view of a…

In this paper a simplified two-parameter model of the greenhouse effect on the Earth is developed, starting from the well known two-layer model. It allows both the analysis of the temperatures of the inner planets, by focusing on the role of the greenhouse effect, and a comparison between the temperatures the planets should have in the absence of…

Eco-schools aim to improve the environment through direct and indirect effects. Direct effects are those that result from the implementation of an environmental management system. Indirect effects are educational gains. The current study examines the effectiveness of eco-schools concerning three student outcomes: (1) environmental knowledge, (2)…

This paper documents a case study involving a Perth primary school accompanied on its sustainability journey by Millennium Kids Inc, a local not-for-profit community organisation. Tension between the school's sustainability focus, its prestige as an elite private school and a "lucky country" mentality frames the Australian-ness of this…

This paper seeks to provide a perspective on environmental education in Aotearoa New Zealand. To contextualise this perspective, it illustrates how environmental, socio-cultural and political imperatives have shaped the development of environmental education in this land. These imperatives illuminate the natural history of the country, the…

There is a need to establish and nurture a relationship between urban and suburban students and the natural world. This relationship needs to be personal and immediate. They need to see the wilder life that survives and sometimes flourishes in "their" world--not miles away in the hills and mountains or hidden beneath the sea, but outside…

The paper presents an alternative approach to environmental education which focuses on children's ideas and action rather than scientific knowledge. The approach is based on children's willingness and ability to act and participate in their community and environment. The paper contributes to the development of an alternative pedagogical…

Although a large number of different organisations offer various forest education programmes within Germany, specific information (i.e., sectoral and programme content and provision at a state level) is lacking. This study used a survey of all 61 forest education organisations (43 respondents) in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, to…

In this paper I explore the interconnected nature of literacy and the body, and the relation between bodies, landscapes and literacies. I draw on interview data from my doctoral study, the central problematic of which is to provide a rich account of the ways in which teachers' embodied histories, multiple identities and out-of-school lives relate…

As a renewable source of energy, wind energy will play a significant role in the future. Public, commercial, and privately owned organizations are increasingly finding the value and profits in wind power. Including wind power in a technology and engineering education curriculum teaches students about an important technology that may effect their…

This study employed a case study design (Yin, "Case study research, design and methods," 2009) to investigate the processes used by 5th graders to design and develop computer games within the context of their environmental science unit, using the theoretical framework of "constructionism." Ten fifth graders designed computer games using "Scratch"…