Creating Web-based Environmental Education Resources through Community and University Partnerships

Approaches to embedding sustainability in teacher education: A synthesis of the literature

“…When SE is embedded into compulsory subjects, it usually takes the form of being included as one of several topics in lectures, workshops, seminars and/or online resources (Jenkins, 1999(Jenkins, /2000 and assessment tasks (Åhlberg, Äänismaa, & Dillon, 2005;Aleixandre & Gayoso, 1996;Firth & Winter, 2007;Karpudewan, Ismail, & Mohamed, 2009;Phelps, Maddison, Skamp, & Braithwaite, 2008;Varga, Koszo, Mayer, & Sleurs, 2007;Wright & Wright, 2010).…”

“…Teacher educators provide a range of personal and professional rationales for embedding SE into initial teacher education, but tend to be driven by an overall desire to equip student teachers with the capacity to implement SE in schools. Over half the authors (Bennett & Heafner, 2004;Cheong, 2005;Corney, 2006;Corney & Reid, 2007;Firth & Winter, 2007;Jenkins, 1999Jenkins, /2000Karpudewan et al, 2009;Kennelly & Taylor, 2007;Kennelly et al, 2008;McConnell, 2001;Nicholas et al, 1993;Paige et al, 2008;Phelps et al, 2008;Taylor et al, 2006;Van Petegem et al, 2007;Varga et al, 2007) emphasise the importance of facilitating student teachers to develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and/or values to embed SE into their own teaching practices once in their educational settings. However, given the centrality of values (e.g., intergenerational and intercultural equity) in sustainability discourse, it is significant that values are not always explicitly included in these rationales.…”

“…Whitehouse ( 2008), writing about EE through online learning, provides an equity perspective by arguing that delivering EE via an online platform provides an equitable solution to the problem of (limited) time and geographically spaced populations in vast countries like Australia. Another two authors (Jenkins, 1999(Jenkins, /2000Phelps et al, 2008) write that embedding EE into their respective subject areas of ICT and pedagogy provides an opportunity for student teachers who might not otherwise engage with EE to do so since, at the time of writing, teaching SE was not compulsory and, therefore, not necessarily addressed elsewhere in the curriculum. Lastly, Karpudewan et al (2009) and Åhlberg et al (2005) argue that embedding SE into the curriculum provides a more holistic understanding of the subject matter and increases capacity for academics to promote higher-order thinking in students by involving them in deep and relational learning.…”

Promoting community socio-ecological sustainability through technology: A case study from Chile

“…We postulate that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) could promote community ESD by enhancing the understanding of sustainability issues, and by promoting community members' active participation towards sustainable development (Nicolaou et al, 2009;Phelps et al, 2008). Technology-enhanced non-formal ESD at the community level can contribute to making the links between ideas and concepts (i.e.…”

“…understanding) with participative and action skills (Nomura, 2004;Thompson, 2002). Therefore, the use of ICT appears to be an inexpensive and effective way to engage social change for sustainability at the community level, and as a significant medium for the provision of community education for sustainability (Phelps et al, 2008;UNESCO, 2003;Vrasidas et al, 2007).…”