Promoting Environmental Education for Primary School-aged Students Using Digital Technologies

Abstract

As demands on the environment continue to intensify, it becomes increasingly urgent to act sustainably, responsibly and respectfully, to protect and restore environments. Digital technologies, including videoconferencing, mobile apps and virtual and augmented realities, can provide new ways of engaging students in environmental stewardship. Such technologies can pique student interest, while enabling them to capture experiences of local and distal environments, to collect data and share their findings with broader audiences. This article critically explores innovative, formal and informal learning practices in experiential environmental education approaches among schools, families and communities, such as citizen science projects. It draws on qualitative case study vignettes, as well as the authors' previous work and broader literature, to consider the potential and limitations of such technologies and approaches. The key question concerns how existing and emerging technologies might serve as bridges or barriers to apprenticing young people into globally-minded, environmentally responsible and respectful behaviours.

Integrating Environmental Education and ICT

“…Such technologies can pique student interest, while enabling them to capture experiences of local and distal environments, to collect data and share their findings with broader audiences. In this article, Buchanan, Pressick-Kilborn, and Maher (2019) critically explores innovative, formal and informal learning practices in experiential environmental education approaches among schools, families and communities, such as citizen science projects. It draws on qualitative case study vignettes, as well as the authors' previous work and broader literature, to consider the potential and limitations of such technologies and approaches.…”

Analysis of Sustainability Activities in Spanish Elementary Education Textbooks

“…The use of the school garden dates to the 19th century, with the ecological one being a frequent educational resource for ESD [23][24][25]. Other varied activities for teaching sustainability in Primary Education are also reported in the literature, such as pedagogical itineraries, including field or virtual modalities [26,27], role-playing games on ecological factories [28], gamification strategies using new technologies [29], or the use of storytelling [30]. Educational experiences of service-learning can also be cited, such as that carried out in a school in Madrid (Spain) [31] with Primary School students, where a solidarity crowdfunding campaign was mobilized for the construction of a well in a village in Senegal.…”

Pre-Service Teachers’ Views About Ecosystem-Based Fieldwork in Terms of the Nature of Environmental Education, Investigations, Skills and Processes

“…Yet, research on their (SPS) association with scientific investigations, the stepwise scientific process and EE is very limited. Buchanan et al (2019) argue that teachers need to make connections to the scientific method, real-world issues, learning and action when engaging with digital technologies for environmental purposes. Their argument, coupled with the current research's findings, suggest a sustainable future that will disrupt the notions of the science education curriculum.…”