Using the Arts to Raise Awareness and Communicate Environmental Information in the Extension Context

Curtis, David

doi:10.1080/1389224x.2011.544458

Cited by 41 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(11 reference statements)

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“…Use of creative activities to promote empathy with plants can be furthered through collaborations between plant scientists and artists and such collaborations could play a crucial role in promoting positive emotional connections with plants (Jacobson et al 2007;Curtis 2011). Creative activities such as story writing, drawing, imagining, role playing, and rituals that include anthropomorphism can encourage active empathy with other species including plants (Bragg 1996;Osbourne 2009).…”

Section: Implementing Identification and Empathy In Plant Conservatiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant blindness and the implications for plant conservation

Balding

Williams

2016

Conservation Biology

226

146

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Plant conservation initiatives lag behind and receive considerably less funding than animal conservation projects. We explored a potential reason for this bias: a tendency among humans to neither notice nor value plants in the environment. Experimental research and surveys have demonstrated higher preference for, superior recall of, and better visual detection of animals compared with plants. This bias has been attributed to perceptual factors such as lack of motion by plants and the tendency of plants to visually blend together but also to cultural factors such as a greater focus on animals in formal biological education. In contrast, ethnographic research reveals that many social groups have strong bonds with plants, including nonhierarchical kinship relationships. We argue that plant blindness is common, but not inevitable. If immersed in a plant-affiliated culture, the individual will experience language and practices that enhance capacity to detect, recall, and value plants, something less likely to occur in zoocentric societies. Therefore, conservation programs can contribute to reducing this bias. We considered strategies that might reduce this bias and encourage plant conservation behavior. Psychological research demonstrates that people are more likely to support conservation of species that have human-like characteristics and that support for conservation can be increased by encouraging people to practice empathy and anthropomorphism of nonhuman species. We argue that support for plant conservation may be garnered through strategies that promote identification and empathy with plants.

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Section: Implementing Identification and Empathy In Plant Conservatiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant blindness and the implications for plant conservation

Balding

Williams

2016

Conservation Biology

226

146

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“…Several investigations by Curtis (2003Curtis ( , 2006Curtis ( , 2009Curtis ( , 2010Curtis ( , 2011 examine the effect of art (although not specifically environmental art) in building environmental awareness in rural contexts, providing valuable insights. Curtis' (2010) study involved interviews with audience and participants of a community arts project that culminated in an environmentally based performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-imagining the environment: using an environmental art festival to encourage pro-environmental behaviour and a sense of place

2014

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“…In Australia, among other scholar-activists, David Curtis (2003Curtis ( , 2009Curtis ( , 2011 has spent several decades developing and researching the possibilities for visual and performing arts in fostering public education for environmental restoration, natural resources management, and environmental science. In an early work, Curtis (2003) demonstrated how a community-based performance of The Plague and the Moonflower -a 'musical pageant and ecological love story' with orchestral music, choral singing, dance, theater and visual arts -was both educational and catalytic for a drought-stricken community in Armidale, Australia (p. 164).…”

Section: Arts In Environmental Protestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public pedagogies of arts-based environmental learning and education for adults

Walter

Earl

2017

RELA

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This paper examines how current theorizing on public pedagogy can be used to understand scholarship on creative, arts-based pedagogies in informal environmental education for adults. In particular, the study applies Biesta's (2012, 2014) typology of public pedagogies to three bodies of literature: arts-based adult learning and education in the environmental movement, eco-art, and Tactical Urbanism, respectively. Each of these is about public art, displayed or performed in public spaces, and connected to environmental learning and education. The scholarship reviewed came mostly from Canada and Australia. In the public, democratic spaces of these countries, we found that arts in the environmental movement and eco-art could be characterized by Biesta's pedagogy of the public, and partially by a pedagogy in the interest of publicness. The performance of Tactical Urbanism corresponded most closely to pedagogy in the interest of publicness. The paper concludes with a discussion of directions for further theorizing and research on public pedagogy and arts-based environmental learning and education for adults.

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Using the Arts to Raise Awareness and Communicate Environmental Information in the Extension Context

Cited by 41 publications

References 10 publications

Plant blindness and the implications for plant conservation

Plant blindness and the implications for plant conservation

Re-imagining the environment: using an environmental art festival to encourage pro-environmental behaviour and a sense of place

Public pedagogies of arts-based environmental learning and education for adults

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