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- Student-Created Videos of Climate Change Vulnerability: Opportunity for
connection and care
Authors: Gina Ziervogel, Nicola Pallitt
Abstract: Climate change is increasingly being seen as a complex problem that requires a change in personal and practical dimensions. To support this, climate change educators need to make use of pedagogic approaches that enable students to engage in relational values of care, empathy and connection alongside understanding the problem and potential responses. Participatory approaches, whereby students engage with members of local communities to understand climate change vulnerability, have the potential to create opportunities for connection between students, communities, universities and society in theory and practice. We describe a student video project that took place in a third-year course Sustainability and the Environment in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. Students worked in groups to undertake and film a vulnerability assessment with individuals or organisations around Cape Town in relation to the city’s water crisis. Their group submission, a documentary video, needed to tell a story about social vulnerability and adaptation to the water crisis. Through a carefully scaffolded process, students’ reflections indicated that the vulnerability video process helped them to understand the concept of vulnerability and strengthen their care for and connection to those ‘vulnerable’ to climate impacts. This kind of process-oriented authentic learning experience holds potential for increasing climate change literacy that other educators might consider. Keywords: climate change education; video and film; climate change vulnerability; authentic learning; ethics and care
PubDate: 2023-03-22
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2023)
- A The Handprint Initiative: Identifying learners’ attitudes towards
the environment
Authors: Wendy Quetzal Morel Schramm
Abstract: The Handprint Initiative was born out of the need for a new pedagogical approach to deal with current global challenges. It is founded in the social responsibility of educators and learners to actively participate in the decision-making process of our society. To achieve this, there was the need for a statistical basis to measure learners’ attitudes towards the environment. A 19-item survey was used to determine five key attitudes in high school students in Mexico. With appropriate statistical tools (including PCA, KMO, normality tests and others), it was possible to measure ecocentrism, eco-apathy, naturalism, pessimism, and scientism attitudes and to confirm the data of other studies. The results of this study contribute to assessment of the impact of the way we teach, as well as the promotion of quality education and the implementation of the Handprint Initiative. Keywords: handprint; attitudes towards environment; eco-apathy; sustainability, quantitative study
PubDate: 2023-03-22
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2023)
- Wildlife and Indigenous Communities in Kenya: The influence of
conservation education in supporting co-existence between wildlife and a
Maasai community
Authors: Georgina Hoare, Kennedy Leneuyia, Peter Higgins, Joshua Lowerikoi
Abstract: Human-wildlife conflict in Kenya is a complex issue with environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Conservation education can raise awareness of environmental issues, by increasing knowledge, promoting positive attitudes, leading to proenvironmental behaviours. Educated youth can become ‘conservation ambassadors’ who help spread messages through the community. This qualitative study critically examined the extent to which this took place using the Wildlife Warriors Kids education programme, in areas of human-wildlife conflict in Kenya. Data were collected on students’ knowledge, attitudes and practice in three primary schools in Maasai areas; in one of these school areas, interviews and a focus group were also held with Maasai community members. The influence on students was evident, regarding knowledge about wildlife, positive attitudes and an understanding of pro-environmental behaviours. The filtration of knowledge and pro-environmental behaviours to the community level was positive but limited. Culture and human wildlife conflict were the predominant factors influencing attitudes. It was evident there is a need to include intergenerational learning, and focus attention on cultural and environmental challenges, to enhance the filtration of conservation education to the community. Keywords: conservation education, Maasai, human wildlife conflict, indigenous knowledge, culture
PubDate: 2023-03-21
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2023)
- Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures: Intersecting dynamics of
food, water, livelihoods and education in the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Kgosietsile Velempini, Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Injairu Kulundu, Lwanda Maqwelane, Anna James, Gibson Mphepo, Phila Dyantyi, Esthery Kunkwenzu
Abstract: Since 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to but also highlighted the urgent need for transforming education for sustainable futures. The purpose of this article is to share insights gained from a southern African study on intersecting influences of water, food, livelihoods and education, and what they mean for Education for Sustainable Development going forward. The interest is to learn from this study in ways that can inform transformation of education for sustainable futures in southern Africa going forward. The study involved a number of early career researchers in SADC countries, and was conducted via an online approach during the early days of the pandemic. It followed a qualitative research design, employed document analysis, interviews and questionnaires, and drew on a systems perspective to inform analysis. The findings are as relevant today as they were in the pandemic, and point to the importance of giving attention to intersecting issues that affect education. The study highlights six transformative praxis pathways for transforming education for sustainable futures. Keywords: COVID-19; education for sustainable development; systems thinking, intersectionality
PubDate: 2022-12-31
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2022)
- Enacting Environmental Ethics Education for Wildlife Conservation using an
Afrophilic ‘Philosophy for Children’ approach
Authors: John Bhurekeni
Pages: 1 - 20
Abstract: Environmental Ethics Education has in recent years emerged as a critical tool for wildlife conservation research. Despite this, Environmental Ethics Education is paradoxically predominated by traditional forms of western science such as the concept of the Anthropocene which appears to exclude aspects of African life-worlds where the natural environment is considered a heritage component and is linked to onto-ethical understandings of human existence. The purpose of this study is to explore how African heritage-based knowledges and practices are understood by children who identify and understand the relevance of their totems and taboos associated with them, in relation to wildlife conservation. The study from which this paper is derived utilised formative interventionist methodology complemented by a multi-voiced decolonial approach to explore whether children-participants aged 8 to 11 years understand the purposes of their totems and associated taboos. To achieve this I used an Afrophilic Philosophy for Children pedagogical approach, which foregrounds dialogical learning and development of critical reflexive thinking skills. Emerging findings indicated that children associated their totems and connected taboos as tools for protection against environmental pollution and for minimising resource over-extraction. Findings further demonstrated improved learner agency and development of ethical reasoning among children. As participants’ respect for environmental conservation and sustainability was informed by the significance placed on their totems, I recommend the need for schools to develop generative
curricula that take seriously context-based solutions to environmental problems. Future research should also consider understanding environmental conservation issues from a context-based perspective, which can inform existing heritage practices and pedagogies.
Keywords: Environmental Ethics Education, Afrophilic Philosophy for Children, ethical reasoning, heritage-knowledges
PubDate: 2022-10-31
DOI: 10.4314/sajee.v38i1.02
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2022)
- Transgressive Eco-Arts Pedagogy: A response to Kulundu-Bolus, McGarry and
Lotz-Sisitka (SAJEE, Volume 30)
Authors: Carol Preston
Pages: 21 - 35
Abstract: Kulundu-Bolus, McGarry and Lotz-Sisitka (2020) have offered transgressive learning as a new approach to environmental education. As a response to their work, this paper describes and discusses aspects of a four-year action research project in which a group of children, adolescents and adults from the rural community of Wakkerstroom-eSizameleni participated in a series of multimodal arts-based interventions in which increased environmental awareness and improved environmental practices were key goals. Five vignettes from these interventions are used to argue that Transgressive Eco-Arts Pedagogy (TEAP) can facilitate community engagement, greater environmental awareness and small steps towards the improved environmental practices that Kulundu-Bolus et al. have called for.
Keywords: Environmental education, arts-based learning, multimodality, sustainability, transgressive learning, pedagogy of love
PubDate: 2022-10-31
DOI: 10.4314/sajee.v38i1.03
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2022)
- SWOT Analysis of Selected Schools involved in Greening and Sustainable
Development Programmes
Authors: Johannah Bopape
Pages: 36 - 59
Abstract: This study aimed to explore the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in greening schools for sustainable development in Tshwane North District in Gauteng Province of South Africa. The research considered whether contextual factors hinder schools from effectively greening their schools for sustainable development. This research is qualitative and employed focus group interviews and observation. The study was undertaken with purposefully sampled members of the school management team and school governing body at three primary schools. Data was analysed through thematic content analysis. The major finding of the study was that school funds were swiftly depleted on resources such as water, energy, paper and equipment. Furthermore, contextual factors emerged emanating from little knowledge of greening and sustainability practices by school role players and a lack of policy framework on how sustainable development and greening schools should be implemented. The findings suggest the creation of an integrative assessment of greening school policies and strategies that embrace a practical activity plan for curriculum and infrastructure to monitor school resource management.
Keywords: green school; sustainable development, school role players; Sustainable Development Goals
PubDate: 2022-10-31
DOI: 10.4314/sajee.v38i1.04
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2022)
- A review of Teaching and Learning for Change: Education and Sustainability
in South Africa Edited by Ingrid Schudel, Zintle Songqwaru, Sirkka
Tshiningayamwe and Heila Lotz-Sisitka
Authors: Anna Katharine James
Pages: 60 - 65
Abstract: Achieving environmental education within the current South African school system feels akin to putting eggs into a beer crate. But such is the difficulty, delicacy and discomfort of the project of system change we are struggling within, to remake and reimagine our relationships in and with the world. South African environmental educators and researchers have been involved in this task over the past 40 years. As the book Teaching and Learning for Change: Education and sustainability in South Africa shows, the school system is an
important place to start, as a meeting point of knowledge and learning and as a site in which young South Africans spend much of their time. This book not only tells a story of efforts towards realising environmental learning within the school system over the last 10 years of the Fundisa (learning) for Change Programme but it distills the significant lessons for the context of environmental education practice, going forward.
PubDate: 2022-10-31
DOI: 10.4314/sajee.v38i1.06
Issue No: Vol. 38, No. 1 (2022)
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