This article explores young children’s relations with soil, drawing on research that positioned soil as animate, lively and interconnected. The paper investigates how animist approaches offered a mode of encounter for children and their teachers, encouraging them to see themselves as part of a larger ecological community. The research began with a “soil biome immersion” experience where teachers engaged with soil through sensory and arts-based experiences. These initial encounters led to further exploration of child-soil relations through experiential learning and storytelling. Children, as active meaning-makers, co-constructed the inquiry through imaginative and sensory engagements. Findings suggest animism cultivates soil relations, challenging traditional notions of soil as inert and promoting a dynamic understanding of soil ecosystems. Through practices such as storying, drawing and listening, educators supported children’s animist perspectives, deepening their attunement to the more-than-human world. This article contributes to environmental education by demonstrating how animism can enrich children’s ecological awareness and their sense of connectedness to the world.

Socio-environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss necessitate political action and transformative educational responses. Education for Environmental Citizenship (EEC) offers a promising framework for addressing these issues in school settings. However, there is a lack of reported structured teacher professional development (TPD) programmes that support EEC. This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of empirical studies and supranational frameworks, synthesising the results into a model for in-service TPD in EEC. The analysis identified core competencies such as critical thinking, systems thinking and global citizenship alongside with dimensions including socio-emotional and cultural-territorial competencies, which address context-specific educational needs. These are mapped to pedagogical strategies such as outdoor learning, reflective practice and community-based learning. The resulting model seeks to align global sustainability goals with local realities. This research lays the groundwork for fostering EEC by providing educators with the competencies and strategies essential to drive social and environmental change.

Low-carbon behaviour is a crucial pathway to addressing current climate change and promoting sustainable economic and social development. The importance of environmental education has become a widely recognised consensus among higher education institutions. However, the mechanisms through which environmental education influences the low-carbon behaviour of the new generation of college students remain insufficiently explored. This study introduces environmental attitude and green perceived value as mediators, while prosocial behaviour is a moderator. A moderated chain mediation model is developed from new perspectives of psychological, social and environmental values, and this theoretical model is empirically tested using 759 college students in China surveyed by a questionnaire. The findings reveal that environmental education positively drives college students’ low-carbon behaviour, with environmental attitude and green perceived value playing a partial chain mediation role between environmental education and low-carbon behaviour. Additionally, prosocial behaviour positively moderates the relationships between environmental attitude, green perceived value and college students’ low-carbon behaviour, significantly moderating the mediating effect of green perceived value.

Despite its rich biodiversity, India faces severe environmental challenges due to human activities prioritising immediate gratification over long-term sustainability. Recognising the power of education to address environmental crises, Environmental Education (EE) emerged as a field of study to foster environmental consciousness. Hence, equipping teachers with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to effectively integrate environmental education into their pedagogy is crucial for cultivating sustainable behaviour in students. However, research indicated a significant gap in teacher preparedness to effectively address environmental issues, leaving them ill-equipped to implement related activities and tasks in their classrooms. Using qualitative content analysis, the EE-related courses were analysed to study their status, orientation and responsiveness within three pre-service teacher education programmes. The results of the study showed that most environment-related courses are not compulsory and largely have an anthropocentric orientation with a limited socio-scientific approach. The courses are required to be made responsive toward the contemporary issues and concerns related to Education for Sustainable Development.

Grey-headed flying-foxes, frequently-spotted residents of the greater Sydney region, Australia, play a key role in native ecosystems. Knowledge of local wildlife may increase interest in conserving and protecting wildlife. We assessed baseline knowledge in a year 3 class regarding common features and habits of grey-headed flying-foxes, and feasibility and impact of a classmate-peer-developed educational intervention. Pre- and post-intervention paper questionnaires were administered to a single class in a single school. The focussed educational intervention comprised an interactive presentation with slide-show, developed by a classmate-peer with stakeholder consultation. Simple descriptive and comparative statistical analyses were applied.

The same 29 students participated in both pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. The intervention proved feasible in a classroom setting. The pre-intervention survey indicated suboptimal knowledge regarding grey-headed flying-foxes in relation to categorisation, appearance, habitat, activity, diet and travel patterns. Post-intervention knowledge had generally improved.

This pilot study indicated that a simple peer-developed educational intervention was feasible and improved knowledge gaps, at least in the short term. Future research might assess the potential for initiatives like this to improve young people’s knowledge at a wider level, and explore the relationship between improvements in knowledge and efforts to conserve vulnerable species such as the grey-headed flying-fox.

This article explores how water conditions in geographical contexts could influence the construction of teachers’ professional identities and, consequently, their knowledge and beliefs about water sustainability. Water sustainability is defined as the responsible management of water from a perspective that integrates environmental, social and economic sustainability principles. This quantitative study employed an ad hoc questionnaire, inspired by the New Water Culture principles as a conceptual sustainability framework. The instrument, designed with Google Forms, was administered to 221 secondary school teachers from two cities with contrasting water and cultural conditions: Bogotá (Colombia) and Melilla (Spain). Results indicate that teachers’ knowledge and beliefs in both cities are not aligned with water sustainability principles, with no significant differences between the two groups due to their different water conditions. However, there are partial differences related to the respective personal experiences: in Bogotá, teachers show greater concern for water quality, whereas in Melilla the focus is more on the quantity available. These findings underline the importance of promoting teachers’ professional development in water sustainability aligned with professional identities, as a key strategy for nurturing aware and engaged citizens. This approach is fundamental to tackle water stress challenges and foster a paradigm shift towards more responsible, sustainable lifestyles globally.

This article critically examines the mediating role of teacher and student reflexivity in relation to promotional interest agents within the Global Action Programme on climate change. Regarding reflexivity, Margaret Archer’s basic idea seeks to mediate between agency and structure. Although social structures are considered limiting, it is believed that individuals can still practice personal reflexivity, leading to efforts to think and act critically in responding to climate change. Knowing the role and variations of environmental agent reflexivity in addressing climate change in Indonesian school is important. This study uses critical ethnography, which is intended to describe hidden realities. In a micro-sociological context, teacher’s interactions with students can be empowering and limiting. Both can interact dynamically, sometimes dominating, interdependent, connected and disconnected until connected again. This condition is influenced by the extent to which there is an opportunity for reflective monitoring through dialogue, discussion and deliberation. Referring to Archer’s typology of reflexivity, each environmental agent reflects four modes of internal conversation: communicative reflexivity, autonomous reflexivity, meta-reflexivity and fractured reflexivity. While Archer centres internal conversation in reflexive agency, this study foregrounds silent conversation in digital spaces as a critical bridge between reflection and environmental action in schools.

Teachers are at the front line of climate change education (CCE), working to integrate its complex environmental, social and ethical dimensions into their classroom practice. Yet little is known about the barriers to and enablers of implementing interdisciplinarity within CCE. This study investigates Finnish secondary school teachers’ perspectives on interdisciplinary CCE, examining how their practices are shaped by access to resources, training and institutional support. Drawing on the ecological model of teacher agency, we conduct a mixed-methods analysis from a national survey of 243 teachers. The findings reveal a strong commitment to locally relevant and ethically informed CCE, as well as an increased interest in activities in outdoor environments, research-based resources and drama-based resources. On the other hand, an increased disinclination to introducing new content and resources highlights the persistence of structural, epistemological, and ideological barriers. Teachers report relying heavily on self-directed learning and growing interdisciplinary fatigue due to fragmented support systems. These dynamics reveal a need for academic–school collaborations that move beyond top-down implementation and towards the creation of accessible, adaptable knowledge. This study contributes to emerging debates about how to foster critical interdisciplinarity in CCE by centring the voices and agency of educators.

This article examines teachers’ experiences in implementing a pedagogical model designed to promote ocean citizenship in primary education. Conducted during the 2021/2022 school year, the study involved 23 teachers from 10 Portuguese public schools who applied the model through citizen science and coastal monitoring activities. The results highlight the model’s effectiveness in fostering ocean citizenship by enhancing teachers’ pedagogical practices, strengthening interdisciplinary approaches, and raising environmental awareness among students. Teachers reported improved motivation, engagement, and critical thinking skills while addressing real-world marine conservation issues. However, the study also highlighted challenges such as transportation and resource constraints, difficulties in curriculum integration for 6th-grade students, and limited community activism initiatives. To address these challenges and enhance the model’s effectiveness, recommendations include reducing field trips, forming local partnerships, and adapting the model for different educational levels. Additionally, incorporating quantitative assessments in future research is recommended to evaluate broader impacts on teacher practices and student outcomes. The study underscores the model’s potential to embed ocean citizenship in school curricula, aligning with global initiatives like the Decade of Ocean Science and the 2030 Agenda, offering a scalable framework to advance ocean literacy worldwide.

As kerbside waste and recycling management practices evolve, integrating technology, community engagement, and policy enforcement are essential for achieving the transition from linear disposal to circular resource economies. Yet, where councils are the focus, research tends to determine what they should do rather than what they can do, arguably contributing to policy development that shifts waste and recycling management expectations onto local councils rather than producers, consumers and processors. In this study, responses to a poll of Australian council-based waste services staff (n = 82) are analysed, providing a snapshot of current contamination management processes to assess the efficacy and trends in kerbside collections. Focusing on New South Wales – an Australian state currently transitioning its waste and recycling management practice – the poll revealed trends in contamination strategies, policy responses, and community engagement processes. It also showed an increase in the use of in-truck technology as a tool for identifying contamination events. Results indicated that contamination remains a persistent, increasing, and pernicious issue, with recycling bins exhibiting the highest contamination rates, exceeding 11% in many cases, and 60% of participants noting an increase over the past decade, despite public education efforts. Garden Organics and Garden/Food Organics bins generally have contamination levels below 5%. This study seeks to encourage discussion between policymakers, councils, and researchers on how to optimise kerbside waste and recycling collection systems and promote circular economy principles, thereby narrowing the gap between theory and effective practice.

The study investigated the effects of the integration of augmented reality (AR) into water resources education on 23 Taiwanese sixth graders’ water and vocabulary knowledge. Based on the descriptive analysis of quantitative data (pre- and posttests on water and vocabulary knowledge) and thematic analysis of qualitative data (interviews, observations, and teaching reflection notes), the study reached the following conclusion. First, the provision of a contextualised scenario through AR helped the students acquire water-resources knowledge. Secondly, the interaction between the user and AR assisted the students in comprehending abstract concepts. Thirdly, 3D virtual objects enhanced the students’ meaningful learning. Moreover, AR video helped the students improve the retention of word meanings.

Art-making has long been a feature of education and is increasingly being engaged to challenge normative perspectives in environmental education. This collaborative piece reflects on a creative pedagogy of zine-making for climate justice education based on the experiences of a zine/arts-making workshop held on Bundjalung Nation Country (so-called Kingscliff, Australia) for the annual retreat of The Sustainability, Environment, and the Arts in Education Research Centre. Members attended the workshop and collectively created a “zine” on the day. From a myriad of transdisciplinary spaces in education, the workshop was inspired by collective concerns and political commitments to climate justice education. Working in the space of de/anti-colonial and ecofeminist education, facilitators opened a space to understand, collage and create manifestos, stories, poems, and art on climate justice through zine-making. Based on collective reflection and writing together, this article contextualises and describes a pedagogical approach for climate justice education through zine-making. Artfully it exhibits our collectively created zine intermingled with reflective responses regarding the possibilities and challenges of zine-making as pedagogy for climate justice education. We recommend zine-making be put to work as a playful and creative pedagogy of generative rebellion toward climate justice with care.

In this paper we argue that performance and the arts invite a deliberate sensorial connection with the body and can support a bodily turn or return, in order to help artists, scholars and communities more broadly, better attune to increasing climate instability, through collaborative, supportive and reflexive storytelling. Drawing on the three “weather” symposia, the paper focusses on the second symposium which featured a keynote presentation by Rachael Swain, co-artistic director of Marrugeku, Australia’s leading Indigenous Intercultural Dance and Performance Company. Responses to Marrugeku’s work Cut the Sky are collectively presented to illuminate what Swain argues are, “Dramaturgies of consequence” (2020), that emerge from working and thinking with the choreopolitical platform of Marrugeku’s practice, and how this is felt in the bodies and the actions of audiences. Such a focus on thinking and feeling with and through our bodies, is crucial in preparing to respond and adapt to the myriad evolving political, environmental and social crises we are enmeshed in. By focusing on Cut The Sky we argue that contemporary performance, which foregrounds the body, is an exemplary practice which can ignite visceral and kinaesthetic responses in spectators for activating change through Marrugeku’s choreography of resistance.

This paper presents a series of responses from Western Australian based artists and scholars from a range of disciplines including: meteorology, science, education, social work, psychology, art and performance studies, to a year-long exhibition titled Forecast in Gallery 09 at The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA). Forecast is a collaboration between AGWA’s Head of Learning and Creativity Research, Lilly Blue, Edith Cowan University’s Centre for People, Place and Planet artist-scholar, Jo Pollitt, together with artists Dianne Jones and Eva Fernández. The exhibition invites audiences to contribute to two participatory works: Weather Patterns, a daily changing installation that makes room for slow feeling, attention and care at a time of rising eco-anxiety and climate grief, and Disappearing Forests, which encourages participants to paint evaporating treescapes with water. Forecast was the stimulus for a discussion among and between interdisciplinary artists and scholars in reflecting on extreme weather, resilience building and the arts. This article proposes the embodied and participatory methods of the exhibition as a model for engaging in feeling with and responding to the climate crisis. Each of the responses draw on the exhibition to consider the ways in which Forecast in its negotiation of weather states opens up questions of response and responsibility, of time, pace and scale and, ultimately, how the exhibition invites audiences to engage in a process of slow feeling as they participate in and reflect on their experience of weather in the exhibition.

This paper examines the cultural, ecological and political dimensions of the contemporary water crisis through a curatorial and environmental humanities lens. Through the watery conceptual epoch of the Hydrocene, it highlights the work of artists and interdisciplinary practitioners whose hydro-artistic methods propose ways to realign human–water relations. Central to this analysis is the role of curatorial care, here understood as a practice of convening, holding and enabling reciprocal encounters between bodies of water, artists and communities. Bringing these diverse practices into dialogue, the paper proposes water not only as subject matter but as a potential collaborator and leaky agent. It argues that such watery approaches are vital to reshaping collective imaginaries and navigating the planetary water crisis. Extending the conceptual framework developed in the author’s monograph, this paper works with curatorial care as a situated methodology. Through a responsive roundtable bringing marine science, acoustic research and documentary filmmaking into dialogue with hydro-artistic practice, it asks how curatorial work can itself become a mode of inquiry and how artistic and cross-disciplinary water encounters might operate as forms of environmental learning beyond the classroom.

Extreme weather events caused by human created climate change not only cause catastrophic impact on human and the more-than-human populations but can also trigger permanent changes to place. With these changes, stories shift, in turn influencing knowledge and cultural systems. This article is a dialogue between Natalie Davey and Renée Newman, about the role of art, story, mapping and “jarriny” (translating to totem) as a tool for education on extreme weather events and climate crisis. We also consider the vital role custodianship plays in response to and recovery from an extreme weather event, as was the case for Natalie Davey during, and in the aftermath, of the Fitzroy River floods in Western Australia, 2023.