Restrained and Progressive Environmental Education

1. Restrained and Progressive Environmental Education CREE Seminar University of Bath 19/11/08 Morgan PhillipsBecomingGreen.co.uk

2. Talk structure How and where we learn The Environmental Education Infrastructure Restrained Environmental Education Progressive Environmental Education Plural rationalities Research findings The Emergence of Progressive Environmental Education If not a consumer economy then what?

3. How and where we learn

4. Free Choice Learners

5. Accidental Learners

12. You learn something new every day

15. Environmental Education Infrastructure (EEI)

23. Environmental Education Infrastructure (EEI)

24. The Guardian, 24th September 2008 Report on forthcoming paper by Stewart Barr et. al., (2009) ‘A holiday is still a holiday’ University of Exeter

25. ‘the hard politics of the environment: climate change, soil loss, deforestation, the state of the oceans and the threats to biodiversity at large’ (Foster, 2008, p. 12)

26. The Knowledge-Action Gap Knowledge of Sustainable development Sustainable development motivation Action for Sustainable Development GAP

27. Education for the environment is losing the battle with Education against the environment.

28. Environmental Education Infrastructure (EEI)

29. Restrained and Progressive Environmental Education

30. Restrained Environmental Education

31. Restrained Environmental Education Sits within, does not adequately challenge and often embodies the consumerist, materialist culture that lies at the root of many social and environmental problems.

32. Progressive Environmental Education Seeks to question the drivers of a consumer led economy directly with the aim of instigating a long term shift to a new sustainable culture.

33. Restrained Environmental Education sits within a wider Progressive Environmental Education

34. ‘Green living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year. And the carbon savings they make by not driving their kids to school will be obliterated by the pollution from their flights.’ Stewart Barr

35. ‘I recycle therefore I am green, I have low energy light bulbs therefore I am greener still, I drive a hybrid car therefore I am even greener.’

36. ‘I am green, because I can afford it’

37. ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when creating them.’ Albert Einstein

38. ‘Plural rationalities’

39. ‘Plural rationalities’

42. Material Wealth = Happiness

43. The following factors were all found to influence the design and delivery of environmental education: Educators beliefs about how to approach environmental education Expectations of educators employers The availability of funding Funding restrictions The National Curriculum The natural resources available to the educator The expectations of the audience The type of audience

44. The Knowledge-Action Gap Knowledge of Sustainable development Sustainable development motivation Action for Sustainable Development GAP

45. How green is green enough?

46. The role and potential for Progressive Environmental Education

47. Barriers to Progressive Environmental Education Expectations of audience Need for an audience Remit of their job The unavailability of funding Lack of resources and inspiration.

48. Adam Curtis, BBC

49. What is the morality of the practice of encouraging housewives to be non-rational and impulsive in buying the family food?

50. What is the morality of the playing upon hidden weaknesses and frailties – such as our anxieties, aggressive feelings, dread of non-conformity, and infantile hangovers to sell products? Specifically, what are the ethics of businesses that shape campaigns designed to thrive on these weaknesses they have diagnosed?