Environmental Citizenship in Primary Formal Education

The concept of Environmental Citizenship, as it has been developed in this project, calls for the development of specific awareness, attitudes, skills, behaviours and competences that need to be cultivated from early childhood for active civic participation. Primary formal education could provide opportunities for the achievement of these goals. In this chapter, we elaborate on how Environmental Citizenship, which provides the specifics of age and formal settings, could be approached and the educational strategies that could be recommended or avoided based on the existing literature. This chapter also provides an overview of the most important educational aims regarding the development of Environmental Citizenship in primary formal education. These include environmental sensitivity, a sense of justice, a basic understanding of ecological systems, necessary skills for the investigation of ecological and social phenomena, and action skills that relate to active participation in community issues. We suggest that successful educational interventions, integrated pedagogical approaches and key designing principles could promote Environmental Citizenship at primary schools. In addition, effective training and professional development programmes can equip teachers with the knowledge, values, skills and strategies necessary to implement Environmental Citizenship at this level

Socio-economic trends and climate change adaptation: the case of South East Queensland

The effectiveness of climate change responses is influenced by the adaptive capacity of communities within regions over spatial and temporal scales. While climate change projections are commonly used to set policy and management responses, they are not always coupled with socio-economic projections over the same time periods. This article explores the interplay between socio-economic characteristics and their potential implications for regional vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Population growth presents one of the biggest challenges for the South East Queensland region (SEQ) of Australia. Indigenous people, the aged, lone person households and single parent families show marked increases relative to other population segments. The literature suggests that these groups are more vulnerable to the risks associated with climate change. Population growth will not only increase the number of vulnerable groups, but also the demand for land, goods and services, including energy, infrastructure and ecosystem services. However, such data need to be integrated with contextspecific data to account for spatial and temporal variations (or differences) in the adaptive capacity of communities

Socio-economic trends and climate change adaptation: the case of South East Queensland

The effectiveness of climate change responses is influenced by the adaptive capacity of communities within regions over spatial and temporal scales. While climate change projections are commonly used to set policy and management responses, they are not always coupled with socio-economic projections over the same time periods. This article explores the interplay between socio-economic characteristics and their potential implications for regional vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Population growth presents one of the biggest challenges for the South East Queensland region (SEQ) of Australia. Indigenous people, the aged, lone person households and single parent families show marked increases relative to other population segments. The literature suggests that these groups are more vulnerable to the risks associated with climate change. Population growth will not only increase the number of vulnerable groups, but also the demand for land, goods and services, including energy, infrastructure and ecosystem services. However, such data need to be integrated with contextspecific data to account for spatial and temporal variations (or differences) in the adaptive capacity of communities

Researching teachers' thinking about education for sustainable development

This chapter draws on research on teachers' thinking to explore the 'personal practical knowledge' that can underpin successful education for sustainability in schools. It analyses both the pedagogical content knowledge and the images of self, students and society that teachers require, with a focus on the gap between the idealist theory of education for sustainability and the personal practical theories that teachers work by. The chapter concludes with a review of professional development strategies and resources available to support both pre-service and continuing in-service teacher education for sustainability