Cultivating Artistic Approaches to Environmental Learning: Exploring Eco-art Education in Elementary Classrooms

Yıl 2013, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 2, 0 - , 16.09.2013

Hilary Inwood

Öz

This article explores curriculum development in eco-art education, an integration of art education and environmental education, as a means of increasing awareness of and engagement with the environment.  It reports on a qualitative research study that tracked teachers’ experiments with the design and implementation of eco-art education in elementary classrooms.  Guided by the framework of collaborative action research, a team of educators generated practical and theoretical knowledge to plan, implement, observe and reflect on eco-art curricula and pedagogy.  As the first inquiry to examine eco-art education in a sustained way across multiple school sites, it makes a significant contribution to the emerging knowledge and growing discourse of eco-art education by demonstrating how arts-based learning at the elementary level can align with and support environmental education concepts and pedagogy. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

environmental education, arts-based, environmental art, artistic activism, eco-art education

Kaynakça

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• 1I use the term ‘eco-art’ to encompass both environmental and ecological art, taking my lead from
• Matilsky (1992). She proposed that ‘environmental art’ be used to designate works that call attention
• to nature and establish ‘a reverent relationship between the viewer and the earth’ (p. 37). In contrast,
• ‘ecological art’ embodies more of an activist stance, not only raising awareness of ecosystems but also
• proposing or creating solutions to their human-induced challenges.
• 2For a fuller cataloguing of artists working with environmental themes or foci in their work, refer to
• the database of artists on Green Museum [http://greenmuseum.org].
• 3For a fuller discussion of these scholars’ contributions to the discourse on eco-art education, refer to
• Inwood (2008, 2009).
• 4Gablik is one of the first in the 20th century to articulate a need to move towards a more
• collaborative, community-oriented form of art-making, in which the ‘paradigm of social conscience
• replaces that of the individual genius’ (1991, p.114). She calls for art to move beyond ‘nonrelational,
• noninteractive, nonparticipatory’ aesthetics of Modernism towards ‘connective aesthetics’, that is art
• that builds community, engages with the reality of contemporary issues, and ‘speaks to the power of
• connectedness and establishes bonds, art that calls us into relationship’ (1991, p.114).
• 5Herr and Anderson (2005) noted the inherent tension that can arise in this type of situation,
• stemming from between the dualities of practical/formal knowledge and the insider/outsider status
• of the research team.
• 6Arts-informed research is a family of approaches to inquiry that bring together ‘the systematic and
• rigorous qualities of conventional qualitative inquiry with the artistic, disciplined, and imaginative
• qualities of the arts’ (Cole and Knowles, 2008, p. 59). Exploring new means of conceiving meaning
• making and knowledge creation is central to arts-informed research, as traditional modes of research
• offer limited means for investigating and understanding arts-based learning. Eisner (1997) has
• identified the potential benefits that arts-based educational research can offer, and believes that it
• forces a re-examination of the assumptions and values that underlie social science-based research,
• many of which run counter to the ways the arts are involved in education. By better integrating the
• arts into a new paradigm of research, art educators are offered a better means to ‘fit their interests,
• [be] congruent with what they wish to study, and play to their strengths’ (p. 265).
• 7For a fuller introduction to this program, please refer to the TDSB’s Ecoschools website at:
• http://www.tdsb.on.ca/_site/ViewItem.asp?siteid=207&menuid=1425&pageid=1052
• 8As a means of recognizing their contributions to the development process and this research project,
• the teacher-researchers agreed that their real names should be used in this article.
• 9It should be noted that the local school board, the TDSB, did have a growing Ecoschools program in
• effect at the time of the study, but with a small team of leaders supporting over 600 schools in the
• board and limited release time for bringing teachers together, it was hard for teachers in individual
• (and often geographically dispersed) schools to identify and/or connect with others who shared their
• interest in environmental education.
• 10The three tenets of environmental education, used by the Toronto District School Board (2007) at
• that time to inform curriculum development and classroom practice were sense of place, ecosystems
• thinking, and human impacts. Due to a change in provincial policy in 2009, they now use the
• categories of learning in, about and for the environment more commonly.
• 11While not the focus of this study, there are indications that the students might have improved
• their environmental literacy as part of their eco-art lessons. While viewing the gr. 2/3 students’
• ‘Solution to Pollution’ video might be sufficient evidence for this assertion in and of itself, Anne
• reinforced this in a reflection on her students’ work on eco-art installations for the waterfront:
• …you sort of hope that they grow in many ways, but to see that kind of very observable growth in
• terms of their understanding about the environment, about art, and its implications on the
• environment and so on…that’s been very exciting.
• Further study is required to more fully investigate and understand the effects of student learning in
• eco-art education and its impact on students’ environmental literacy.