Teacher candidates planting a learning garden.

About ESE-TE

Quick Links: Standing Committee Members | Sponsors

This website is the digital home of the ESE-TE Standing Committee of the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication, (EECOM). The ESE-TE Committee is dedicated to advancing and supporting the development of high quality Environmental & Sustainability Education (ESE) in Teacher Education (TE) in Canada through research, policy, and professional development.

The ESE-TE Standing Committee is working in four strategic directions: raising awareness of ESE-TE; deepening knowledge and understanding about ESE-TE; developing supports and resources for ESE-TE; and recommending policy in ESE-TE. These directions aim to engage those involved in teacher education to better support a cultural shift of Canadians towards more sustainable forms of living. This is a work in progress, and viewers are invited to send in resources, research, and other information to make it stronger repository of work in this field.

About Environmental & Sustainability Education

This project has purposefully chosen the term ‘Environmental and Sustainability Education' (ESE) as a way to reference the multiple traditions of environmental learning that happen at all levels of education: environmental education; education for sustainable development; Indigenous education; Land-based learning; nature-based learning; outdoor & experiential education; place-based education, eco-justice education; éducation relative à l'environnement et au développement durable;education for sustainability; humane education; and sustainability for wellbeing. This signals a desire to honour the contributions of the multiple theoretical positions and voices that inform ESE in teacher education in this critical work.

The ESE-TE Standing Committee of EECOM

Laura Sims, Co-Chair (Liaison & Board Member, EECOM)
Assoc. Professor, Faculty of Education, Université de Saint-Boniface
Laura specializes in education for sustainability and community-based assessment processes. Laura taught high school for 10 years in Winnipeg and in the Dominican Republic. She has also managed a Canadian International Development Agency environmental project in Central America.

Patrick Howard, Co-Chair
Professor, Cape Breton University
Patrick interests are in topics related to environmental and sustainability education, and the intersections of environment with health and well-being in people and communities. His recent edited collections are Living Schools: Transforming Education and Phenomenology and Educational Theory in Conversation: Back to Education Itself.

Marie Tremblay, Treasurer
Educational Consultant
Marie's professional experience includes over a decade of teaching in elementary schools and in universities, including five years in Indigenous communities of Canada’s far north. She was an active member of Alberta’s environmental community for over two decades as a graduate student, conservation scientist, and senior manager in the public and non-profit sectors.

Rob VanWynsberghe, Secretary
Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Educational Studies, UBC
Rob has a PhD in Sociology, and his research expertise is in sustainability and the related areas of social movements and capacity building.

Nicole Bell
Assoc. Professor, School of Education & Professional Learning, Trent University
Nicole's research areas include Indigenous culture-based education, infusion of Indigenous knowledge into public schooling and teacher education, decolonization and healing, and Indigenous research theory and methodology. She is Anishnaabe (Bear Clan) from Kitigan Zibi First Nation in Quebec, the mother of five boys, and is passionate about Indigenous education, motivated by her educational experiences personally and as a mother.

Maurice DiGuiseppe
Professor (retired), Faculty of Education, University of Ontario Institute of Technology Maurice's research focuses on teacher professional development, environmental education, school gardens, scientific inquiry, and the development of digital learning resources in secondary and post-secondary education. Maurice has authored and/or collaborated in the development of a number of science and environmental science textbooks and learning resources.

Paul Elliott
Professor, School of Education & Professional Learning,Trent University
Paul teaches pre-service and M.Ed. courses in science education and environmental education. He coordinates an Eco-Mentor Program for teacher candidates in collaboration with colleagues from Camp Kawartha in Peterborough. Paul’s research interests have been wide-ranging with topics as diverse as insect ecology, bat conservation, biodiversity education, and scientific literacy.

Thomas Falkenberg
Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba
Thomas’s research interests include sustainable well-being and integrative and holistic education as foci of school education. He is the editor/co-editor of a number of books and current Chair of the Editorial Board of the ESWB Press of the University of Manitoba.

Ellen Field
Assistant Professor, Lakhead University
Ellen's research interests are in policy and practice of climate change education in the Canadian K-12 system. She is an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, co-chair of the Canadian Regional Hub of MECCE, and co-lead of the Accelerating Climate Change Ed in Teacher Education national project.

Shannon Harding (Board Member, EECOM)
Director of Education and Engagement, Clean Foundation
Shannon has over 20 years of experience in the development and delivery of environmental education initiatives ranging from classroom workshops, professional learning design, exhibit creation as well as curriculum and policy development.

Joshua Hill
Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Mount Royal University
Through his teaching, service, and scholarship Josh seeks to create the conditions to (re)story education as a journey towards agency, wonder, and expansive awareness of oneself-in-the-world. He is currently exploring storytelling, Indigenous land based learning, and heterarchy in the contexts of learning, teaching, and leadership in k-12 and post secondary education.

Hilary Inwood
Coordinator, Sustainability & Climate Action Network, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Hilary leads OISE’s Sustainability & Climate Action Network, and teaches courses in its MAster of Teaching program. Her research focuses on the professional development of preserice and inservice teachers in relation to ESE, and on arts-based approaches to developing environmental literacy. She is co-lead of the Accelerating Climate Change Ed in Teacher Education national project.

Doug Karrow
Assoc. Professor, Faculty of Education, Brock University
Douglas specializes in science and environmental education; in addition to teaching pre-service and graduate education courses, his research interests centre on school-based environmental education, place-based education, ontological education, and ecophenomenology.

Andrejs Kulnieks
Asst. Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Saskatchewan
Andrejs teaches in the area of English Language Arts, Literacies, and Drama education. His research spans the fields of curriculum theory, language and literacy, arts-informed research, poetic inquiry, Indigenous environmental studies, and leadership in eco-justice environmental education.

Alisa Paul
Alisa previously worked in teacher education at SFU, and is currently a practicing teacher. Her passion for community building and resiliency form part of her personal pedagogy, which connects students to their local places and acknowledgs the systems that they are engaged in.

Patrick Robertson
Faulty of Education, University of British Columbia
Patrick currently co-leads the Education for Sustainability teacher education cohort in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. He also leads Syncollab Strategies, a consulting collaborative in B.C., is the current Chair of the Classrooms to Communities (C2C) Education Network, and serves as a director or advisor for various other organizations focused on sustainability, climate, teacher education, literacy, and educational transformation.

Pam Schwartzberg
President and CEO, Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF)
Pamela has over 30 years of progressive experience in strategic planning, policy development, project management, research, and writing. She served as Ontario Program Director for LSF, coordinating research, policy development, teacher training, and curriculum materials development. As of 2002, Pamela has served as National Executive Director of LSF.

Carine Villemagne
Professor, Faculty of Education, Université de Sherbrooke
Carine's research focuses on adults’ learning in environmental education, generally working with adults who have lower levels of education. She is a researcher associated with the Center for Research in Environmental Education and Training (Centr’ERE) that is located at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Alysse Kennedy
ESE-TE Standing Committee Administrator
Alysse (she/her) is a guest on Turtle Island and the Interim Program Director at Natural Curiosity. Over the last six years, she's had incredible experiences teaching, researching and organizing programming specific to environmental and sustainability education and climate action with Toronto District School Board's EcoSchools team, the OISE Sustainability & Climate Action Network, EcoSchools Canada, EcoSchools in Alberta, EECOM and the ESE-TE National Network.