Environmental and Sustainability Education remains a critical challenge for faculties of education across Canada. The involvement of educators at all levels of education is imperative to help Canadians address the climate crisis and make cultural and societal shifts to more sustainable forms of living. Teacher educators are key actors in this, given their influence on the education and training of pre-service and in-service teachers.
A recent special issue of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (vol. 23, issue 1) features articles by Canadian teacher educators who are strengthening this developing field through innovative research and developing new practices. This issue was co-edited by Doug Karrow, Laura Sims and Hilary Inwood, members of EECOM’s Standing Committee on Environmental and Sustainability Education in Teacher Education.
This work will be further explored in a biennial Research Symposium on April 21, being offered on the opening day of EECOM’s upcoming conference. Please join us for the Research Symposium and conference – the first time these events have been offered online!
Registration is open for EECOM 2021, Canada’s largest annual national environmental education conference! For the first time ever, EECOM 2021 will be taking place exclusively online, running April 21-24, 2021 and welcomes educators, grades 11, 12, and post-secondary students, classrooms, community organizations, and parents.
Register for EECOM now to guarantee your spot!
The conference kicks off with a Research Symposium featuring some of the leading researchers and educators from Canada and around the world on April 21 and an opportunity to provide input on identifying and prioritizing a national ESE-TE research agenda, followed by three days of dynamic sessions and workshops focusing on four themes: City as Classroom, Indigenous Education, EcoJustice Education, and Water Education.
We’ll also be bringing you three inspiring keynote addresses: a powerful and free public Earth Day kick-off by youth activist Larissa Crawford; a special co-presentation from Indigenous artists Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch; and a deep-dive into climate justice with Julian Agyeman.
In addition to over 100 presenters across 70+ sessions, attendees will experience lively and unique opportunities to safely socialize with other passionate members of the EECOM community through a variety of “Nuit Verte” social events. From a vegan cooking class to a guided organic beer-tasting, this is one conference you won’t want to miss!
The best part? There’s no travel required, so you can learn and build your network while decreasing your environmental impact.
Learn more, view the schedule and speakers, and register your spot now at ecoschools.ca/eecom.
We have two exciting new Zoom webinars to announce from our partners at EECOM. These are about eco-anxiety and there are two offerings on two days (one in English and one in French). See below!
As one of the largest faculties of education in Canada – and one with a very active, multifaceted Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) Initiative – the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto has cultivated enormous potential to engage numerous stakeholders in taking Climate Action. But this opportunity is not without its own unique challenges – especially how to bring together the many faculty, staff and graduate students/teacher candidates to tackle Climate Action in a large-scale collaboration. Developing a whole-institution approach towards the overarching vision of establishing a Climate Action Plan for OISE – and actually putting that plan into action – requires a strong foundation. Read on to learn about the steps OISE’s community has taken in the last six months to bring about changes to begin turning this Climate Action vision into a reality.
January 2020 – Hosting the inaugural OISE Climate Action Summit Seeing the need to implement climate action beyond a departmental level, the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning (CTL) Climate Action Working Group voted to expand their collaborative efforts by hosting the first ever OISE Climate Action Summit. Sponsored by the Dean’s Office, this half-day roundtable Summit, held on Friday, January 31, 2020, brought together over 100 participants comprised of faculty, staff, students and administrators from across the entire OISE community. Watch this short video to see what took place!
March 2020 – Reviewing and sharing high-priority ideas through the Climate Action Survey At the Summit, the community generated many ideas across five target areas. Following the event, these ideas were organized to form a basis for OISE’s unfolding Climate Action Plan, specifically in regards to prioritizing action items that can be carried out immediately. To solicit feedback, the Climate Action Survey was sent out to all members of the OISE community to invite participants to review and respond to these ideas.
April 2020 – Earth Day announcement & call for nominees for the new Dean’s Climate Action Advisory Committee Following the Summit and survey, a set of recommendations to enact climate action at OISE were presented to OISE’s Dean. In honour of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Dean Jones announced implementation of the first recommendation – to establish a new Dean’s Climate Action Advisory Committee at OISE. This Committee, chaired by the Dean and co-led by Dr. Hilary Inwood (Lead of OISE’s ESE Initiative) will assist in the development of a strategic Climate Action Plan for OISE, based on the community’s feedback from the Summit and survey. The Dean also announced embedding climate action as part of OISE’s Academic Plan and positioning OISE as a hub for ESE and climate action.
June 2020 – Formation and first meeting of the Dean’s Climate Action Advisory Committeeat OISE After the Committee was selected (see Membership below), the first meeting was held via Zoom to get members acquainted with each other and their initial tasks and goals for developing the OISE Climate Action Plan. The Plan aims to reduce OISE’s carbon footprint by better embedding sustainability into five areas of OISE’s work: 1) Policy & Governance, 2) Facilities & Operations, 3) Curriculum & Teaching, 4) Research, and 5) Community Engagement & Outreach. A team of OISE faculty, staff and grad students have been working over the summer to research and build a strong foundation and the Plan is set to be shared with the community late in the fall.
Supporting Climate Action strategic planning across faculties of education These exciting steps signal a hopeful direction is ESE and Climate Action. OISE is the first faculty at the University of Toronto to work towards creating their own Climate Action Plan, as well as the first Faculty of Education in Canada to do so. It is hoped that sharing these steps will inspire and support others to implement a cohesive Climate Action approach in their own faculties of education. For more information and ideas on how to get started in your own faculty, check out the OISE ESE website here.
Membership of OISE Climate Action Advisory Group The advisory group, which has been asked to develop a draft plan by the end of this year, includes the following members: Megan Abley, Graduate Student, APHD Julie Blair, Indigenous Education Network Coordinator Yiola Cleovoulou, Faculty Member, APHD Helen Huang, Chief Administrative Officer, OISE Alysse Kennedy, Graduate Student, CTL David Montemurro, Faculty Member, CTL Fikile Nxumalo, Faculty Member, CTL Sadia Rahman, Graduate Student, LHAE John Robinson, Presidential Advisor on the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability Jennifer Sumner, Faculty Member, LHAE Amanda Trigiana, Graduate Student, SJE Jenaya Webb, Librarian, OISE Library Terezia Zoric, Faculty Member, SJE The work of this committee will be supported by Hilary Inwood (CTL), Iman Fouad (Dean’s Office), and graduate students who will be conducting research for the committee, including Wahaj Alam & Sunnya Khan.
We hope you enjoyed this featured update about what is happening in ESE in a Canadian Faculty of Education. Is your faculty or department taking new strides in ESE or Climate Action? Let us know in the comments what’s happening and what you think so far about these Climate Action goals!
CALL FOR ARTICLES & BOOKS! The ESE in TE Canadian national network is seeking new recommendations for recent publications by Canadian scholars about Environmental and Sustainability Education in faculties of education.
If you have an article (journal or trade magazine), book chapter or book that has recently been published (2019 onwards) or will soon be published and you would like us to showcase your work as part of the growing body of literature in this area, please email a link to access your work (or a shareable pdf copy), along with an APA reference, to contact@eseinfacultiesofed.ca
We look forward to your reading about the important work you’ve been doing in Canadian ESE within teacher education!
EECOM’s Environmental and Sustainability Education in Teacher Education (ESE-TE) Standing Committee will be hosting a bi-annual Research Symposium on April 28th, 2021 at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT), in Toronto, Ontario.
EECOM 2021 conference logo
The focus of the upcoming research symposium is on research activities in the field of ESE in preservice and inservice teacher education. The research symposium is meant to be an opportunity to share research in a supportive community of like-minded individuals who are committed to furthering the field of ESE-TE. The symposium is academic in style, featuring 15-20 minute presentations. To date, presenters have been notified of acceptance. All people interested in this area of research are welcome to attend!
Working as part of the EECOM family does have its advantages! We were honoured to work in partnership with the EECOM Board as they began to work on a new series of videos highlighting the work that is being done under its network. As one of its Standing Committees, our team focuses on better embedding Environmental and Sustainability Education in Teacher Education, which is a tight focus given the breadth of how environmental learning manifests in both formal and informal education settings across the country. At the EECOM 2018 conference in Cranbrook, members of the ESE-TE Committee were interviewed to help us communicate our mission and goals. The result is terrific, highlighting what our Committee is about, surrounded by the beautiful vistas of the Kootenays. If you haven’t seen it yet, catch it on our YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoI5ORCUsPw
