ABOUT ESE-TE
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.
ESE-TE Standing Committee of EECOM
Andrejs Kulnieks, Co-Chair
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.
Joshua Hill, Co-Chair
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.
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 DiGiuseppe
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.
Patrick Howard
Professor of Education,
Cape Breton University
Cape Breton University
Patrick developed his interest in the intersections between issues of sustainability and education during a twenty plus-year career teaching high school in coastal communities on the island of Newfoundland, Canada. Patrick’s research and writing have been dedicated to exploring how our defining human abilities, creativity, language and imagination, as products of nature, are mediums by which we may grow in our relationships with the living places we inhabit.
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.
Patrick Robertson
Doctoral Candidate, Faculty 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.
Laura Sims (Liaison & Board Member, EECOM)
Professor, Faculty of Education, Université de Saint-Boniface
Laura teaches in the faculty of education at the Université de Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg. Laura’s research specializes in education-for-sustainability and learning in formal (i.e. faculties of education) and non-formal learning contexts (i.e. small scale farmers in Latin America). She currently researches learning and peace building in Colombia. Previously, she taught high school and managed a Central American CIDA project.
Rob VanWynsberghe
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.
Alysse Kennedy
ESE-TE Standing Committee Administrator
Currently on parental leave
Currently on parental leave
Alysse has a PhD in Curriculum and Pedagogy and focuses on making environmental and sustainability education and climate action relevant, meaningful and accessible. She is currently the Publishing Manager at the Outdoor Learning School & Store and teaches in the Master of Arts in Child Study and Education program at OISE.
Michael Link
Associate Professor
University of Winnipeg
University of Winnipeg
Mike’s research explores nature-based approaches that support student well-being and the transition to a just and sustainable future. Prior to his service as a teacher educator and researcher, Mike taught for 13 years in elementary schools in Abbotsford and Surrey, British Columbia.
Carrie Karsgaard
Assistant Professor – Education Department at Cape Breton University
Carrie Karsgaard is an Assistant Professor in the Education Department at Cape Breton University, where she teaches in the Master of Education in Sustainability, Creativity, and Innovation. As Co-Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, she supports international investigation into pressing educational issues by scholars internationally. She is Principal Investigator of Learning Collective Worldmaking, a suite of research projects exploring ways to live in creative and relational ways within the planet’s boundaries while simultaneously challenging and repairing harmful systems. Funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant and by Environment and Climate Change Canada, these projects take up relational research methodologies as they co-create interventions into climate change education and policy with youth, teachers, communities, and their surrounding lands.
Geneviève Therriault
Ph.D, est professeure titulaire en fondements de l’éducation à l’Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
Geneviève Therriault, Ph.D., is a full professor specializing in educational foundations at the Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR).She also holds a Research Chair in Environmental Education and Sustainable Development (UQAR-Desjardins). Her research focuses, notably, on the relationship to knowledge and the eco-citizenship agency of students and teachers in the context of implementing interdisciplinary teaching approaches on socially acute environmental issues.
Geneviève Therriault, Ph.D, est professeure titulaire en fondements de l’éducation à l’Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR). Elle est aussi titulaire d’une Chaire de recherche en éducation à l’environnement et au développement durable (UQAR-Desjardins). Dans ses recherches, elle s’intéresse entre autres à l’étude du rapport aux savoirs et de l’agentivité écocitoyenne d’élèves et d’enseignants dans le cadre de la mise en œuvre de démarches d’enseignement interdisciplinaire sur des questions socialement vives environnementale
Geneviève Therriault, Ph.D, est professeure titulaire en fondements de l’éducation à l’Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR). Elle est aussi titulaire d’une Chaire de recherche en éducation à l’environnement et au développement durable (UQAR-Desjardins). Dans ses recherches, elle s’intéresse entre autres à l’étude du rapport aux savoirs et de l’agentivité écocitoyenne d’élèves et d’enseignants dans le cadre de la mise en œuvre de démarches d’enseignement interdisciplinaire sur des questions socialement vives environnementale
Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw
Professor at Western University and co-founder of the Common Worlds Research Collective
Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw is aprofessor at Western University and co-founder of the Common Worlds Research Collective. Her work critically engages with pedagogical practices, rethinking how education can respond to complex social and ecological conditions. Her published work opens transformative possibilities for education by foregrounding relational and experimental pedagogies that disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions and foster more just and responsive educational futures.
Colin Harris
Founder and Executive Director of Take Me Outside
Colin Harris is the founder and executive director of Take Me Outside, and initiated the organization by running across Canada, going into 80 schools across the country and engaging 20,000 students in conversations around their time spent in front of screens compared to their time spent outside, being active and connecting to nature. Take Me Outside, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to ensuring that every students’ day includes time spent outside, is a leading national organization helping advance the work of outdoor learning. Colin is also a PhD Candidate in Educational Research at the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary.
Caitlin Hastings
ESE-TE Standing Committee Interim Administrator
Caitlin Hastings is a Master of Education – Social Justice Specialization graduate from Lakehead University and has an Honours Bachelor of Community Safety degree from Sheridan College. Caitlin’s primary goals are to continue working in social and environmental justice education/research aimed at building community awareness and empowering future generations for equitable social change.
Sponsors
We are deeply appreciative of the funders who have supported this work.
Symons Trust
School of Education and Professional Learning, Trent University
OISE, University of Toronto
Faculty of Education, Brock University
Dearness Environmental Society
TD Friends of the Environment Foundation