This week we return to our conversation with Dr. Rupu Gupta, conservation psychologist at New Knowledge Organization whose research focuses on inclusion and equity in the environmental field. Last week, Dr. Gupta talked about community building. Part of our conversation centered around the paper “Practitioners’ perspectives on the purpose of environmental education.” Today we take a brief look at this paper about practitioners' perspectives. In this paper, Dr. Gupta and her colleagues answer this big question: How do North American environmental education practitioners (both from formal and non-formal institutions) think about their work?
To download the card sorting activity and instructor guide, visit the show notes for this episode.
This week we return to our conversation with Dr. Rupu Gupta, conservation psychologist at New Knowledge Organization whose research focuses on inclusion and equity in the environmental field.
Last week, Dr. Gupta talked about community building. Part of our conversation centered around the paper “Practitioners’ perspectives on the purpose of environmental education.”
If you read this paper, it becomes clear that the field of environmental education (EE) is struggling to answer the question, “What’s it for?”
Today we take a brief look at this paper. In this paper, Dr. Gupta and her colleagues answer this big question:
How do North American environmental education practitioners (both from formal and non-formal institutions) think about their work?
View the show notes for this episode
Episode 23: Dr. Rupu Gupta, Building Community
August 27, 2019
Tania Marien:
Welcome to Talaterra, a podcast about freelance educators working in natural resource fields and environmental education. Who are these educators? What do they do? Join me and let's find out together. This is your host, Tania Marien.
Tania Marien:
This week, we return to our conversation with Dr. Rupu Gupta Conservation Psychologist at New Knowledge Organization, whose research focuses on inclusion and equity in the environmental field. Last week, we spoke with Dr. Gupta about community building. Part of our conversation centered around the paper, Practitioners' Perspectives on the Purpose of Environmental Education. If you read this paper, it becomes clear that the field of environmental education is struggling to answer the question, what's it for?
Tania Marien:
At the center of the debate about what environmental education is for is whether or not environmental education is about advocacy, behavior change, science communication, democratic decision making, or critical thinking about social transformation.
Tania Marien:
Today, we take a brief look at the paper about practitioners' perspectives. In this paper, Dr. Gupta and her colleagues answered this big question, how do North American environmental education practitioners, both from formal and non formal institutions, think about their work? Dr. Gupta and colleagues get to the heart of this question by asking practitioners what to you is the purpose of environmental education.
Tania Marien:
In their study, Dr. Gupta and colleagues conducted a card sorting activity that required participants to sort 35 statements about environmental education. After sorting these statements, participants either completed a brief interview or a written exercise to explain why they made the sorting decisions that they did. This investigation revealed the perspectives of 41 environmental educators participating in this study. Research results indicate that these practitioners feel that EE is about the following five perspectives. These practitioners feel that EE is about supporting sustainable lifestyles through pro environmental behaviors for humans and non human nature. They also feel that EE is about facilitating spiritual connections among living beings and an appreciation for all life. The third perspective these practitioners expressed is that EE is about moral stewardship and ethical responsibility. Practitioners also feel that EE is about empowering communities to address their local needs. Lastly practitioners feel that environmental education involves thinking about the nonhuman world. This fifth perspective is about giving moral consideration to the nonhuman world and acknowledging there is a bond between all life forms with non-human nature.
Tania Marien:
Now it's your turn. What to you is the purpose of environmental education. If you would like to evaluate your own perspectives about EE and have this conversation with colleagues or community partners, you can do so thanks to Dr. Gupta sharing the card sorting activity with us. Dr. Gupta shares this activity with us in the hopes that it will lead to conversation with colleagues that will result in an appreciation for the multiple viewpoints that are expressed in the field
Tania Marien:
Here is an overview of how the card sorting activity works. After Dr. Gupta and I spoke for the podcast. We had a conversation about the methodology that she and her colleagues used to investigate practitioners' perspectives on environmental education. This methodology has been turned into a fun card sorting activity and has been packaged as a curriculum. Dr. Gupta is sharing this curriculum with us and what follows is a brief explanation about how this activity works.
Rupu Gupta:
We wanted to really think about usability of this research for practitioners. Are there lessons to be shared from this research that can be applied to really appreciate and be reflective about one's own way of thinking about environmental education and that's where this curriculum came from. The goal of the curriculum is to offer an opportunity for educators to reflect on their own unique view of the value of environmental education and to also be introspective and respectful about thinking about other perspectives that fly in the spectrum, that may come up to conversation with others.
Rupu Gupta:
So how we've set it up is, it is really a curriculum package of sorts, it comes with a set of statements, I think it's 35 or so. Each card has a statement on it about the purpose of environmental education. So, for example, I'll just read a couple to provide an example.
Rupu Gupta:
So the purpose of EE, it doesn't say that, but each card says it is the best way to produce a scientifically literate society, that's one example. Another is fostering the commitment to solve environmental problems. Another is exposing students to the outdoors, so they don't fear nature. So as you can tell, each of them has a very specific approach, philosophy guiding environmental education work, and there's 35 statements like this. So the idea is people who are interested in using them would have all these cards in front of them like a deck of cards. So that's one part of the curriculum, part of the set. There's also a table where you will be arranging these cards as instructed in the curriculum. So included in this package is also a detailed step-by-step list of how to go about this exercise, where you will actually be card sorting. You'll actually be sorting these cards.
Rupu Gupta:
It can be done individually, or it can be done in a group setting. We've done both where we've asked people to do this on their own in their workplace, and then come together as a group to share their experiences. Or we facilitated a group doing this together. So it can really be fun. So once you have your cards, and once you go through the instructions, you start to sort them according to the statements that most reflect your beliefs about EE. Versus the statements that are least reflective of how you think about EE and the way you arrange them is in a pyramid shape. This is all provided in the instruction guidelines and there's a table that we've also included into which you would arrange these cards. At the end of that exercise, you see where your strong polarizing beliefs are. So that's the first outcome of the activity.
Rupu Gupta:
The second one is when you do that, you start to think, huh, these are my reasons for wanting to pursue EE and then here are the ones that I don't believe in at all. So as part of this package, there's also space to do a reflective exercise where you jot down your notes and your cards as you kind of see these results. What happens, especially if you do it in a group context, is the facilitator asks each individual to share, the cards that are on the extreme end and that reflect their way of thinking. Whereas the others, at least like it. So there's always people where there's mismatches in who's strongly endorsing a beliefs that was geared towards students engaging with major versus those who want to think about a scientifically literate society.
Rupu Gupta:
The fun part is the two cards at the extreme ends are sort of the most polarizing statements, but the ones in the middle, remember there are 35 gods here, so there's just four that you really strongly endorse. Everything else is in the middle and so there will be statements that reveal more agreement between people and that's the fun part. Where people in this interactive exercise are starting to see, oh my god, you also believe that it's important to save endangered wildlife. Maybe not as strongly as I do, but it's close to it. So there is something common in there.
Rupu Gupta:
So it was really a fun, engaging way to help educators think about their own worldviews when it comes to EE and then also understanding and appreciating someone else’s.
Tania Marien:
To obtain your own copy of the card sorting activity, visit the show notes for this episode at Talaterra.com. You'll also find in the show notes, a citation for the paper about practitioners' perspectives, as well as the citation for a paper about facilitating collaboration among groups with environmentally minded initiatives. Many thanks to Dr. Gupta for her time and for sharing the card sorting activity with us. Thank you and see you next time.
Tania Marien:
Talaterra is a podcast for and about independent educators working in natural resource fields and environmental education. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and colleagues. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is Tania Marien.