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This Swedish study investigates how primary school children’s perspectives on a “good schoolyard” can be illuminated through envisioning workshops using model-making. In addition to advocating for the qualities and affordances of the standard schoolyard equipment, children also suggested and constructed new features affording playing with domestic animals, being in peace and quiet in tree houses, picking fruit, and using digital playgrounds.For the children to go beyond reproducing the features, environmental qualities, and affordances of their current schoolyards, they needed plenty of time for communication and hands-on activities, opportunities to relax, imagine, and receive input and inspiration from others’ experiences.

This study was carried out within a project to promote health and ecosystem services, ?the benefits people obtain from ecosystems?, in preschools in Sweden. The paper applies the concept ?affordanc ...

Utilizing forest gardens as urban settings for outdoor environmental education in Sweden is a new practice. These forest gardens combine qualities of a forest, e.g., multi-layered polyculture veget ...

Children's value systems develop through youth and influence attitudes and actions. But there is a lack of appropriate measures for children and adolescents. The objective of this study was to construct and validate a questionnaire that reveals distinct value systems among adolescents, and to evaluate the identified value systems' relationship to degree of ego-development and moral development. A quantitative study in a Swedish School with ages 12 through 16 (grades 6 to 9) was performed (N = 204). A set of pattern recognition statistical analyses has been used to identify different profiles of values systems and demonstrate that these systems can be arranged in a hierarchical order similar to other development. Results revealed three value systems in this sample. The identified value systems reflect different degrees of moral and ego-development among children in the study. Three distinct value systems were identified: the first (n = 9) and the second value systems (n = 35) correspond to pre-conventional stages, and the third value system (n = 155) corresponds to early conventional stages of ego development. Ego development scoring of test statements to assess stages. The value system was significantly related to moral development in the personal interest and the maintaining norms schemas of the Defining Issues Test (DIT). However, many students did not complete the entire DIT, so those results should be looked at with caution. It appears that this new test (Test for Adolescent Value Systems - TAVS) does relate to an established ego development rating scale.

This case study explores a learning situation in a forest garden in Sweden. A forest garden is an edible polyculture landscape with different layers of mostly perennial vegetation. The forest garden is designed to maximize the yield of useful plants while minimizing the input of energy and resources, including human labour. Forest gardens may offer learning situations that contextualize interconnectedness and relations between organisms as well as situations that are beneficial for evaluative development (Kellert, 2002), i.e. the development of values, beliefs and moral perspectives in children. Twenty-seven seven to eight year old primary school children were followed in the first six months of a three year project in which they participated in developing a forest garden. The aim of the study is to investigate how the children reason with respect to different organisms’ dependence on and relations to each other, themselves included. Specifically: How do the children describe their own relationships with other organisms, as well as the relationships between other organisms in the forest garden? What values of nature are expressed by the children, and in relation to which situations in the forest garden? Data were collected in the form of field notes, audio and video recordings and photos from the children’s visits to the forest garden. The photos were used for stimulated recall in focus group interviews. The data were analysed using a combination of qualitative content analysis (Patton, 2002) and semi-quantitative methods. The children in the study presented a unidirectional perspective about the relationship between themselves and the organisms, especially the insects, in the forest garden. Rather than asking what these organisms can do for me/us, they pose the question: What can I/we do for the bugs/plants/ bees? The humanistic values, expressed by the children as a willingness to help other organisms (mostly insects) are in line with the explicit aims of the former curriculum for Biology to “promote care and respect for nature”. We should note that these humanistic values are no longer explicitly stated in the current curriculum. It is striking that the anthropocentric ecosystem services perspective (introduced in the current curriculum from grade 4), is so rare in the data. The children seldom mentioned the benefits for humans from insect pollination, even though this relationship is clearly stated by the pedagogues together with humanistic values. In observations, the children showed a great deal of curiosity for the natural environment (naturalistic value) as well as joy and enthusiasm about participating in the different activities that took place in the forest garden. Aesthetic values were expressed in relation to flowers, cones, berries, a snail’s shell etc. This study shows that forest gardens have the potential to be places where children can connect emotionally and cognitively to other organisms.

New measurement of students’ learning and teaching concepts is essential for creating constructive alignment in teaching and support formative assessment to promote epistemic development. The Epistemological Development in Teaching Learning Questionnaire (EDTLQ) was developed to meet these needs. In the present study, the factor structure of EDTLQ was examined using a sample of 643 students from a Swedish University. The results show that the correlated six-factor model fits the data the best. The result is consistent with the developmental theory that posits development as a dynamic highly correlated process varying across and within domains. There is a potential to use EDTLQ as a tool for adapting teaching to appropriate levels of understanding within different domains. The EDTLQ is one of the few measurements that can be used to assess students’ learning concepts so that education/teaching can be adapted to support students’ development of more complex levels of thinking about learning.

What promotes action competence for sustainability? This question is phenomenologically explored through researching in depth the life stories of three Swedish young adults who for several years have limited their own ecological footprints, led environmental initiatives of activist character, engaged in ecosystem protection, and participated in advanced non-activism in the public sphere. Narrative analyses of their life stories have resulted in six common themes: emotions creating a desire to change conditions; a core of values and contrasting perspectives; action permeation; feeling confident and competent with what one can contribute; trust and faith from and in adults; and outsidership and belongingness.

Qualitative research supports a developmental dimension in views on teaching and learning, but there are currently no quantitative tools to measure the full range of this development. To address this, we developed the Epistemological Development in Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (EDTLQ). In the current study the psychometric properties of the EDTLQ were examined using a sample (N= 232) of teachers from a Swedish University. A confirmatory factor and Rasch analysis showed that the items of the EDTLQ form a unidimensional scale, implying a single latent variable (eg epistemological development). Item and person separation reliability showed satisfactory levels of fit indicating that the response alternatives differentiate appropriately. Endorsement of the statements reflected the preferred constructivist learning-teaching environment of the response group. The EDTLQ is innovative since is the first quantitative survey to measure unidimensional epistemological development and it has a potential to be used as an apt tool for teachers to monitor the development of students as well as to offer professional development opportunities to the teachers.

Normal 0 21 false false false TR X-NONE X-NONE Abstract Based on the consideration that learning about different action alternatives and strategies are essential parts of ESD, this quantitative study focuses Eco-School teachers’ and instructors’ views on including different sustainability-promoting actions in teaching practices. Direct actions, and actions that take place in the private sphere were viewed by both groups as the most appropriate actions to include in teaching practices. However, actions related to individuals as consumers were seen as less appropriate by teachers than by instructors, and consequently have been less included in teaching practices. The actions considered least appropriate by both groups were two indirect actions occurring in the public sphere aiming at solutions on a structural level, engaging with political parties and engaging with NGOs . The results highlight teaching that addresses the individual’s moral responsibility in the private sphere, and that different action strategies for the democratic change of social structures tend to be excluded.