Event Description

Urban environmental education includes any learning practices that foster individual and community well-being and environmental quality in cities. Similar to how cities are innovation hubs, urban environmental education generates novel educational approaches that advance the field of environmental education more broadly. Urban environmental educators and their programs can benefit by adapting ideas from inspirational examples of other urban environmental education programs, and from recent research in this field. In this course, you will learn about UEE, including: (1) urban contexts; (2) theoretical background, (3) educational settings, (4) participants, and (5) educational approaches in urban environmental education. The course is offered by the Cornell University’s Civic Ecology Lab (https://civicecology.org), and based on cutting-edge ideas from the “Urban Environmental Education Review” book (https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501707759/urban-environmental-education-review).

Course Dates:​

November 5—December 10, 2019. The course includes 5 weeks of lectures, readings and discussions. You’ll have to complete the course project any time during this course, and submit a one-page report during the last week. The course requires 4 hours of work per week and offers a Cornell certificate upon completion of assignments (20 learning hours total).

Participants:

Participants with any level of experience and from any countries are welcome. The course is designed for current and aspiring environmental educators, university students, urban planners, and other professionals interested in environmental education, community and youth development, nonformal education, environmental justice, environmental governance and planning, and sustainable cities.

Goal

To help participants improve their knowledge of urban environmental education, and their educational programs.

Educational approach: In this course, three ideas inform our teaching philosophy. (1) Learning is social: we learn effectively within the social context, by exchanging our perspectives, and by constructing knowledge collectively. This course provides rich opportunities for networking and peer-to-peer learning. We encourage networking among course participants, learning from each other, and communication with course instructors. (2) Learning objectives reflect various levels of learning according to Bloom’s taxonomy, including: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating information about urban environmental education. We include materials and assignments that help you reflect on your own learning goals, generate new ideas, and critically explore research-based and practice-based ideas. In addition, the course offers a variety of learning materials to choose from and to meet your needs and interests. This course gives participants much freedom in choosing their assignments, which will prepare them to fulfill the final assignment. (3) Participants will benefit from the course by progressively working on their course projects, by applying what they learn from the course to their practice in current or future urban environmental education programs.

Learning Outcomes

In this course, participants will choose their learning goals:

1. Explore theories, terminology, practices, issues and opportunities that define urban environmental education.

2. Describe your own program’s settings, goals, and participants.

3. Outline how you can apply urban environmental education research and practice ideas to your own educational program.

4. Compare and contrast various educational approaches and settings in urban environmental education.

5. Learn to critique and evaluate urban environmental education programs and related research.

6. Produce new  or original materials or activities related to urban environmental education.

7. Expand your network of urban environmental educators.