Learning Through Map-Making: A Cartographic Exploration of Environmental Education

Abstract

1.1. Context: Intersection of Environment Education and map-making Environmental Education (EE) is an established yet evolving discipline, with an increasing importance given the current climate emergency. First officially defined in 1975 at the International Workshop on Environmental Education as “a process aimed at developing a world population that is aware of and concerned about the total environment and its associated problems” (Carter and Simmons 2010: 8), it has since taken on even more ambitious goals. The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) bestows EE with “the power to transform lives and society,” asserting that “it informs and inspires…influences attitudes…[and] motivates action.” (“About EE and Why It Matters”).

There is current research documenting the success of environmental education programs in meeting these broad and ambitious goals. For example, in 2018, Stanford researchers analyzed 19 years of peer reviewed articles on outcomes of environmental education for K-12 students, finding 121 unique outcomes in 119 articles. The researchers grouped these results into several categories: emotional and social skills, increased motivation to learn, environmentally friendly behavior, and civic interest and engagement (Ardoin et. al. 11).

In such a broad field with extensive learning outcomes, defining specific learning objectives is essential. The National Environmental Education Act of 1990 required the EPA to provide national leadership on Environmental Education, which included defining five goals of Environmental Education: 1. Awareness and sensitivity to the environment and environmental challenges, 2. Knowledge and understanding of the environment and environmental challenges, 3. Attitudes of concern for the environment and motivation to improve or maintain environmental quality, 4. Skills to identify and help resolve environmental challenges, and 5. Participation in activities that lead to the resolution of environmental challenges” (“What is Environmental Education”). These objectives in turn inform methods in EE.

The act of teaching Environmental Education is interdisciplinary, flexible, and iterative. While traditional Environmental Education programs focused on science-based studies of the environment, new movements seek to expand EE to involve more social, political, and personal understandings of place (Carter and Simmons 2010). In this perspective, places are “more than ecological systems and biological networks within which humans are neatly embedded” but rather “cultural, social, and political constructs, where the struggle for meaning and definitions of place determines human interventions and ways of engaging with those places” (Cole 2007: 36).

Environmental educators further emphasize how the foundations of EE as an interactive and intentionally local process can generate environmental change: “Since Environmental Education begins close to home, it encourages learners to understand and forge connections with the environment in their own neighborhoods and communities. It is through these connections that students gain the knowledge and skills that help them make sound decisions” (Carter and Simmons 2010: 13). Environmental Education is therefore inherently geographical; it relies on a deep understanding of a place that translates to a sense of care for the environment.

Map-making within Environmental Education initiatives, thus, has great potential to help define a person’s sense of place and their surroundings, a crucial step in achieving the EE learning objectives. Geography and cartography scholars have long discussed the importance of map-making for a personal understanding of place. Bruce (2009) describes how physical maps influence the development of the cognitive map, “the representation of the geographical environment as it exists within a person’s mind” (46), explaining that “the way people come to think about the world is affected not only by their physical experience but also by exposure to representations of that world” (46). With its clear benefits to understanding of place, the process of map-making has the capacity to carry out various objectives of Environmental Education put forth by the EPA.

While numerous studies have looked into how map use can contribute to understanding of specific plant knowledge, increase learning and excitement in traditional K-12 geography education, and facilitate outdoor navigation skills (Blank 2002; Loynes 2020; Yang 2017), there is very limited research on the use of map-making, and three-dimensional map-making in particular, in relation to desired Environmental Education goals. The purpose of my research, therefore, is to test both two and three dimensional map-making as techniques in Environmental Education. I use sketch mapping and tangible mapping methods to carry out this research; common and valued methods in cartography research that are understudied with children.

1.2. Research Questions I pose three research questions. The first includes three sub questions, each grounded in an EPA learning goal for Environmental Education. I chose to focus on three of the five EPA learning goals in order to align each with one of three days of my workshop. I chose these three goals, in particular, as I thought they would best be integrated into map-making activities. The second research question relates to cartographic processes more broadly.

1. How can the process of map-making facilitate the achievement of specific Environmental Education goals? a. How can the process of map-making contribute to understanding of the environment and environmental challenges? b. How can the process of map-making promote attitudes of concern for the environment and motivation to maintain or improve environmental quality? c. How can the process of map-making provide skills to identify and resolve environmental challenges?

2. What are the best practices for map-making as a research method in Environmental Education?