Exploring environmental education through ecofeminism: Narratives of embodiment of science

Abstract

Care must be taken when teaching about the environment as to whether the underlying philosophical framework is one of sustainability, deep ecology, bioregionalism, or ecofeminism. Many environmental education projects, activities, and lessons tend to focus on the problems with or in nature, thereby reifying nature itself as problematic-a concept abhorrent to most ecofeminists. Inadvertently, educators of all kinds problematize nature as if nature is something separate from all of us. Problems-based learning as a pedagogical practice at first seems to be a logical way to learn about nature; however, there are problems with using this teaching strategy with environmental education topics. Furthermore, from an ecofeminist perspective, nature becomes reified as separate and problematic. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.