Mitigation and adaptation: Critical perspectives toward digital technologies in place-conscious environmental education

Abstract

This paper explores the tension for educators between the proliferation of mobile, digital technologies, and the widely held belief that environmental learning is best nurtured through place-based approaches that emphasize direct experience. We begin by offering a general critique of technology in culture and education, emphasizing what is at stake in the new era of digital tools and climate crisis. Building an analogy to the problem of climate change, the second part of the paper takes an “adaptation and mitigation” stance toward technology in environmental learning, and offers critical conceptual guidelines for policy and practice. Invoking language that describes the worldwide response to the climate crisis is a reminder of how the everyday devices we rely on are embedded in political, economic, and ecological webs of contention. Ultimately, we hope that describing some promising adaptations of these tools and their limitations will enable learners to better understand the relation between people, place, and planet, as well as the relation of people to their tools.