Frog bogs, turbines and biodiversity: Bringing children's sustainability knowledge to life through handmade artefacts

Abstract

Globally, sustainability is a complex and contested term with multiple meanings and interpretations. This chapter highlights research that was undertaken by a FUGuE (Federation University Australia Gippsland) academic who used a participatory arts-based methodology to frame research with Gippsland children involved in sustainability education. The study originated from the author's involvement in the Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development (known as RCE Gippsland), a global network of formal, non-formal and informal education organisations responsible for the mobilisation of education for sustainable development (ESD). Drawing on RCE Gippsland's inaugural Sustainable Schools Expo, an event that supports primary school students to engage in sustainability themes and workshops and share their respective education for sustainability initiatives, the study involved working with children who were keynote Expo speakers. A key innovation of the study was the use of sustainability artefacts created by children, which represented their sustainability learning and knowledge and were used in recorded dialogical conversations. Findings from the study highlight regional children's well-developed views about the state of the world, including their concern for humankind's impact on planetary sustainability and the subsequent decline of ecological systems locally and globally. Further to this, the immersion of regional children in places where they lived and learnt was highlighted as integral to their sustainability knowledge and understanding. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the methodological contributions of the study and its capacity to illustrate the voice of regional children and their place-oriented lifeworlds.