Sense of Place

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer D. Adams ◽  
David A. Greenwood ◽  
Mitchell Thomashow ◽  
Alex Russ
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
Ecological Identity ◽  
Urban Environmental Education ◽  
Construction Of Place ◽  
Urban Places

This chapter considers the concept of sense of place, focusing on how urban environmental education can help residents to strengthen their attachment to urban communities or entire cities and to view urban places as ecologically valuable. Sense of place—the way we perceive places such as streets, communities, cities, or ecoregions—influences our well-being, how we describe and interact with a place, what we value in a place, our respect for ecosystems and other species, how we perceive the affordances of a place, our desire to build more sustainable and just urban communities, and how we choose to improve cities. Our sense of place also reflects our historical and experiential knowledge of a place and helps us imagine its more sustainable future. The chapter offers examples of activities to help readers construct field explorations that evoke, leverage, or influence sense of place, including social construction of place meanings and developing an ecological identity.

Urban Environmental Education Review

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Urban Environmental Education ◽  
Environmental Educators ◽  
Integrate Research ◽  
Education Review

This book explores how environmental education can contribute to urban sustainability. Urban environmental education includes any practices that create learning opportunities to foster individual and community well-being and environmental quality in cities. It fosters novel educational approaches and helps debunk common assumptions that cities are ecologically barren and that city people don't care for, or need, urban nature or a healthy environment. Topics within the book range from the urban context to theoretical underpinnings, educational settings, participants, and educational approaches in urban environmental education. Chapters integrate research and practice to help aspiring and practicing environmental educators, urban planners, and other environmental leaders achieve their goals in terms of education, youth and community development, and environmental quality in cities.

Adventure Education

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Mitten ◽  
Lewis Ting On Cheung ◽  
Wanglin Yan ◽  
Robert Withrow-Clark
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Adventure Education ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Environmental Behaviors ◽  
Urban Environmental Education ◽  
Group Experiences

This chapter examines the benefits of adventure education and of pairing adventure and environmental education in urban environments. By participating in outdoor activities, people learn about their surroundings and places they might not otherwise visit. These group experiences enhance social ties and may promote pro-environmental behaviors, which contribute to ecosystem health and human well-being as well as urban sustainability. Benefits of adventure education include positive relationships with self, other people, places, and the natural world. After explaining what adventure education is, the chapter considers adventure education in urban areas such as metropolitan Hong Kong, Minneapolis (Minnesota), and Japan. It shows that adventure education can be used by educators as a catalyst for urban environmental education.

“I would say it’s alive”: Understanding the social construction of place, identity, and neighborhood effects through the lived experience of urban young adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-500
Author(s):  
Kalen Flynn ◽  
Brenda Mathias
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Neighborhood Effects ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Place Identity ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Construction Of Place

A burgeoning literature provides evidence that neighborhood matters, especially in relation to urban adolescent development. Exposure to crime and poverty has been shown to negatively impact key aspects of development, such as physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Traditional theoretical frameworks identifying the social mechanisms of place fail to critically examine how neighborhood effects are socially constructed at the individual level, and rather assume aggregate community narratives. Such blanket measures of neighborhood effects do not account for individual interpretations of space or the impacts of larger structural forces on decision making and developmental processes. A unique combination of qualitative GIS methodologies was utilized to explore how urban adolescents define, navigate, and engage their surrounding environment to better understand the mechanisms of neighborhood effects, and how these interactions shape development. Sedentary and walking interview data were paired with GPS data to develop a real-time understanding of the spaces across which youth were navigating. The findings from this work suggest that how youth perceive space is a complex process, stemming from the interaction of structural and social systems, and highlight the value of understanding varying resident experiences when considering definitions of neighborhood. This study begins to fill a gap in the neighborhood effects’ literature by developing an argument for the social construction of place as an alternative to traditional methodological and theoretical frameworks.

Community Assets

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne E. Krasny ◽  
Simon Beames ◽  
Shorna B. Allred
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
Collective Efficacy ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Community Assets ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Urban Environmental Education ◽  
The Common

This chapter examines how urban environmental education can strengthen communities and enhance environmental quality in cities by focusing on three community assets—social capital, sense of community, and collective efficacy—that have been used to understand why some communities fare better than others and why people sometimes act not in their narrow self-interest, but for the common good. In order to better understand pathways toward urban sustainability that highlight collective action rather than changing individual behaviors, the chapter connects social capital, sense of community, and collective efficacy to urban environmental education. It shows that all three community assets are desirable outcomes for urban environmental education because they contribute to a community's well-being and its ability to act collectively for the common good. The chapter concludes by explaining how to build these community assets.

Entanglements between Agency and Vulnerability in the Phenomenon of Birth. Reflections on Children’s Expressions about ‘Being Born’

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Cultural Embeddedness

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.

An Overview of Creative Placemaking as an Enabler for a Sustainable Urban Regeneration

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (13) ◽  
pp. 345
Author(s):  
Nurul Atikah Ramli ◽  
Norsidah Ujang
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Social Sustainability ◽  
Urban Regeneration ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Significant Function ◽  
Creative Placemaking ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
Urban Places ◽  
Open Access Article

As the rapid growth of cities continues to pose a significant threat to the well-being of people, its adverse effects have moved to the forefront of social sustainability. Urban regeneration has become one of the adaptations in solving a social issue. Alongside these interventions, creative placemaking emerges as an evolving field of practice driving a broader agenda for growth and transformation of cities. This paper reviews the concept of creative placemaking as an approach to urban regeneration and theories extracted from planning and urban design literature. The findings provide an understanding of the significant function of social attributes of place in crafting strategies in the creation of successful creative placemaking.Keywords: Urban regeneration; Creative placemaking; Urban places; Social sustainabilityeISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.2056

Reconfiguring urban environmental education with ‘shitgull’ and a ‘shop’

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1379-1390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauliina Rautio ◽  
Riikka Hohti ◽  
Riitta-Marja Leinonen ◽  
Tuure Tammi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Urban Environmental Education

Ecological Identity, Empathy, and Experiential Learning: A Young Child's Explorations of a Nearby River

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloe Humphreys ◽  
Sean Blenkinsop
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Ecological Identity ◽  
The West ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Journal Entries

AbstractThis article uses an unconventional format to explore the role of parent and nature and the development of a young child's ecological identity. It follows journal entries from a mother observing her young son, Julian, as he explores, interacts with, and learns from the Stawamus River on the west coast of British Columbia. By creating questions, discussing and analysing these written observations, we explore the role of parenting and nature and the implications this might have for environmental education. Some of the ideas explored in this article include early ecological identity, empathy, relational existence, experiential learning, and affordances in the natural world. We further suggest that nature and parent working together might become key educators for a child.

Participatory Urban Planning

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Rudd ◽  
Karen Malone ◽  
M’Lis Bartlett
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
La Paz ◽  
Underrepresented Groups ◽  
Urban Environmental Education ◽  
Child Friendly

This chapter examines how integrated, participatory design and urban environmental education can enhance learning, ownership, agency, and long-term sustainability of place. Drawing on recent efforts to articulate a global urban sustainability agenda, it considers the ways that urban environmental education can help integrate the participation of underrepresented groups—such as children, youth, and low-income and minority residents—in urban planning while also improving urban planning outcomes. The chapter presents a case study that illustrates outcomes of engaging young people in urban planning: the Child Friendly Bolivia project in La Paz, Bolivia. It shows that engaging youth and underrepresented groups in urban planning offers a unique opportunity to address concerns about equity and to engage multiple innovative perspectives. It suggests that the tools of participatory urban planning and environmental education may help create more sustainable cities for all.

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