Wild Citizens! – enabling children to become active environmental citizens Seminar

The children explored their school grounds, and together they co-designed and delivered ways to enhance the biodiversity. Then they communicated their findings within their local community and advocated the importance of their actions. Semi-structured group interviews were used to explore children’s environmental citizenship and action competences.
The main themes emerging from our data include:

• (a) environmental awareness and knowledge
• (b) environmental responsibility
• (c) confidence in own influencing possibilities

with children being able to articulate the importance of environmental protection, and discuss their role within that process. We will discuss practical implications and lessons learned for engaging schools with environmental and biodiversity education.

Speaker information

Andri Christodoulou is an Associate Professor of Science Education at Southampton Education School, and a member of the Maths, Science and Health Education (MSHE) Research Centre. Andri joined Southampton Education School in 2011 after completing her postgraduate and doctoral studies in the field of science education at King’s College London. Andri’s research focuses on how teachers’ classroom discourse can support science learning especially in relation to the use of argumentation and socioscientific issues. More recently she has been working on research combining socioscientific issues and environmental citizenship approaches in primary and secondary science education. Andri is a member of the Research Group of the Association for Science Education and has previously served as a member of the International Committee of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. Currently, she is working on the COSMOS project, a H2020 funded project focusing on supporting schools develop community engagement approaches through science education.

Marcus Grace is a Professor of Science Education in the Education School. He has a MSc in Ecology and a PhD in biological conservation education. He began his career teaching science at comprehensive schools in London and was Headteacher at a school in Tokyo. He founded the Royal Society of Biology’s Biology Education Research Group (BERG) and for many years he chaired the Academic Committee of ERIDOB (European Researchers in Didactics of Biology). One of his research interests is looking at ways to engage children and adults in decision-making about conservation issues. He co-ordinates the Schools Environmental Education Network, which brings together primary school teachers in and around Southampton to share ideas, experiences and practical activities relating to education for sustainability.