Pre-service teachers' experiences of creativity and enhanced appreciation of natural environments

A 21st century Australian government futures focus (MCEETYA, 2008) includes creativity and sustainability as cross-curricular priorities for education, leading to “healthy, productive and rewarding futures” (p. 4) for individuals and a competitive edge for the national economy. However, first year pre-service teachers express a lack of confidence in these priority areas, citing a disconnection between ‘talk’ of transformative education for lifelong and life-wide learning, and their lived experience as learners and future educators. The author presents evidence that creative engagement in natural environments has the potential to bridge that gap, enhancing pre-service teachers’ perceptions of personal creativity, wellbeing and connectedness with the natural world, and supporting their agency in aligning theory and practice. She contends that this alignment is essential to counteracting a hidden curriculum that discourages risk-taking and devalues human connections with natural environments