Environment, place and social ecology in educational practice

\u27Environment,\u27 like \u27nature,\u27 is an ambiguous term because of the many environments that do exist and the different ways in which they are perceived and socially constructed over time and through space. Educators must be careful about the way meaning is ascribed to \u27environment\u27 and \u27nature\u27 if sustainability is to remain a plausible proposition. For example, the same school \u27environment\u27 may simultaneously be perceived by teachers and students as a sporting arena for testing human physical performance, a landscape of shapes, light and colours for the art class, or as a ecology in need of examination and management in a science subject. These examples mark only the beginning of a very long list of the multiple, complex and even contradictory ways that various pedagogic environments may be viewed and therefore experienced. Environments can be personal, social, historical, built, natural, tame or wild. The integrity of each environment warrants study and requires a particular pedagogic response. Educators should be mindful of the various ways in which teachers and students shape and are shaped by these learning environments physically, emotionally and intellectually. Hence, a \u27social ecology\u27 of the complex term \u27environment\u27 is urgently required to enhance our pedagogical and research efforts in outdoor, environmental, movement, physical and health educations. What is needed is a conceptual shift in our thinking and bodily practices towards an \u27ecocentric\u27 or place responsive posture; a philosophical frame quite different from the anthropocentrism, or human centredness of most educational discourses. In practical terms, a social ecology of the environment, in relation to the study of movement and community experiences, entails in pedagogical practices a range of human- environment interactions, be it open-space play, active art projects, walking to school, or outdoor education expeditions. A constant in these examples is the taking of education away from the environmental constraints of the \u27indoors,\u27 and its privileging of mind/learning/knowing, to the environmental enablements of the \u27outdoors\u27 and body/mind doing, meaning-making and becoming. A social ecology of these human-environment interactions and relations address various \u27other\u27 and \u27wild\u27 forms of expression and performance - be it strenuous activity in space, graceful movement in place, or kinaesthetic appreciation over time in different places. This paper addresses some of the more \u27ecocentric\u27 and wild, less tamed concerns outlined above and leaves others to the \u27Movement\u27 and \u27Community\u27 papers. Simply, the authors\u27 aim is to outline the major distinguishing characteristics and dimensions of \u27environment\u27 so that inquiry of an ecological type can proceed into the qualities of movement, physicality, their spatialities and geographies, and generation of active and sustainable communities. To ground this in their research efforts, they focus on \u27place\u27 study - an important derivation of the nature/environment concepts. The authors offer vignettes about \u27the experience of river places in outdoor education, children\u27s gardens and artistic representations of pedagogies of place. [Author abstract, ed