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Developing Place-responsive Pedagogy in Outdoor Environmental Education pp 171–184Cite as

Re/Creating Australian Outdoor Environmental Education Pedagogy: Becoming-Speckled Warbler

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Abstract

In this plateau I employ Deleuze and Guattari’s (A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia (trans: Massumi B). University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1987) conceptual figuration of becoming-animal to explore ways that the life and circumstances of the speckled warbler might inform natural history focused Australian environmental education research. The speckled warbler and other woodland birds of south-eastern Australia have declined dramatically since European settlement; many species are at risk of becoming locally and/or nationally extinct. Coincidently, Australian environmental education research of the last decade has largely been silent on the development of pedagogy that reflects the natural history of this continent (Stewart, Aust J Environ Educ 22:85–97, 2006). The current circumstances that face the speckled warbler, I argue, are emblematic of both the state of woodland birds of south-eastern Australia, and the condition of natural history pedagogy within Australian environmental education research. The epistemology and ontology of becoming-speckled warbler offers a basis to reconsider and strengthen links between Australian natural history pedagogy and notions of sustainability.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am aware that there are many outdoor environmental education programs in Australia that reflect or revolve around the Australian natural history, see for example the program Birds in Backyards (http://birdsinbackyards.net). My point is that research on pedagogy informed by Australian natural history is in short supply (for an extended discussion see Stewart, 2006; Stewart & Müller, 2009).

  2. 2.

    The forests of central Victoria are predominately Box Ironbark. The over-storey trees where I observed these warblers consisted of red ironbark, red stringybark, and grey box. The heathy understorey consisted mainly of drooping cassina, gold-dust wattle, with a mixture of native tussock grasses.

  3. 3.

    The seven volumes of HANZAB are a comprehensive summary of all that is scientifically known about each bird species of Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. Subject matters include identification, habitat, distribution and population, relations with humans, movements, food, social organisation and behaviour.

  4. 4.

    Weston (1994) makes a very similar argument. For Weston “direct experience of real life” (p. 8), such as re/connecting with animals, is a key component of a new environmental ethic, one based on closer relationships between humans and the more-than-human world.

  5. 5.

    Previously I have observed (Stewart, 2006) that between 1995 and 2004 the Australian Journal of Environmental Education contained no pedagogical research relating to Australian natural history. With the exception of Stewart and Müller (2009), little would appear to have changed between 2004 and 2010.

  6. 6.

    Although my focus here is on the speckled warbler, these pressures and issues of long-term survival are also true for many other woodland birds of south-eastern Australia.

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  1. School of Education, La Trobe University, Bendigo, VIC, Australia

    Alistair Stewart

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Stewart, A. (2020). Re/Creating Australian Outdoor Environmental Education Pedagogy: Becoming-Speckled Warbler. In: Developing Place-responsive Pedagogy in Outdoor Environmental Education. International Explorations in Outdoor and Environmental Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40320-1_12

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