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Gillian Judson explores IE's links to Ecology
Author: Gillian Judson, who is currently exploring the theoretical and practical terrains of imaginative education and ecological education. Three questions guide her research: What are the central features of ecological education? How might the imagination help ecological education realize its goals? What would an imaginative ecological education look like in practice? In pursuit of possible answers, Gillian’s doctoral research considers how to connect two currently unrelated educational fields: Egan’s (1997) theory of Imaginative Education on the one hand and ecological education on the other. How the imagination, with its emotional roots and somatic core, might facilitate the development of students’ ecological understanding, or sense of interconnectedness within the natural world, is currently unexplored terrain.
Her present stage of exploration involves locating the imagination in the field of ecological education and delineating its pedagogical role. Her encounters with imagination have been sporadic and brief at best. The imagination seems to inhabit the borderlands, receiving little attention and no comprehensive investigation in theory or practice. As is the case in most educational contexts, there is a general consensus that engaging the imagination in ecological education is a good thing. However, its contributions to theory and practice are minimal and there has been no comprehensive documentation of its potential impact for developing ecological understanding. Gillian aims to develop a theoretical framework in which imagination plays a central role in ecological education as well as in the curriculum and resources teachers may use in their classrooms.
Please click here to access her IERG bio: http://ierg.net/people/index.php?bio_id=93