THE BIG IDEA ORATION 2024

Presenter 1

Alternative Realities and Authenticity in Environmental Education

Presenter: Professor Jo Ferreira, Dean (Learning and Teaching Futures), USQ

In this presentation, I seek to explore two big concepts – nature and what it means to be authentically human – in the age of immersive and virtual realities and artificial intelligence. I explore these ideas by discussing some of the possibilities and challenges they pose for environmental educators.

Bouncing off the response by the Pacific nation of Tuvalu to the existential threat of rising sea levels, that is, to create a digital twin version of itself in the metaverse where its islands can be ‘replicated’ and some of its rich culture and its sovereign statehood be preserved, despite being dislocated from its physical place, I ask what this means for a field where we have focussed on building a connection with nature, in/through nature.

The conundrum discussed is how - in a world rapidly approaching an existential crisis (given we are nearly at the 1.5°C internationally agreed upon ‘safe’ threshold of warming) - might environmental educators pivot to develop and employ a range of ‘emergency’ educative approaches. How might these challenge our notions of what constitutes “Nature” and connection with and in / through Nature, and how might these shift what is often perceived to be the core work of the field, that is, developing a sense of care and concern through an emotional connection with Nature?

Through a range of illustrative examples of contemporary environmental education practice, I explore some of the promises, perils and pitfalls of metaverses, artificial intelligences and immersive technologies for the work of environmental educators.

Presenter 2

Wild Pedagogies

Presenter: by Professor Emeritus Bob Jickling,

Lake Head University Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Wild Pedagogies are about rethinking our relationships within the world and represent a desire to let go of an overabundant sense of control, to invite the places we visit to become an integral part of our educational work and to respond to provocations in spontaneous, and at times unforeseen, ways.

In this presentation, Bob will provide a contextual background for wild pedagogies and in doing so will situate some of these underpinning ideas within touchstones—intended as provocations and reminders of what we are trying to achieve.

The touchstones discussed include:

• agency and the role of nature as co-teacher;
• wildness and challenging ideas of control;
• locating the wild;
• complexity, the unknown, and spontaneity;
• time and practice; and,
• cultural change.

These touchstones are drawn from experiments in practice and attempt to actively bring the more-than-human world into educational conversations.

In using the term wild, Bob seeks to challenge dominant cultural ideas particularly in reference to control—of each other, of the more-than-human world and of education. Wild pedagogies rests on the premise that an important part of education is intentional activities that provide a fertile field for purposeful experience without seeking to control the outcomes or those involved: hence the concept, wild pedagogies.