Abstract

This article highlights three key features that appeared to add value to young people’s experience of a school-linked environmental education initiative built around conservation activities. The three features – close-up encounters with other species, working with external experts, and a degree of informality – were identified through a combination of participant-observation, and focus groups seeking young people’s own perspectives. This article therefore responds to the need for further studies focusing not (only) on the outcomes of such programmes, but on participants’ lived experience of the processes contributing to them. Taken together, the three features highlight the value of a process of ‘curriculum making’ that included an openness to the communities in which schools are situated, to the material or ‘more-than-human’ world, and to unplanned events that enabled young people to experience a programme in their own ways. This finding brings together conclusions from related studies that separately emphasise the role of these elements in curriculum making processes.

摘要

本文重点介绍了三个关键特征，这些特征似乎为年轻人在围绕保护活动而建立的与学校相关的环境教育计划的体验中增加了价值。这三个特征——与其他物种的近距离接触、与外部专家的合作以及一定程度的非正式——是通过参与者观察和寻求年轻人自己观点的焦点小组的结合而确定的。因此，本文回应了进一步研究的需要，不仅（仅）关注此类计划的结果，而且关注参与者对促成这些计划的过程的生活经验。总之，这三个特征突出了“课程制作”过程的价值，包括对学校所在的社区、物质世界或“超越人类”的世界开放，以及使年轻人能够以自己的方式体验项目的计划外活动。这一发现汇集了相关研究的结论，这些研究分别强调了这些元素在课程制作过程中的作用。