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Transformative Ecoliteracy Development In Postsecondary Education: Cultivating Intentional Relationships Through Garden-Based Learning, Shevawn Armstrong May 2022

Transformative Ecoliteracy Development In Postsecondary Education: Cultivating Intentional Relationships Through Garden-Based Learning, Shevawn Armstrong

Dissertations and Theses

Education can play a critical role in empowering learners to address the global, complex, and interconnected sustainability problems humanity currently faces. Ecoliteracy, as an educational aim, may support the cultivation of values, attitudes, and skills required for the development of sustainability solutions and our collective ability to design regenerative ways of living. However, empirical research that explores and supports the development of ecoliteracy in adults is limited. This grounded theory action research study aimed to contribute to this body of knowledge. This study explored how adult ecoliteracy and practical gardening skills may be cultivated through an intentionally designed, holistic, garden-based …


Collaboration And Evaluation In Urban Sustainability And Resilience Transformations: The Keys To A Just Transition?, Liliana Elizabeth Caughman May 2020

Collaboration And Evaluation In Urban Sustainability And Resilience Transformations: The Keys To A Just Transition?, Liliana Elizabeth Caughman

Dissertations and Theses

Climate has changed and will continue changing; city populations are swelling as urbanization continues to accelerate; extreme environmental events like heat waves and floods are becoming more severe and more common; and the climate justice movement is rapidly gaining momentum. It in this context that municipal governments find themselves urgently seeking solutions to transition cities from extractive, vulnerable, and unjust to sustainable, resilient, and equitable. The task is complex and will require systemic transformations across interconnected social, environmental, and economic infrastructures. Emerging theories regarding how to govern such massive changes suggest Transition Management strategies and the values of a just …


Community Schools: A Public Health Opportunity, Catherine Diamond Sep 2016

Community Schools: A Public Health Opportunity, Catherine Diamond

Dissertations and Theses

Community schools link students, families, and communities to educate children and strengthen neighborhoods. They have become a popular model for education in many U.S. cities in part because they build on community assets and address multiple determinants of educational disadvantage. Since community schools seek to have an impact on populations, not just the students enrolled, they provide an opportunity to improve community health. It has been proposed that community schools influence the health and education of the area residents through three pathways: building trust, establishing norms, and linking people to networks and services. However, no research has been published exploring …


Developing Key Sustainability Competencies Through Real-World Learning Experiences: Evaluating Community Environmental Services, Erin Lorene Anderson May 2015

Developing Key Sustainability Competencies Through Real-World Learning Experiences: Evaluating Community Environmental Services, Erin Lorene Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

This study focuses on sustainability in higher education and the competencies essential to address sustainability issues. Because sustainability issues are complex, "wicked", and dynamic, sustainability education programs need to reflect the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the field. Graduates who are competent in sustainability research and problem solving will have the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary to analyze a sustainability problem systemically and comprehensively, then will construct and implement interventions to reach optimal sustainability solutions. To prepare graduates, sustainability education programs should facilitate the development of key sustainability competencies (Wiek, Withycombe, & Redman, 2011). Such programs provide an interdisciplinary approach …


Sustainability Education As A Framework For Enhancing Environmental Stewardship In Young Leaders: An Intervention At Tryon Creek Nature Day Camp, Andrea Nicole Lawrence Jan 2012

Sustainability Education As A Framework For Enhancing Environmental Stewardship In Young Leaders: An Intervention At Tryon Creek Nature Day Camp, Andrea Nicole Lawrence

Dissertations and Theses

UNESCO established Sustainability Education as a top priority when it declared 2005 - 2014 to be the global decade for sustainability. Sustainability education can be implemented in outdoor programs such as nature summer camps in order to build environmental stewardship and ecological literacy in counselors and campers. This study sought to determine the extent to which an ecology and leadership training given to assistant counselors at Tryon Creek State Natural Area day camp achieved the goals of sustainability education--for the assistant counselors to learn about ecology, develop stewardship attitudes and behaviors toward the environment, and become positive role models for …


Engaging Community Food Systems Through Learning Garden Programs: Oregon Food Bank's Seed To Supper Program, Denissia Elizabeth Withers Jan 2012

Engaging Community Food Systems Through Learning Garden Programs: Oregon Food Bank's Seed To Supper Program, Denissia Elizabeth Withers

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to discover whether learning garden programs increase access to locally grown foods and successfully empower and include food insecure populations. This study examined the Oregon Food Bank's Seed to Supper program which situates garden-based learning in food insecure communities. Through a mixed-methods community-based research process, this study found that community building, learner empowerment and sustainability leadership in place-based learning garden programs increased access to locally grown foods for food insecure populations. When food insecure populations participated in these learning garden programs they often engaged in practices described in the literature as the "web of …


Sustainable Event Management Of Music Festivals: An Event Organizer Perspective, Stephanie L. Stettler Jan 2011

Sustainable Event Management Of Music Festivals: An Event Organizer Perspective, Stephanie L. Stettler

Dissertations and Theses

Sustainably managed music festivals have significant value and can provide a multitude of benefits to a healthy, sustainable and desirable society if their negative impacts are mitigated and positive impacts cultivated. To reach this great potential, sustainable event management of music festivals must become widely adopted and expanded as common practice. To drive this improvement of sustainable event management, there is a need to first understand the barriers and success factors event organizers face moving their music festivals toward sustainability. This study uses a research design of mixed quantitative-qualitative methods: a survey of thirty diverse music festival organizers across the …