The Relational, the Critical, and the Existential in Environmental and Sustainability Education Teacher Education

Introduction

Given the myriad environmental crises and the impact they are already having and will continue to have on future generations, it is unsurprising that there is a growing interest in the role education can and will play in preparing students for living in, adapting to, and addressing the Anthropocene. Further to this, the question then becomes how do teacher education programs prepare new educators and support more experienced practitioners into the theories and practices of environmental and sustainable education (ESE), which theories, and what practices? Practices which must include actively inviting questions of justice (social and ecological) into all learning. While also aiming to change the anthropocentric, utilitarian, even colonial relationship, much of “public” education has toward the myriad beings, denizens, entities, and vitalities that are often problematically lumped under the very broad term “nature.” The goal of this encyclopedic essay is to offer an overview...