Altamira Press Free-Choice Learning and the Environment (Learning Innovations Series)

Product Description Most environmental learning takes place outside of the formal education system, but our understanding of how this learning actually occurs is in its infancy. By surfing the internet, watching nature documentaries, and visiting parks, forests, marine sanctuaries, and zoos, people make active choices to learn about various aspects of their environment every day. Free-Choice Learning and the Environment explores the theoretical foundations of free-choice environmental education, the practical implications for applying theory to the education of learners of all ages, and the policy implications for creating new and sustainable environmental education opportunities. Review This well-researched book with an extensive, impressive bibliography is an excellent scholarly venture into free-choice learning about the environment. Recommended.--CHOICE Free-Choice Learning and the Environment is essential reading for environmental educators. From theory to practice and implementation, and the application of research, it brings to light, in a highly easy-to-read format, the power and necessity of free-choice learning for understanding and addressing the multitude of issues we face in our environment.--Brian A. Day, North American Association for Environmental Education This collection of well-known and esteemed authors provides timely and much-needed theoretical, scientific, and practical understanding of the learning that occurs in zoos, botanical gardens, parks, and other popular settings where people experience nature in largely informal and unstructured ways. For many people today, these settings represent one of the most important ways of experiencing nature. This book provides a window into how these areas affect us and, importantly, can be enhanced to provide a more meaningful and lasting understanding and appreciation of the natural world.--Stephen Kellert, Yale University About the Author John H. Falk is Sea Grant Professor in Free-Choice Learning at Oregon State University and founder and former president of the Institute for Learning Innovation. He is co-author of Thriving in the Knowledge Age, Lessons without Limit, and Free-Choice Science Education, as well as co-editor of In Principle, In Practice: Museums as Learning Institutions. Joe E. Heimlich is a senior research associate at the Institute for Learning Innovation. He has worked in the field of free-choice environmental education for fifteen years. Susan Foutz is a research associate at the Institute for Learning Innovation and is co-editor of In Principle, In Practice.