Two sides of the megalopolis: Educating for sustainable citizenship

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Pope, A_Two Sides of the Megalopolis.pdf (311.34 KB)

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http://jsser.org/article/view/1045000128

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http://hdl.handle.net/11603/174

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SU Faculty and Staff Collection
SU Department of Education Leadership and Graduate Studies

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Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2012

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Text

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Program

Citation of Original Publication

Pope, A., & Patterson, T. (2012). Two sides of the megalopolis: Educating for sustainable citizenship. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 3(2), 1-20.

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CC-BY

Subjects

Civic education
Environmental education
Sustainability
Field trips

Abstract

Despite widespread focus on literacy and math at the expense of other subjects, citizenship and environmental education have an important role in American public education. Citizenship and environmental education are broadly tasked with helping students develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to shepherd the body politic and natural world, respectively, into the future. For educators and administrators concerned with instructional efficiency, educational farm visits offer one means of pairing these two approaches into a unified learning experience. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study analysis of two such programs, incorporating interviews with and observations of visiting students, teachers, and parents. The authors argue that sustainable citizenship—a typically European conception of citizenship that stresses the natural as well as the national world—is an important outcome of these types of educational experiences.