Applied Environmental Education & Communication
ISSN: 1533-015X (Print) 1533-0389 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ueec20
Teaching Critical Literacy Skills Through the
Natural Environment as Text
Joan M. Chambers & Christy Radbourne
To cite this article: Joan M. Chambers & Christy Radbourne (2014) Teaching Critical
Literacy Skills Through the Natural Environment as Text, Applied Environmental Education &
Communication, 13:2, 120-127, DOI: 10.1080/1533015X.2014.950888
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1533015X.2014.950888
Published online: 02 Oct 2014.
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Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 13:120–127, 2014
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1533-015X print / 1533-0389 online
DOI: 10.1080/1533015X.2014.950888
Teaching Critical Literacy Skills Through the Natural
Environment as Text
Joan M. Chambers, Faculty of Education, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay,
Ontario, Canada
Christy Radbourne, Lakehead Public Schools, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
Utilizing ecosocial theory and the notion of the environment as text, two teachers,
the vice principal and a university researcher, engaged in a year-long, place-based,
qualitative action research project in which they used the environment as the
integrating context for teaching critical literacy, mathematics, and science. The
project revealed connections between students’ abilities to engage in far transfer
and complex critical thinking skills, as well as increased ecological understanding
and ethic of care. Professional insights were also gained into improved
differentiated instruction, as well as the potential for engagement in
environmental education to reduce negative behaviors and increase positive social
interactions among students.
INTRODUCTION
Data from the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) of Ontario, Canada, indicate
that students struggle with critical literacy
skills, specifically inferring and making connections. The data show that this is especially
true for marginalized students, which includes
Indigenous learners, a particular focus of this
project. In order to address this issue as well
as implement the province’s environmental
education policy, Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow (Ontario Ministry of Education [OME],
2009), the authors submitted a proposal to
Address correspondence to Joan M.
Chambers, Faculty of Education, Lakehead
University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, ON
P7B 5E1, Canada. E-mail: joan.chambers@
lakeheadu.ca
the Ontario Ministry of Education’s Teacher
Leadership and Learning Program (TLLP)
to fund research about the potential of utilizing the environment as text to teach critical
literacy skills. The TLLP project, through
qualitative action research, collaboration
among partnership-based communities, and in
conjunction with university-based educational
research, developed a compendium of best
teaching practices for use by schools and their
teachers to teach critical literacy skills using
the natural environment as text, a notion
put forth by Stables (1996) and Stables and
Bishop (2001). Based in part on the work of
Comber, Nixon, and Reid (2007), Literacies
in Place, the teacher-researchers at the study
school planned and created curriculum which
engaged students with their immediate and
local environment, examined questions of
power and political intent, and mobilized
students’ knowledge in multimodal fashions.
TEACHING CRITICAL LITERACY SKILLS
The purpose of this article is to share
our findings from the TLLP project, with a
particular focus on the changes and literacy
gains made by Indigenous learners. Beginning
with a review of relevant literature, which includes our theoretical framework, pedagogy of
place, and student achievment, we then provide background context for the study, methodology, findings, challenges, and discussion.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Ecosocial Theory and Environment
as Text
Lemke (1995) suggests, “an ecosocial system is
a human social community taken together with
the material ecosystem that enables, supports
and constrains it. . . . An ecosocial system is
simultaneously a material and social semiotic
system” (p. 119). Human semiotic resource systems and processes, such as discourse and language, can be seen as relational to and part of
material or physical semiotic resource systems
and processes. These are not separate processes
and systems, though we usually treat them as
such. And it is by not viewing the social alongside the material that humankind has lost that
sense of connection and awareness of how our
physical world, the environment in which we
dwell, shapes and is shaped by human cultural
practices and processes. Ecosocial theory suggests to us that it is entirely conceivable to perceive of the environment as text as suggested by
Stables (1996) and Stables and Bishop (2001).
For Stables (1996; 1998) and Stables and
Bishop (2001), the notion of environmental literacy implies a connection with reading and
writing—with text. Thus, the environment can
be considered as a form of text. Stables (1996)
contends that, though many people may readily conceive of environmental literacy in terms
of understanding and making sense of the environment, the idea of environment as text needs
further promotion. He argues that “‘environ-
121
ment’ is, at least in part, a social construct
and that textual studies offers a valid means of
studying it” (p. 189). His premise rests on the
notion of human-environment interaction or
actions determined by human values and cultural norms. These values and norms change
relative to society or culture and time. In other
words, they are contextually contingent. In this
vein, he argues that the environment has symbolic and moral connotations and meaning as
well as a physical existence. Thus, based on the
work of Saussure (1959), signs or symbols that
signify meaning (semiotic) in some form constitute “text” (Stables & Bishop, 2001). And, in
turn, texts are read. Stables (1996) states that,
“we ‘read’ the environment as part of a complex process of generating and responding to
texts. Our responses to environment form an
element in the network of shared meanings
which embodies society” (p. 192).
Connected to the notions of ecosocial theory and environment as text, is an awareness
of place and its role in shaping the humanenvironment interaction. Place provides the
context in which this interaction occurs, consequently an exploration of the pedagogy of
place is needed.
Pedagogy of Place
Environmental education alone, without context, generates the same shallow learning pattern that troubles Ontario schools and fails to
accomplish the goal of creating deeply literate “informed, engaged, and empowered citizens who will be pivotal in shaping the future of our communities, our province, our
country, and our global environment” (OME,
2007, p. 1). Therefore, in the TLLP study, the
teacher-researchers committed to creating curricula and learning activities grounded in a
pedagogy of place. For students to achieve deep
literacy, they need to engage with activities that
are relevant and in which they have “power”
inherent to create change or sustainability. Before engaging in critical literacy skills such as
making connections, inferring, synthesizing or
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J. M. CHAMBERS AND C. RADBOURNE
questioning, they must have something with
which to connect, schema to draw upon and experiences and realities to question.
In its simplest form, place-based education
constitutes an educational method that centers
the curricula in the local or regional community in which the school and students are located. School and community members partner together to redesign curricula to benefit
both the school’s needs and goals as well as the
community’s by creating engaged, contributing community members in the students. It
is also, however, a complex theory which requires recognition of the diversity of cultural
experiences and representations within a local
community, grounding issues of race, class, and
gender in a concrete context (Gruenwald &
Smith, 2008).
in Houston, Texas. The school is a balanced
mix of poverty and nonpoverty students as well
as a representative mix of Hispanic, African
American, Caucasian, and Asian students. The
project split a group of 45 third graders into
two groups. One group was taught traditionally and the second group was taught using
an environment-based approach. Using a wide
array of indicators, Basile found that while
both groups were able to transfer their knowledge from the learning situation to a similar
situation (referred to as near transfer), only
the environment-based group of third graders
could transfer their learning to a vastly different context (far transfer). The students had not
just consumed a set of facts; they had developed
a set of higher-order cognitive skills in observation, analysis, and problem solving that they
could carry with them as tools to use in other
settings (Sobel, 2004).
Student Achievement
Research has shown that environmental education can be effective in “closing the achievement gap” for marginalized populations
(poverty, urban, racial, and ethnic minorities)
and improving overall student achievement
(Sobel, 2004; Strife, 2010). In a National Environmental Education and Training (NEET;
2000) study involving five schools that implemented environmental education programs,
significant improvement in several areas of
standardized testing occurred. These results included (Sobel, 2004):
• Reading scores improved, sometimes spectacularly.
• Math scores also improved.
• Students performed better in science and social studies.
• Students developed the ability to make connections and transfer their knowledge from
familiar to un-familiar contexts.
• Classroom discipline problems declined.
In another NEET case study, researcher
Carol Basile implemented a controlled research project at Condit Elementary School
SETTING THE CONTEXT
Ontario education has focussed on improving
critical literacy skills, primarily as measured on
the Grades 3, 6 and 10 EQAO tests, through an
intensive strategy designed to improve literacy
pedagogy and create a standardization of practices across the province (Fullan, 2013). The
overall goal is to raise the “pass” rate, equivalent of a level three or four on the EQAO
test, to 75% across the province. Significant
related goals include improving outcomes for
Indigenous students, who continue to experience a significant gap in achievement as compared to their non-Indigenous peers (Richards,
Hove, & Afolabi, 2008). For decades, Canadian
researchers and statisticians have documented
a “gap” in the achievement of Indigenous students compared to the average achievement of
non-Indigenous peoples; the “gap” spans from
early childhood into adulthood. According to
the 2004 Report from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, there is a 28-year educational gap between on-reserve First Nations
TEACHING CRITICAL LITERACY SKILLS
people and other Canadians. Toulouse (2008)
explains that the state of Indigenous learning
is clearly a crisis and turnaround and success
is dependent upon real change. Despite gains
in the overall “pass” rate, the provincial average has yet to reach the benchmark, and there
has not been a significant improvement in Indigenous student achievement. The participant
school in the research project struggles with the
same question; how to improve outcomes for
all students on the EQAO test, but particularly,
how to improve outcomes for its Indigenous
learners.
Research was conducted during a yearlong grade school project funded through
the Ontario, Canada Ministry of Educaton’s
TLLP. The TLLP program funds school-based
projects which support teacher-led action research that furthers understanding of teaching
and learning, predominantly in either literacy
or numeracy. The research team included a
university researcher, the vice principal of the
school, and two classroom teachers. The study
school, located in a northern Canadian urban setting, was of mixed socioeconomic backgrounds with approximately 15% self-identified
Indigenous students. The demographics of the
individual study classrooms were: Grade 6 Class
Indigenous students (25%); Grade 2 Class Indigenous students (22%).
The TLLP project explored teaching critical literacy skills (inferring, making connections, synthesizing, questioning, visualization,
and summarization) utilizing the natural environment as the teaching text. The project
engaged the teacher-researchers in developing best practices for teaching critical literacy
skills to elementary students by using the natural environment as a “text” for students to
learn and practice critical literacy skills, while
furthering the children’s environmental connections, sense of place, attitudes, and literacy (For example, a primary class practiced inferring from the natural environment, plant
growth and attendent fauna species, the seasons, daily weather, or movement of animals.).
A local plant species garden and outdoor learning space was created in order to integrate
123
aspects of soils, plants, and biodiversity and
include Indigenous traditional uses of local
plants as taught by an Indigenous Elder. Other
partnerships engaged within the community included the Lakehead Regional Conservation
Authority, the local school board’s outdoor center, and The Centre for Place and Sustainability
Studies located at Lakehead University.
METHODS
Within the TLLP project, qualitative action
research is the primary methodology; the
teachers were the primary researchers as they
explored and developed best practices for
utilizing the natural environment to teach elementary students critical literacy and thinking
skills, effectively implementing within their
own school the Ontario Ministry of Education’s
Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow (OME, 2009)
policy for reintroducing environmental education into Ontario Schools. Kemmis and Grundy
(1981) define action-research in education as:
A family of activities in curriculum development,
professional development, school improvement programmes, and systems planning and policy development. These activities have in common the
identification of strategies of planned action which are
implemented, and then systematically submitted to observation, reflection and change. Participants in the
action being considered are integrally involved in all
of these activities. (As quoted in Burns, 2000, p. 443)
In the course of the TLLP project, student
learning and program/teaching improvement
regarding critical literacy skills were the primary objectives, alongside professional and curriculum development. The teachers involved
in the TLLP project cooperatively planned
and implemented strategies, from a placebased and ecosocial perspective for developing
their students’ critical and environmental literacy skills embedded in the notion of environment as text. Further, the teacher-researchers
wrote reflective journals. Continual observation of implemented strategies, reflection, and
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J. M. CHAMBERS AND C. RADBOURNE
planning occurred throughout the school year.
Dissemination of the TLLP project results and
best practices were presented at a TLLP Ministry conference/workshop in November 2012.
DATA COLLECTION AND
ANALYSIS
Data for the TLLP action research project
were collected from varied sources including: researcher field notes and reflections;
teacher conversations; student observations,
projects/products, and conversations; video
and photographic images of and by students
and teachers as they engaged with the environment; and, qualitative measurements of
students’ environmental literacy skills through
administered assessment instruments (i.e., environmental knowledge and attitude surveys
for Grades 2 and 6) both preintervention and
postintervention. Interpretive and discourse
methods for qualitative data analysis were used,
with coding of data based on both a priori
and emergent themes. The research project
and data coding and analysis were supported
through the use of Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS), Atlas.ti, capable of handling a large amount of rich textual and image
data.
FINDINGS
Analysis of the data suggests significant change
in the children’s ability to infer, both near
and far transference, across multiple contexts.
Environmental literacy and ecological understanding also increased. Additionally, an ethic
of care (Noddings, 2003) and respect for
the more-than-human world (Abrams, 1996)
noticeably became a part of the children’s
stances. An unforeseen, but heartily welcomed,
by-product of their attitudinal change toward
the environment (from fear of and disregard
for to curiosity, respect, and caring for) was
a reshaping of their respect and caring for
one another (Recorded conversation, Grade 6
teacher-researcher). The shifts in children’s environmental literacy and attitudes towards their
environment were measured in preproject and
postproject surveys administered to students in
both classes. Of particular note, in the Grade
2 survey, were the student responses regarding
their feelings and attitudes toward their natural
environment. Over 75% of the students’ first
responses in the presurvey indicated that the
natural environment was a place to be feared
with elicited responses that when out in the
woods, one must be quiet because:
Something will get you and kill you;
So the predators won’t hear you and chase after you;
A wolf (bear) will get you and eat you;
Something will eat you . . . (Various Grade 2 student
responses)
These responses notably shifted in the postsurvey whereby 89% of comments indicated concern for the natural environment, comments
such as:
You should be quiet so you can see animals;
So you don’t scare the creatures;
Because if you are noisy and screaming all of the animals will go because they are scared of you and you
won’t find anything;
Because all the animals will run away from you! (Various Grade 2 student responses)
The professional growth of the teachers involved in the TLLP project was both insightful
and at times, unexpected. As expected, the
teachers developed efficacy in ecological
education and its methodologies, as well as
building a compendium of best practices that
supported the development and expansion of
critical literacy skills. The unexpected gains
included insight into better methods of differentiating instruction and content to engage
kinesthetic learners, boys, and Indigenous
learners. We also found that creating learning
opportunities that were physical in nature
(i.e., hiking, snowshoeing, outdoor inquiry,
and visualization activities) reduced negative
TEACHING CRITICAL LITERACY SKILLS
behaviors in the classroom and increased
positive social interactions among students.
Both teacher-researchers reported that their
teaching practices and pedagogy were “forever changed” by their experiences in the
project.
The reflections of the teacher-researchers
indicated they saw significant improvements in
student engagement, particularly boys, Indigenous and identified learners, as well as attendance improvements in the same groups. With
reference to the TLLP project and Indigenous
learners, the vice-principal commented:
. . . think about how this might engage our Aboriginal
learners. My thought was that, well being outdoors and
exploring would be a piece of that but what I hadn’t
thought of was the teaching styles that go with it—that
it . . . follows an Indigenous methodology.
Even the children’s parents noticed a change:
“I received so many positive remarks from
parents regarding their child’s engagement in
school. Teaching “outside of the box” was a
positive experience for all” (Recorded conversation, Grade 2 teacher-researcher). The finding suggests a correlation between a placebased environmental education program and
improved engagement, attendance, and performance on literacy scores in certain sects of
learners.
Though the primary goal of the TLLP
project was to improve student critical literacy skills, we were encouraged by the depth of
skill and transference the students presented.
For example, some of the Grade 2 children,
without prompting, were able to identify both
sides of a local issue (housing development)
and provide arguments to support both, in writing and imagery. As one Grade 2 student wrote
when asked their thoughts on the new housing
development adjacent to the school:
It is good because they are making homes for humans,
but I don’t think it’s very nice and nature needs to live
and they are kind of tearing down the trees and stuff,
and there’s some animals in there and they are losing
their homes. (Grade 2 student)
125
This response, as well as others by students
in Grade 2, is significant because the concept
of identifying two sides of an argument and presenting both points of view is a skill that the Ontario language curriculum does not emphasize
until Grade 6.
Through strategically designed interactions and experiences with their local environments and cultural places, students demonstrated, through vivid descriptions, inferences
and rich discussions, their ability to interact
with their environment, think critically about
their place and transfer that knowledge into
multiple modes of communication (Comber
et al., 2007). Improvement in inferring and
making connections specifically, as well as in
other critical literacy skills, was primarily noted
by teachers in classroom activities, such as
open response questions (Grade 6), various
reading and writing products (Grade 2), and
the Grade 6 EQAO test data, which showed
identified marginalized learners of this particular class of Grade 6 students scoring above
the provincial average for similarly identified marginalized learners within the province
(see Fig. 1).
Finally, the construction of the outdoor
classroom/school garden became a galvanizing
focal point for the entire school. The Grade
6 participating class created the garden design, which included several species of local
perennials, a tribute garden to a student who
passed during the year, and space for an annual
vegetable garden. During construction, both
Grade 2 and Grade 6 classes completed the
work. Unexpectedly, during the recess break,
when the remainder of the school entered
the school yard, dozens of students from every
grade approached the participating students
and asked to help, thus spending their recess
digging, raking, and moving straw, dirt, and
plants. The outdoor classroom/garden has become a hub for learning across classes in the
school thus providing a starting point that students, and particularly students at risk, can begin to generate new perspectives and create
new understandings they can take back into the
classroom (Koop, 2007).
126
J. M. CHAMBERS AND C. RADBOURNE
Fig. 1. Individual Education Plan (IEP) students scoring level 3 or 4, well above the board average on EQAO test
data.
CHALLENGES
Challenges arose throughout the research period, some of which were successfully addressed
and others remain as opportunities for future
research. Because team members brought a
range of teaching, organizational, and communication skills, as well as widely varied level
of ecological education knowledge, building a
cohesive professional learning team was challenging. Team members represented three
educational divisions, primary, junior, and intermediate, within the school and this presented a challenge to create activities that accounted for varied student abilities as well.
Leadership, clear communication, and a single
focused vision on the outcome were critical in
overcoming this obstacle. Team members also
had to think creatively, often outside their comfort zones, and share openly, both successes
and challenges, with each other in order to create a cohesive final outcome.
DISCUSSION
Utilizing the environment as text as a context for teaching and learning has shown real
promise and supports ecosocial theory as explanatory in how our interaction and relation
with the social and physical world dialogically
shapes our perspective of and relationship with
that world, our ecosocial/ecological identity
and consciousness. This was particularly evident in Grade 2 students’ multimodal work, including their visualizations of their local environment and subsequent detailed descriptions
as well as the noted increase, as described by
both teacher-researchers in the project, in positive social interactions, decrease in negative social interactions and general level of respect
afforded to the environment, each other, and
the school both during and after engaging
in the project. Further, the study demonstrated
the importance of education about, for and
particularly in the environment as well as the
potential for learning when considering virtually all education being environmental education (Bonnett, 1997; Orr, 1992).
The objective of the TLLP project was to
develop best teaching practices for teaching
critical and environmental literacy skills, all the
while furthering environmental connections,
sense of place, attitudes, and education. The
project’s success should prove beneficial to the
students and teachers involved as well as other
educators; the TLLP project teachers are required to disseminate their best practices to the
TEACHING CRITICAL LITERACY SKILLS
wider education community. The research associated with the project should benefit educators and academics as it furthers understanding of ecosocial theory, which recognizes the
interconnected human and material systems
and the importance of semiotics, meaningmaking, and “language.” Ecosocial theory has
a place in the educational context, especially as
it informs environmental education.
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