This keynote offers concepts and pedagogical possibilities for centering anti-racist and anti-colonial approaches in environmental education. Situated within current conditions of inequitably distributed environmental vulnerability, we will discuss the necessity of these approaches. We will share illustrative examples of pedagogical orientations to environmental justice that we engage in each of our respective research and education contexts. Participants will have opportunities for guided critical reflective discussions on how environmental justice pedagogies and commitments can be integrated into their own specific educational contexts.
Faculty, University of Toronto
Dr. Fikile Nxumalo is an Associate Professor in the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Her research seeks to make conceptual, methodological, curricular, and pedagogical contributions in disrupting colonial erasures, anti-Blackness and human-centeredness in environmental education with and for young children.
Preeti Nayak is a PhD candidate in the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Her research examines how racialized climate educators in Ontario enact climate justice pedagogies with youth in high schools and across community-based educational settings. Broadly, Preeti is interested in anti-racist and anti-colonial climate curriculum work and identifying ways to build models of climate change education that meaningfully respond to the lived realities of marginalized learners.