Abstract

Over the last 10 years, science and mathematics education colleagues at the University of South Australia have used ecological sustainability as a vehicle to engage education students in the primary/middle program in meaningful science learning experiences. The primary/middle program has been constructed around a set of guiding principles, one of which is educating for sustainability. In this paper three key practices for connecting pre-service teachers to place and community will be explored: citizen science, critical numeracy and place-based learning. The key questions explored are: What is the basis of each of the rich tasks students are involved in, how does it challenge them to reduce their ecological footprint, and how will these experiences influence them as beginning teachers?