Abstract

This paper presents a phenomenological-hermeneutical analysis of research findings gathered in an Environmental Education Research Project focused on documenting the appplication of a Creative Problem Solving Approach to Environmental Education. This Research Project took place among a Third Grade Class from Blanche Bourgeois School, Cocagne, New-Brunswick. The students explored, from January to June 2007, a sedimentation problem related to the Cocagne River through eleven (11) pedagogical sessions. The primary Research objectives were to document and describe:1- How students understood the sedimentation problem as to its actors, causes, impacts and connections. 2- How students arrived at solutions when helped by creative heuristics. 3- How they would commit themselves to bring about solutions. After the first analysis focused on Research findings related to these objectives, we proceeded to a second analysis (phenomenological-hermeneutical). With this second analysis, we argue that such a Creative Problem Solving Approach provides a window to observe how, in such a context, a vision of Being-with-Environment unfolds through the expression of Tacit knowing. We then draw the pedagogical implications for this particular aspect of environmental education concerned by the transformation of students’ protective relation to nature and environment.