Abstract
Cultural institutions and educators are increasingly recognizing their role in intersectional climate education. As digital technologies continue to advance, these institutions are increasingly taking advantage of new opportunities to connect with learners online on issues of climate and environment. Current scholarship suggests that cultural institutions, which are often seen as community-centered and benefiting from reputations as authoritative sites of knowledge, play an interesting role in advancing environmental education. Museums, in particular, are uniquely situated to effectively broach both difficult topics and contested knowledge fields. However, this position is not without conflict; museums exist in relation to their communities and their stakeholders, which can result in complex funding relationships, conflicting political and social objectives, and a lack of sector-wide cohesion. As such, how museums approach climate and energy education is a complicated pedagogical phenomenon to observe. Drawing on Eisner’s three curricula, this study utilizes discourse analysis to examine the various dynamics and tensions present in digital museum contexts related to climate and energy education. The study focused on websites, blogs, social media, and other digitally mediated and remotely accessible material. The institutions studied are of various sizes and settings, but all are located in Alberta, Canada and have foci on science, environment, energy, or conservation. As a long-standing energy economy, Alberta provides an interesting, and often contested, setting to observe climate and energy education in practice at museums, many of which exist in communities and within governance and stakeholder networks which are connected to the energy industry.
Presenters
Francesca PattenStudent, PhD in Educational Research, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada Gregory Lowan-Trudeau
Associate Professor, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Technical, Political, and Social Responses
KEYWORDS
Climate, Energy, Digital, Education, Museums
