Education for “Sense of Place” in a Wide, Complex Land. A Challenge for Environmental Education

Australia covers a large area, but its inhabitants live mostly in large European style cities on the coast. A large percentage of the population were born in other countries, and most Australians are descended from immigrants. While it is easy to argue that Australians must develop a sense of place if they are to understand and care about certain environmental issues, it is much more difficult to resolve what kinds of outdoor experiences Australians should have, what should be learned from such experiences, and how those experiences – and therefore that knowledge – should be distributed in the population. Where should Australians go, and what should they do when they get to there, to better understand environmental sustainability, in a country with so many environments? The paper argues that the situation in Australian can help illustrate some of the problems facing environmental sustainability when everyday life for much of a population is far removed from the sites of many environmental concerns and issues. As such, the case of Australia highlights both the potential importance of environmental education, and some limitations to universalist approaches to environmental sustainability.