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The goal of environmental education is to increase individuals' ecological knowledge, awareness of associated environmental problems, and motivation to evaluate and implement solutions. This project combined the concepts of environmental education with community service learning to create a new method of curriculum integration: environmental community service learning. The California state standards for environmental education, service learning, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies were integrated into four thematic units using the teaching methodologies of cooperative learning, authentic assessment, and reflection. The integrated, thematic units of this project could be used by educators in a multi-disciplinary, team teaching scenario on in a single classroom setting as either sequential, thematic units of study or independent activities.

This project was created to encourage educators to establish school site gardens. Gardens provide the opportunity to introduce environmental topics, and can become hands-on learning centers for subjects across the course of study.

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Reservation was established in 1876, the same year as the transcontinental Southern Pacific Railroad completed a station in Palm Springs. These overlapping events would both enable and problematize the settler colonization of the Agua Caliente’s land, creating a checkerboard pattern of “fragmented jurisdiction” that was fundamental for its transformation into one of the wealthiest resorts in the United States. The territorial conflict between the Tribe and the U.S. would only begin to be legally resolved in 1977, when the Agua Caliente won the right to zone and plan their own lands. This dissertation examines how architecture, urbanism, and infrastructure mediated the technical, legal, and ideological struggles that took place in this period; sometimes enabling Imperial dispossession, other times structuring Tribal assimilation and decolonization. The dissertation historicizes and theorizes these processes by examining the modern architecture and urbanism of Palm Springs as a specific settler-colonial, “post-industrial” mode of development which was made possible by the particular territorial configuration that emerged out of nineteenth century Imperialism. It posits a correlation between settler colonialism and the settler imaginaries and material processes of technological progress, capitalist accumulation, natural resource extraction, and cultures of leisure that were uniquely developed in Palm Springs through modern architecture. Critically dismantling the connections between modern architecture, “post-industrial society,” and settler colonialism, this dissertation argues, is a necessary condition for the development of decolonial epistemologies and strategies of anti-colonial, anti-capitalist resistance.

In the face of environmental breakdown, this dissertation focuses on the emergent field of biomaking as a learning space to reflect on human-nature relationships. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore what occurs in interspecies creative encounters (particularly between humans and fungi) and how ethical engagement can be supported through the design of biomaking experiences, techniques, and materials. Building on a constructionist tradition of maker education and drawing from embodied cognition, I propose a learning design framework to support learning through creative engagement with other beings. The Interspecies Creativity framework aims to (1) guide the design of constructionist experiences rooted in local ecologies and (2) foster mindful creative relations between learners and living systems. The design principles of the framework—grounding, listening, responding, and relating—invite learners to empathize with other living beings in their local landscapes to meet their needs while leveraging their behavior for collective creation. Using a design-based research approach, I developed a six-session biomaking workshop to test and refine the affordances of the framework. In this program, twelve middle school students built living art pieces at a lab and installed them at a nearby park, where they continued growing after the implementation. I gathered multimodal data—including interviews, questionnaires, videos, photographs, drawings, and artifacts—and analyzed the creative process from an embodied cognition lens. The study reveals that biomaking, intentionally framed as an interspecies creative practice, provides multiple entry points to deal with tensions and build relationships with living organisms and local ecosystems. I highlight critical events in the making process in which there was a shift in students' perception of the organism in their work. In these events, participants intentionally tested or where surprised by the organism's behavior, turning its agency apparent and decisive for the creative outcome. In closing, I offer practical and theoretical insights to guide the implementation of interspecies making and biomaking education to support learners in modulating creative interactions with their extended communities of life.

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The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of two residential camp settings on the development of environmental attitudes by 4-H members (CA = 11-15 years). Subjects attending a 4-H Conservation Camp were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment conditions, the outpost camp setting (n=30), or the central camp setting (n=30). A control group (n=30) was comprised of individuals who had applied to attend camp but withdrew their application. Both treatment conditions received the same environmental education program delivered by the same instructors. Subjects in the outpost camp condition were assigned to one of three 10-person "families" where they slept in two-man tents, cooked all their meals over a wood fire, and, as a group, planned the recreational activities for afternoon and evening programs. Emphasis was placed on group decision making. Subjects in the central camp were assigned to cabin groups where the individual chose his/her spare-time activities, ate in a central dining hall, and slept in wooden, 10-person cabins. The Millward-Ginter Outdoor Attitude Inventory was the instrument utilized to pre and posttest all subjects on overall outdoor attitude, and specific attitudes toward environment, socialization, education, and pollution. Data were analyzed by employing the Kruskal-Wallis One Way Analysis of Variance By Ranks Test, the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, and a post hoc paired comparison's test. Results of the analyses indicated that the posttest overall outdoor, environment, education, and pollution attitude scores for campers in the outpost camp setting were significantly more positive from those in the control group or the central camp setting. Socialization attitude scores were significantly different between the central camp setting and the outpost camp but were not significantly different from the control group. It was concluded that the outpost camp setting was effective in the development of positive overall outdoor, environment, education, and pollution attitudes. Outpost camp setting's effect on socialization attitudes was inconclusive. / Ed. D.

This project aimed at helping second grade children gain environmental sensitivity and awareness by infusing the existing English Language Arts curriculum with environmental activities. The purpose is to demonstrate how one can infuse the California state's mandated curriculum, Houghton Mifflin, with children's literature in order to promote environmental sensitivity and awareness.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a blueprint for the creation of the Free Spirit Children's Nature Center. The center has in mind the preservation of a habitat and will offer naturalist programs that enhance children's understanding and love of nature. The interactive nature of the experiences provided through the programs and activities will offer children a hands-on approach to learning that is developmentally appropriate. The primary role of the nature center is proposed to re-create a sense of connectedness to nature and generate healthy communities.