Community-based ecosystem management (CBEM) is increasingly advocated as a way to conserve biodiversity, monitor, and maintain ecosystem functions in the context of local land use practices through an inclusive management approach. However, while CBEM is based in principles of inclusion, there is very little attention in environmental management and education literature directed to the role of youth in stewardship activities, and the environmental learning outcomes and other meanings that may result from these practices.<p>The purpose of this thesis is to describe participatory and experiential environmental learning carried out in the Frenchman River Basin, Southwestern Saskatchewan. Here, I investigated how students participation in an ecological monitoring program contributed to their understanding of their local environment and to their sense of place, and considered how the development of a learning community among students, teachers, community members, and academic researchers influenced these processes.<p>This research adopts a mixed methods approach, employing knowledge-based tests to explore student learning outcomes and using interpretations of place through student photographs and interviews to examine their sense of place. I take a phenomenological approach to defining what constitutes place for students, as well as how sense of place is formed for them, elucidating how their experiences participating in the ecological monitoring program entered the process of meaning construction.<p>This case study found that both experiential and participatory approaches to learning helped foster environmental understanding as well as place appreciation and attachment. The Frenchman River, previously described as a taken-for-granted feature of the familiar landscape and largely associated with its agricultural importance, was re-negotiated as a social space, a place of play, learning, and biological significance. Research findings also suggest that place meanings are deeply rooted in students rural identity, and that this influenced their participant experience, independent of environmental learning outcomes. <p>The creation of a learning community was a mobilizing force for school-based ecological monitoring and information sharing, while acting as a source of symbolic significance for student participants, helping students to see their place from the perspective of an outsider.

Community-based ecosystem management (CBEM) is increasingly advocated as a way to conserve biodiversity, monitor, and maintain ecosystem functions in the context of local land use practices through an inclusive management approach. However, while CBEM is based in principles of inclusion, there is very little attention in environmental management and education literature directed to the role of youth in stewardship activities, and the environmental learning outcomes and other meanings that may result from these practices.<p>The purpose of this thesis is to describe participatory and experiential environmental learning carried out in the Frenchman River Basin, Southwestern Saskatchewan. Here, I investigated how students participation in an ecological monitoring program contributed to their understanding of their local environment and to their sense of place, and considered how the development of a learning community among students, teachers, community members, and academic researchers influenced these processes.<p>This research adopts a mixed methods approach, employing knowledge-based tests to explore student learning outcomes and using interpretations of place through student photographs and interviews to examine their sense of place. I take a phenomenological approach to defining what constitutes place for students, as well as how sense of place is formed for them, elucidating how their experiences participating in the ecological monitoring program entered the process of meaning construction.<p>This case study found that both experiential and participatory approaches to learning helped foster environmental understanding as well as place appreciation and attachment. The Frenchman River, previously described as a taken-for-granted feature of the familiar landscape and largely associated with its agricultural importance, was re-negotiated as a social space, a place of play, learning, and biological significance. Research findings also suggest that place meanings are deeply rooted in students rural identity, and that this influenced their participant experience, independent of environmental learning outcomes. <p>The creation of a learning community was a mobilizing force for school-based ecological monitoring and information sharing, while acting as a source of symbolic significance for student participants, helping students to see their place from the perspective of an outsider.

The pressure on natural resources in urban areas increases as cities grow in size and populations; however, informal institutions as norms and values by ‘common people’ can play a major role for protection of urban greens.  As the city of Bangalore, India, rapidly grows in size and population, its green areas are disappearing. In rural parts of India, local people’s notion of certain ecosystems as sacred has rendered the ecosystems protection and contributed to sustenance of ecosystem services’ generation. The aim of this paper is to explore the potential of stewardship of urban greens in a changing social context, focusing on religious beliefs and practices surrounding trees in Bangalore. It focuses on the cultural dimension of ecosystem services and connects previous research on sacred groves in rural areas with research on stewardship of urban greens. Methods include interview surveys with visitors to five focus sites of religious significance representing the city's four major religions; semi-structured interviews with key informants; and observations. Results show that on the Hindu sites -the study’s main focus- in the city, a range of trees were sacred themselves and revered through a set of practices. On the other sites, trees were rather an incorporated part of the land areas with religious significance. On all sites a set of cultural services was appreciated as generated by trees. Furthermore, visitors had a strong stake in the trees but the experienced levels of capacity to secure the trees’ protection differed between the sites. The study concludes that ‘common people’ are crucial stakeholders for ecosystem stewardship that ensures protection of the urban greens in Bangalore. The different religions in the city provide a multi-faceted protection of different types of urban greens. The level of protection is the outcome of a complex web of community values and norms, where sacredness is one included element.