Nicole M Ardoin
Biographic Data
| ID | 159747 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicole M Ardoin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicole M |
| FAMILY NAME | Ardoin |
| SIGNATURE | ARDOIN N M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3290-8211 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 207 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 60 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Engaging people in educational processes that foster environmentally valuable outcomes: A synthesis of key findings across eight systematic reviews
Alongside the rise of the evidence‐based conservation movement over the past 20 years, environmental education (EE) has emerged as a worthwhile strategy to achieve conservation goals. EE can help develop the societal attitudes, knowledge, skills, behaviours and norms that address conservation and environmental challenges and build deeper connections between nature and people. To better understand the effectiveness of EE in achieving such outcomes…
It’s not (just) about content: Reimagining academic conferences for relational sustainability research”
Complementary interactional contexts facilitate learning about the environment in everyday life
To address today’s sustainability challenges and move toward societal transformation, people must continually learn about and develop skills to enact effective, informed change. Only a small portion of any human’s lifespan is spent in formal education; thus, it is critical to explore the daily-life interactional contexts in which people learn—i.e., gain awareness, conceptual knowledge, and procedural skills to take action—with regard to environme…
Urban community gardens foster positive human-avian interactions across an income gradient in San Francisco
Access to nature in cities is critical to human well-being; however, it is not equitably distributed. In this study, we investigated a specific type of access to nature, access to positive interactions with urban birds. We explored whether these interactions are equitably distributed in 20 community gardens across an income gradient in the city of San Francisco, U.S.A. We used an interdisciplinary approach, combining ecological and social methods…
Catalyzing collective imagination for sustainability transformations: A complex systems analysis of collaborative climate fiction writing
Reading and writing climate fiction may aid humanity in imagining more sustainable futures. Yet typical approaches to investigating environmental literacy neglect the collective nature of learning and imagination. This exploratory study adopts a socioculturally-informed complex systems approach to analyze collective imagination for sustainability transformations during a collaborative climate fiction writing activity in a high-school classroom. D…
Adolescent psychological health, temporal discounting, and climate distress under increased flood exposure in Bangladesh: A mixed-methods cross-sectional study
Envisioning sustainable climate imaginaries through an “engineering fiction” learning experience: A content analysis of youth stories
Engaging Environmental Education Through Pisa: Leveraging Curriculum as a Political Process
The Organisation for Economic and Cultural Development (OECD) works with countries worldwide to implement testing in the areas of science, mathematics and reading through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) every three years, and this process is recognised to influence education systems through areas such as curriculum. Over the past decade, the OECD increasingly has acknowledged the need to include a greater emphasis on env…
Power and participation: A systematic review of marine protected area engagement through participatory science Methods
Sociocultural learning theories for social-ecological change
A long history of theory exists to underpin our understanding of how to engage individuals and communities in more effective environmental conservation and sustainability practices. Yet rarely do we delve deeply into sociocultural theories of learning, which help demonstrate how learning and action are fundamentally intertwined in our interactions, our societies, and the world around us. To our detriment we ignore this compelling, well-grounded, …
Connecting technologies and nature: Impact and opportunities for digital media use in the context of at-home family environmental learning
Individuals increasingly rely on digital media technologies to learn about and access new information. Yet, despite the dramatic rise in electronic media use among youth and adults, our understanding of its impact, opportunities, and challenges within environmental education remains limited, especially in home contexts. Using a learning ecology framework, we conducted a two-week diary study with 58 diverse adult caretakers, asking them to engage …
Education to build agency in the Anthropocene
Thirty years ago, David Orr, an environmental studies professor at Oberlin College in Ohio, USA, wrote that a constellation of environmental issues, from accumulating hazardous waste to declining b
Leveraging collective action and environmental literacy to address complex sustainability challenges
Developing and enhancing societal capacity to understand, debate elements of, and take actionable steps toward a sustainable future at a scale beyond the individual are critical when addressing sustainability challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic disease. Although mounting evidence exists for how to facilitate individual action to address sustainability challenges, there is less understanding of how…
Community listening sessions: An approach for facilitating collective reflection on environmental learning and behavior in everyday life
Collaborative research approaches can promote social learning by curating a structure that facilitates inclusive dialogue and reflection. Within an epistemological frame that upholds notions of emergence rather than extraction, such modes can foster collective reflection in ways that contribute to reversing traditional notions of expertise. In this paper, we describe ‘Community Listening Sessions’, an approach drawing on focus group, learning cir…
Pathways to subsistence management in Alaska national parks: Perspectives of harvesters and agency staff
Alaska Native peoples rely on harvest of animals and plants for cultural, nutritional, social and spiritual benefits. Contemporary management of these resources occurs under state and federal regulations; however, a long history of Indigenous stewardship precedes Western management systems and continues today. To illuminate the areas of compatibility and divergence among Indigenous and Western management systems, we examined multiple perspectives…
A systematic mixed studies review of civic engagement outcomes in environmental education
Civic engagement is recognized as a critical process to address environmental and other societal issues. To examine the intersection between environmental education and civic engagement, as reported in the peer-reviewed literature, we undertook a systematic mixed studies review to identify environmental education program outcomes related to civic engagement. The environmental education programs included in the final sample (n = 56) occurred in a …
What is community-level environmental literacy, and how can we measure it? A report of a convening to conceptualize and operationalize CLEL
Environmental education research often emphasizes the importance of community context, but conceptualization and measurement of environmental literacy has mostly occurred at the individual level, often focusing on individual behaviors. The environmental problems facing the world today require collective action—communities coming together to address large-scale problems. Accordingly, understanding and encouraging collective action requires a shift…
Environmental learning in everyday life: Foundations of meaning and a context for change
Environmental learning is a lifelong, lifewide, and life-deep endeavor, much of which occurs in the spaces in between those that are studied, remarked upon, and documented. Within this everyday-life context, we examine the concept of learningscapes—intersecting sociocultural, intellectual landscapes where people learn about and undertake practices related to the environment understood as a holistic concept. Considering the affordances and constra…
Using social network analysis to explore and expand our understanding of a robust environmental learning landscape
Environmental learning occurs through an interconnected web of opportunities. Some arise via organizations with sustainability- or environmental learning-focused missions, while others are facilitated by organizations focused on impacts and outcomes in a range of areas, such as health, social justice, or the arts. To better understand the richness of the community environmental learning landscape, we pursued a social network analysis in one place…
Scientists’ warnings and the need to reimagine, recreate, and restore environmental education
Three decades have passed since approximately 1,700 scientists signed the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity highlighting severe environmental problems and trends affecting local and global communities. To reverse the situation, their 1992 Warning argued we need to change our behaviour. In 2017, a larger group issued a second consensus statement warning that the direction and rates of environmental change had worsened and remained unsustainabl…
Barriers to incorporating ecosystem services in coastal conservation practice: The Case of Blue Carbon
Strong, A. L., and N. M. Ardoin. 2021. Barriers to incorporating ecosystem services in coastal conservation practice: the case of blue carbon. Ecology and Society 26(4):40. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12741-260440
Early childhood environmental education: A systematic review of the research literature
Environmental education outcomes for conservation: A systematic review
Actionable knowledge and the art of engagement
Children’s connection to nature as fostered through residential environmental education programs: Key variables explored through surveys and field journals
Children’s connection to nature increasingly is of interest in education, psychology, urban planning, and other related fields. Research findings emphasize the central importance of early connections due to resulting benefits for environmental awareness, knowledge, social-emotional learning, health, and wellbeing. To more clearly conceptualize the process by which connection to nature occurs, we studied fifth-grade students (n = 317) from three C…
An exploration of future trends in environmental education research
This article describes future trends in environmental education (EE) research based on a mixed-methods study where data were collected through a content analysis of peer-reviewed articles published in EE journals between 2005 and 2010; interviews with experts engaged in EE research and sustainability-related fields; surveys with current EE researchers; and convenings with EE researchers and practitioners. We discuss four core thematic findings: (…
To co-produce or not to co-produce
Actionable knowledge and the art of engagement
Cultivating values: Environmental values and sense of place as correlates of sustainable agricultural practices
Exploring the dimensions of place: A confirmatory factor analysis of data from three ecoregional sites
Themes of place, situatedness, and locale are increasingly prominent in environmental education literature and practice. Sense-of-place research, which considers how people connect with places and the influence of those connections on engagement with the environment, may have important implications for environmental education. Prior place studies have proposed that people’s place connections have various dimensions. This paper explores four place…
Development and validation of scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development, and attitudes toward school
This investigation examines the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to develop and validate scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development and leadership, and attitudes toward school for environmental education programs servicing middle school children. The scales represent outcomes commonly of interest to environmental education programs and also to after‐school and positive youth development activities. F…
Scientists’ warnings and the need to reimagine, recreate, and restore environmental education
Three decades have passed since approximately 1,700 scientists signed the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity highlighting severe environmental problems and trends affecting local and global communities. To reverse the situation, their 1992 Warning argued we need to change our behaviour. In 2017, a larger group issued a second consensus statement warning that the direction and rates of environmental change had worsened and remained unsustainabl…
The forest has a story: Cultural ecosystem services in Kona, Hawai'i
Gould, R. K., N. M. Ardoin, U. Woodside, T. Satterfield, N. Hannahs, and G. C. Daily. 2014. The forest has a story: cultural ecosystem services in Kona, Hawai‘i. Ecology and Society 19(3): 55. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06893-190355
Exploring connections between environmental learning and behavior through four everyday-life case studies
Decades of research emphasize that information alone rarely influences environmental behavior. We addressed the question of, “what, then, does influence environmental behavior?” by asking more specifically: what factors mediate the relationship between learning about environmentally related issues and engaging in environmentally related behaviors? Following Yin’s case study approach, we designed a California (USA)-based case study focused on four…
Using a Delphi study to clarify the landscape and core outcomes in environmental education
When leaders in a field agree upon core outcomes for the field, connection, reinforcement, and a shared vision of change are synergistically strengthened. Even when the field is dynamic, theoretically wide-ranging, and dispersed, consensus around core outcomes can help develop strategic research agendas and priorities. Environmental education (EE) is an inherently interdisciplinary field drawing on diverse theoretical foundations and epistemologi…
Youth–community–university partnerships and sense of place: Two case studies of youth participatory action research
This paper describes two youth participatory action research initiatives undertaken in East Palo Alto, CA, USA, as part of university–community partnerships. We discuss the process of engaging youth researchers to build youth skills, facilitate relationships with community-based organizations, and enhance study integrity. We report interview and artifact data that address: (1) how the youths' involvement in the research process affected their sen…
The Relationship of Place Re-Making and Watershed Group Participation in Appalachia
This article explores how participation in watershed groups creates a social space that mediates the relationship between biophysical places and place-protective action. We analyze qualitative data from a survey of more than 200 watershed group volunteers in the Appalachian region of the United States who were asked to describe experiences that encouraged or discouraged their participation. “Place” emerged as a key theme, with further delineation…
Sociocultural learning theories for social-ecological change
A long history of theory exists to underpin our understanding of how to engage individuals and communities in more effective environmental conservation and sustainability practices. Yet rarely do we delve deeply into sociocultural theories of learning, which help demonstrate how learning and action are fundamentally intertwined in our interactions, our societies, and the world around us. To our detriment we ignore this compelling, well-grounded, …
What difference do role models make? Investigating outcomes at a residential environmental education center
Role models may be essential in helping students develop environmental literacy and characteristics associated with positive youth development (PYD). We examine the identities of middle school students’ self-reported role models before, immediately after, and three months following an immersive 5-day residential environmental education (EE) experience that targets environmental responsibility, character development and leadership, and attitudes t…
Motivating residents to combat invasive species on private lands: Social Norms and Community Reciprocity
Niemiec, R. M., N. M. Ardoin, C. B. Wharton, and G. P. Asner. 2016. Motivating residents to combat invasive species on private lands: social norms and community reciprocity. Ecology and Society 21(2):30.http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08362-210230
Leveraging collective action and environmental literacy to address complex sustainability challenges
Developing and enhancing societal capacity to understand, debate elements of, and take actionable steps toward a sustainable future at a scale beyond the individual are critical when addressing sustainability challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic disease. Although mounting evidence exists for how to facilitate individual action to address sustainability challenges, there is less understanding of how…
A systematic mixed studies review of civic engagement outcomes in environmental education
Civic engagement is recognized as a critical process to address environmental and other societal issues. To examine the intersection between environmental education and civic engagement, as reported in the peer-reviewed literature, we undertook a systematic mixed studies review to identify environmental education program outcomes related to civic engagement. The environmental education programs included in the final sample (n = 56) occurred in a …
What is community-level environmental literacy, and how can we measure it? A report of a convening to conceptualize and operationalize CLEL
Environmental education research often emphasizes the importance of community context, but conceptualization and measurement of environmental literacy has mostly occurred at the individual level, often focusing on individual behaviors. The environmental problems facing the world today require collective action—communities coming together to address large-scale problems. Accordingly, understanding and encouraging collective action requires a shift…
Environmental learning in everyday life: Foundations of meaning and a context for change
Environmental learning is a lifelong, lifewide, and life-deep endeavor, much of which occurs in the spaces in between those that are studied, remarked upon, and documented. Within this everyday-life context, we examine the concept of learningscapes—intersecting sociocultural, intellectual landscapes where people learn about and undertake practices related to the environment understood as a holistic concept. Considering the affordances and constra…
Beyond formal groups: Neighboring acts and watershed protection in Appalachia
This paper explores how watershed organizations in Appalachia have persisted in addressing water quality issues in areas with a history of coal mining. We identified two watershed groups that have taken responsibility for restoring local creeks that were previously highly degraded and sporadically managed. These watershed groups represent cases of self-organized commons governance in resource-rich, economically poor Appalachian communities. We de…
Exploring Sense of Place and Environmental Behavior at an Ecoregional Scale in Three Sites
Using social network analysis to explore and expand our understanding of a robust environmental learning landscape
Environmental learning occurs through an interconnected web of opportunities. Some arise via organizations with sustainability- or environmental learning-focused missions, while others are facilitated by organizations focused on impacts and outcomes in a range of areas, such as health, social justice, or the arts. To better understand the richness of the community environmental learning landscape, we pursued a social network analysis in one place…
Community-as-pedagogy: Environmental leadership for youth in rural Costa Rica
This mixed-methods study examines an informal place- and community-based environmental education program implemented for rural, underserved high school students in Costa Rica’s bio-culturally diverse Osa Peninsula. Using a community-as-pedagogy framework built on Paulo Freire’s concept of a problem-posing education, we investigate how pedagogically-positioned social relationships mediate students’ knowledge, perceptions, and leadership. We find l…
Increased Neighbor Interaction and Fear of Social Sanctions: Associations with Resident Action to Control the Invasive Little Fire Ant
Motivating and sustaining community action to combat invasive species is crucial for reducing the impacts of invasive species on private lands. However, much is still unknown about how organizations seeking to promote natural resource conservation can effectively inspire, support, and help maintain community action over time. To address this gap, we explored factors associated with resident engagement in control of the invasive little fire ant (W…
Farmer Typology in South Kona, Hawai‘i: Whoʻs Farming, How, and Why
Agricultural systems are increasingly being recognized as producing a wide range of benefits and impacts on society, and the potential of small-scale farmers in particular has been highlighted. Recognition of farmers’ varying drivers and priorities is important for developing appropriate policies and engagement strategies to foster multifunctional agricultural practices that generate multiple social benefits from agricultural lands. The use of ty…
What Difference Does It Make? Assessing Outcomes From Participation in a Residential Environmental Education Program
The authors explored the influences of 3- and 5-day residential environmental education programs at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont (TN) on participants' connections with nature, environmental stewardship, interest in learning and discovery, and awareness of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and biodiversity. The authors found significant positive, short-term effects on all outcomes of interest. Also, 3-month delayed posttest…
Understanding behavior to understand behavior change: A literature review
One view of environmental education suggests that its goal is to 'develop a world population that ... has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively towards solutions of current problems and the prevention of new ones' (UNESCO‐UNEP 1976). Embedded within this charge is the teaching of skills and motivations to implement skills, where a skill refers to performance of an act acquired through e…
Use of the Planning Outreach Liaison Model in the Neighborhood Planning Process: A Case Study in Seattle′s Rainier Valley Neighborhood
Our study examines a nontraditional engagement process employed by the City of Seattle during neighborhood plan updates. Adapting the trusted advocates model from the public health field, the city hired planning outreach liaisons (POLs) from 13 diverse community groups to solicit input from traditionally underrepresented residents. To explore the efficacy of this approach, we collected data through interviews with residents, neighborhood leaders,…
M?lama the '?ina, M?lama the people on the '?ina’: The reaction to Avatar in Hawai`i
We explore perceptions of the film Avatar in Kona, Hawai`i using a mixed-methods study that included surveys (n = 146) and semi-structured interviews (n = 15). Quantitative analyses indicated that Native Hawaiians were more likely than Caucasians to express a sense of cultural pride related to messages in the film. Analyses of the qualitative data revealed four central concepts addressed in surveys and interviews: (1) the need for preservation of…
Development and validation of scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development, and attitudes toward school
This investigation examines the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to develop and validate scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development and leadership, and attitudes toward school for environmental education programs servicing middle school children. The scales represent outcomes commonly of interest to environmental education programs and also to after‐school and positive youth development activities. F…
Exploring the dimensions of place: A confirmatory factor analysis of data from three ecoregional sites
Themes of place, situatedness, and locale are increasingly prominent in environmental education literature and practice. Sense-of-place research, which considers how people connect with places and the influence of those connections on engagement with the environment, may have important implications for environmental education. Prior place studies have proposed that people’s place connections have various dimensions. This paper explores four place…
An exploration of future trends in environmental education research
This article describes future trends in environmental education (EE) research based on a mixed-methods study where data were collected through a content analysis of peer-reviewed articles published in EE journals between 2005 and 2010; interviews with experts engaged in EE research and sustainability-related fields; surveys with current EE researchers; and convenings with EE researchers and practitioners. We discuss four core thematic findings: (…
Youth–community–university partnerships and sense of place: Two case studies of youth participatory action research
This paper describes two youth participatory action research initiatives undertaken in East Palo Alto, CA, USA, as part of university–community partnerships. We discuss the process of engaging youth researchers to build youth skills, facilitate relationships with community-based organizations, and enhance study integrity. We report interview and artifact data that address: (1) how the youths' involvement in the research process affected their sen…
The Relationship of Place Re-Making and Watershed Group Participation in Appalachia
This article explores how participation in watershed groups creates a social space that mediates the relationship between biophysical places and place-protective action. We analyze qualitative data from a survey of more than 200 watershed group volunteers in the Appalachian region of the United States who were asked to describe experiences that encouraged or discouraged their participation. “Place” emerged as a key theme, with further delineation…
Using digital photography and journaling in evaluation of field-based environmental education programs
The forest has a story: Cultural ecosystem services in Kona, Hawai'i
Gould, R. K., N. M. Ardoin, U. Woodside, T. Satterfield, N. Hannahs, and G. C. Daily. 2014. The forest has a story: cultural ecosystem services in Kona, Hawai‘i. Ecology and Society 19(3): 55. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06893-190355
Exploring Sense of Place and Environmental Behavior at an Ecoregional Scale in Three Sites
A protocol for eliciting nonmaterial values through a cultural ecosystem services frame
Stakeholders’ nonmaterial desires, needs, and values often critically influence the success of conservation projects. These considerations are challenging to articulate and characterize, resulting in their limited uptake in management and policy. We devised an interview protocol designed to enhance understanding of cultural ecosystem services (CES). The protocol begins with discussion of ecosystem‐related activities (e.g., recreation, hunting) an…
Nature-based tourism's impact on environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behavior: A review and analysis of the literature and potential future research
Although nature-based tourism is often promoted as benefiting local destinations through income generation, employment, and direct conservation support, it is also believed to influence tourists’ environmentally friendly attitudes, knowledge, and ultimately their behavior. Yet, few studies have empirically documented these outcomes, and those that do are inconsistent in the variables measured and the time frame analyzed. This paper examines the e…
Using online narratives to explore participant experiences in a residential environmental education program
Field-based, residential environmental education programs are immersive, science-rich learning experiences that aim to achieve educational, personal growth, and behavioral outcomes. Evaluations of such programs typically use pre- and post-surveys or interviews and, in some cases, participant observation. Understanding how participants respond to, and make meaning of, their experiences in the moment is an understudied facet that could improve prog…
Cultivating values: Environmental values and sense of place as correlates of sustainable agricultural practices
The company you keep: Networks in a community of informal education evaluators
Environmental Behavior of Visitors to a Science Museum
Increasingly, informal science and environmental education institutions are addressing conservation messaging and environmental behavior in programming, exhibits, and interpretation. Yet, little is known about what pro-environmental behaviors visitors are currently undertaking, what characteristics those environmental behaviors may have in common, and what differences might exist among visitor populations. This study investigated environmental be…
Beyond formal groups: Neighboring acts and watershed protection in Appalachia
This paper explores how watershed organizations in Appalachia have persisted in addressing water quality issues in areas with a history of coal mining. We identified two watershed groups that have taken responsibility for restoring local creeks that were previously highly degraded and sporadically managed. These watershed groups represent cases of self-organized commons governance in resource-rich, economically poor Appalachian communities. We de…
Farmer Typology in South Kona, Hawai‘i: Whoʻs Farming, How, and Why
Agricultural systems are increasingly being recognized as producing a wide range of benefits and impacts on society, and the potential of small-scale farmers in particular has been highlighted. Recognition of farmers’ varying drivers and priorities is important for developing appropriate policies and engagement strategies to foster multifunctional agricultural practices that generate multiple social benefits from agricultural lands. The use of ty…
The development of trust in residential environmental education programs
Trust, a relational phenomenon that is an important building block of interpersonal relationships and within society, can also be an intermediary outcome of field-based environmental education programs. Trust creates a foundation for collaboration and decision-making, which are core to many ultimate outcomes of environmental education. Yet, understanding how trust develops among environmental education program participants is still nascent, partl…
Investigating the sets of values that community members hold toward local nature centers
While nature center’s missions often point to connecting people to nature in various ways, their potential to provide a broader array of services to their communities remains largely unexplored. To better understand the values local community members hold for nature centers, we conducted survey research around 16 centers in the United States. Exploratory factor analysis identified four underlying values: environmental connection, leisure provisio…
Factors that contribute to community members’ support of local nature centers
Nature centers can serve as valuable community institutions if they are seen as providing important services to the community. Through survey research in communities surrounding 16 nature centers in the United States, we examine the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that drive hypothetical support for nature centers from local residents. Respondents who recognized centers as institutions that provide opportunities for leisure and connection with …
Exploring the Effectiveness of Outreach Strategies in Conservation Projects: The Case of the Audubon Toyota TogetherGreen Program
Successfully engaging target audiences represents a key challenge for environmental conservation projects. In this study, we examined 354 conservation projects implemented across the United States with the intention of systematically exploring the relationships between different forms of outreach (in particular, message content and delivery) and self-reported project outcomes. Using end-of-program retrospective surveys, we found that experiential…
Negotiating credibility and legitimacy in the shadow of an authoritative data source
Environmental agencies designate certain datasets as "authoritative," or official datasets for use in decision making. Although this is a common administrative term, the notion of certain sources being authoritative has received minimal attention in the social science literature. Science translates into environmental decisions when it is perceived as being salient, credible, and legitimate. But the actual process by which data come to be viewed a…
Environmental Education and Sustainability (33 works) · Sociology (33 works) · Psychology (32 works) · Political science (31 works) · Pedagogy (27 works) · Environmental education (25 works) · Geography (25 works) · Computer Science (20 works) · Ecology (19 works) · Public relations (19 works)