Peta White
Biographic Data
| ID | 6553182 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peta White |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peta |
| FAMILY NAME | White |
| SIGNATURE | WHITE P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Deakin University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0225-5934 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Teaching Bioethics in Senior Secondary Using Guided Inquiry: Supporting Teachers to Address Contextual Challenges with Actionable Possibilities
There is a growing understanding that contemporary education needs to prepare young people for the significant challenges of the Anthropocene. In science, this implies an expansion of the traditional focus on delivered knowledge to include engagement with the wider societal settings of science that involves critical thinking and complex decision making. In this paper we present the findings from two independent schools in Melbourne, Victoria, whe…
Research at the Nexus Between Physical Education and Environmental Education: A Narrative Integrative Review Through a Physical Literacy Lens
Following inter-/transdisciplinary ideas, environmental education inherently collaborates with other subjects, including physical education. As the work with other subjects might be jeopardised by differing worldviews and paradigms, it is worth illuminating compatible and incompatible positions for inter-/transdisciplinary work. In physical education, the concept of physical literacy (PL) has recently gained considerable attention and adopts a st…
Save the Bees and Save Ourselves: Young People’s Cli-Fi as Normative Myths of the Future
We co-designed a bee sequence with a specialist primary science teacher at an Australian government school. Year 6 students learned about European honeybees and Australian native bees, including through Cli-Fi. In this paper, we explore the pedagogical power of providing students with opportunities to create Cli-Fi about bee futures in the Anthropocene. We present and thematically analyse examples of students’ bee Cli-Fi to argue that they genera…
Climate Fiction of the Anthropocene
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Eco-anxiety and a Desire for Hope: A Composite Article on the Impacts of Climate Change in Environmental Education
Responding to increasing concerns regarding human-induced climate change and shared commitment as environmental educators to support climate action, we crafted this article as a composite piece — an emerging method of inquiry. We are eleven contributors: the Editorial Executive of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education and two colleagues who each respond to prompts concerning our experience of climate change and our practices of climat…
Exploring the Political Ecology of Environmental Education and Where We Go From Here
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Towards an Indigenous-Informed Multispecies Collaboratory
How does Australia’s latest Indigenous defeat relate to Environmental Education? The answer is direct complicity . This paper begins with the premise that the failure of Australia’s 2023 referendum on “The Voice to Parliament” is directly connected with education. The chapter builds on the proposition that local and Indigenous public knowledge could — and should — be the heart of environmental education. We apply a post-qualitative practice that …
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…
Climate change education implementation: The voices of policymakers, professional development providers, and teachers in five countries
Climate change (CC) is the most significant global issue facing humanity, yet research addressing the perspectives of the key players influential in developing and implementing school-based climate change curricula at a cross-country national level is scarce. This study examined the perceptions of educators and educational leaders active in climate change education (CCE) in relation to: CC knowledge, representation in the curriculum, content and …
Science education in the Anthropocene: The aesthetics of climate change education in an epoch of uncertainty
We have a responsibility as science educators to work with young people to enact education that enables collective rebalancing of relationships between humans and more-than-humans that are disturbed by human-induced climate change. However, to date, climate change education has not been prioritized in school science at a policy, curricula, classroom and community level, due to an aesthetic which does not sufficiently value climate science or reco…
Translating contemporary scientists’ knowledge and practice into classrooms: Scalable design supporting identity work
There are new demands on science education for students moving into uncertain futures, including engagement with scientific practices, and understanding of the nature of science and scientists’ work. Furthermore, there is increasing recognition of and interest in the construct of identity as a powerful way of looking at students’ engagement with science studies and futures. In Australia there has been policy-level curriculum advocacy focused on f…
Critical thinking in primary science through a guided inquiry pedagogy: A semiotic perspective
Although education research in critical thinking is a rapidly emerging field, how teachers can facilitate, monitor, and support critical thinking in primary science remains a challenge. This paper builds on recent semiotics mediated scientific reasoning research to present a fresh perspective of critical thinking in primary science. Analysis of student and teacher interactions in an innovated semiotics grounded learning design and pedagogy demons…
Deepening our capacity for teaching with Place
This paper presents a learning journey about deepening capacity for teaching with Place through relational learning and shares three pedagogical ingredients that are integral in enacting more ethical, decolonial place pedagogies. We are three women, educators working in community and teacher education with interests in environmental education, decoloniality and indigeneity. We write from the position of people whose ancestry is not Indigenous to …
Urgency through education: Futures learning through children’s literature
The purpose of this communication is to explore possibilities for children’s literature to enable futures learning. It introduces the ways in which two different frameworks might be used to analyse children’s literature. The first framework draws upon the Earth Charter Principles (ECP) (Auld et al., 2021). The second framework brings together the pillars of sustainability with the principles of Education for Sustainability (EfS) in a framework fo…
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
A transdisciplinary model for teaching and learning for sustainability science in a rapidly warming world
Learning regenerative cultures: Indigenous nations in higher education renewal in Australia
What is regenerative learning in Australian higher education? This paper addresses the intersecting crises of climate, species loss and injustice; often called a conceptual emergency. We tackle the problem of disciplinary compartmentalisation, preventing integration of important related concepts. The particular case is separation of the Australian Curriculum Cross-curriculum Priorities at school and university for teaching, learning and research …
A cross-country comparison of climate change in middle school science and geography curricula
The challenge of climate change means that school education is more important than ever in preparing young people for an uncertain future. The focus of this research is climate change education and its status in the compulsory middle school years (approximately years 7–10) across six countries (Australia, Israel, Finland, Indonesia, Canada and England). The authors investigated formal published national curriculum documents, specifically science …
The role of aesthetics in the teaching and learning of data modelling
Reporting on a Grade 4 teaching and learning sequence, we highlight foundational constructs of measurement and data modelling which are fundamental to competence development in both science and mathematics. The sequence involved students generating and representing measures of their teacher’s arm-span, with a focus on the invention and refinement of data representations characteristic of STEM epistemic practices. We undertook a micro-ethnographic…
Special Issue: Postqualitative inquiry: Theory and practice in environmental education
This Special Issue of AJEE is an assemblage of creative starting points for postqualitative inquiry. Mazzei (2021), after St. Pierre (2011), has described postqualitative inquiry in terms of direct groundings in theoretical/philosophical literature. The purpose of theory is to help us better understand our world as well as to lead us to informed action 'Postqualitative' can be distilled by the phrase 'thinking with theory' Inquiries are shaped in…
Regeneration time: Ancient wisdom for planetary wellbeing
In these regenerative times prompted by the Anthropocene, Aboriginal voices are situated to draw on ancient wisdom for local learning and to share information across the globe as ecological imperative for planetary wellbeing. In this paper, postqualitative research foregrounds the sentient nature of life as ancestral power and brings the vitality of co-becoming as our places into active engagement. It enables coloniality to surface and reveals ho…
School strikers enacting politics for climate justice: Daring to think differently about education
Two school strikers − Niamh and Harriet − come together with two environmental education academics − Peta and Joseph − to explore what it means to be young people enacting politics for the environment in Australia, and what this might mean for re-imagining education. Niamh and Harriet are leaders of, and were integral to initiating, the highly effective School Strike 4 Climate − Australia (SS4C) movement, enacting ‘principled disobedience’. Peta …
Contemporary science practice in the classroom: A phenomenological exploration into how online curriculum resources can facilitate learning
Using a phenomenological lens, we investigated how online curriculum resources can support secondary science teachers to explore contemporary science practices with their students. The research used a social constructivist theoretical and a hermeneutic phenomenology methodological framework to describe and interpret the teacher/participants’ experience. Seven participants teaching science to Year 7–10 students (12–15 years old) engaged in the res…
An interdisciplinary approach to primary school mathematics and science learning
Against a backdrop of advocacy for interdisciplinary STEM curricula, this paper explores the design principles underpinning a three-year longitudinal research project that develops and evaluates interdisciplinary mathematics and science learning sequences involving multiple teachers and student cohorts across the primary school years. The research uses design-based methodology and deploys a pedagogical cycle based on representation construction a…
A critical analysis of ecological sustainability ideology in award-winning early children’s literature
A framework to critically consider the ecological sustainability messaging in children’s literature is presented to authors, illustrators and editors, as well as teachers, parents and students/children. We have applied this framework to three books from the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) 2015 Notables list using critical discourse analysis (CDA). Findings suggest that there are themes and images in these award-winning texts that do n…
Climate change education implementation: The voices of policymakers, professional development providers, and teachers in five countries
Climate change (CC) is the most significant global issue facing humanity, yet research addressing the perspectives of the key players influential in developing and implementing school-based climate change curricula at a cross-country national level is scarce. This study examined the perceptions of educators and educational leaders active in climate change education (CCE) in relation to: CC knowledge, representation in the curriculum, content and …
A transdisciplinary model for teaching and learning for sustainability science in a rapidly warming world
Walking my talk as an intentional, embodied, (co)constructed environmental educator
n\t\t\t\t\tExploring the question (how) can I use personal change to inspire educational and social/cultural change, this work was embodied and action orientated with a thesis that the doing (action) is as important as the thinking and talking about it. A three-dimensional model of exploring personal change through transformative education leading to social/cultural change was employed throughout this research. A critical poststructural ecofemini…
Making connections: Creating relationships with nonhuman nature, place and community
Following the New Zealand Association for Environmental Education's (NZAAEE) and Australian Association for Environmental Education's (AAEE) biennial conferences in 2018, all delegates
Contemporary science practice in the classroom: A phenomenological exploration into how online curriculum resources can facilitate learning
Using a phenomenological lens, we investigated how online curriculum resources can support secondary science teachers to explore contemporary science practices with their students. The research used a social constructivist theoretical and a hermeneutic phenomenology methodological framework to describe and interpret the teacher/participants’ experience. Seven participants teaching science to Year 7–10 students (12–15 years old) engaged in the res…
An interdisciplinary approach to primary school mathematics and science learning
Against a backdrop of advocacy for interdisciplinary STEM curricula, this paper explores the design principles underpinning a three-year longitudinal research project that develops and evaluates interdisciplinary mathematics and science learning sequences involving multiple teachers and student cohorts across the primary school years. The research uses design-based methodology and deploys a pedagogical cycle based on representation construction a…
A critical analysis of ecological sustainability ideology in award-winning early children’s literature
A framework to critically consider the ecological sustainability messaging in children’s literature is presented to authors, illustrators and editors, as well as teachers, parents and students/children. We have applied this framework to three books from the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) 2015 Notables list using critical discourse analysis (CDA). Findings suggest that there are themes and images in these award-winning texts that do n…
Learning Cycles: Enriching Ways of Knowing Place
We share a story about a katitjin bidi , a learning journey in a bioregion with a multimillennial Aboriginal history. As part of this katitjin bidi , three environmental educators implemented a place-based pedagogy called ‘becoming family with place’, while a fourth participated in the preplanning and final reflective stages. Our story includes cycles of ways of knowing, resulting in an enriched practice of being-with our place. Our story is unde…
Learning regenerative cultures: Indigenous nations in higher education renewal in Australia
What is regenerative learning in Australian higher education? This paper addresses the intersecting crises of climate, species loss and injustice; often called a conceptual emergency. We tackle the problem of disciplinary compartmentalisation, preventing integration of important related concepts. The particular case is separation of the Australian Curriculum Cross-curriculum Priorities at school and university for teaching, learning and research …
A cross-country comparison of climate change in middle school science and geography curricula
The challenge of climate change means that school education is more important than ever in preparing young people for an uncertain future. The focus of this research is climate change education and its status in the compulsory middle school years (approximately years 7–10) across six countries (Australia, Israel, Finland, Indonesia, Canada and England). The authors investigated formal published national curriculum documents, specifically science …
The role of aesthetics in the teaching and learning of data modelling
Reporting on a Grade 4 teaching and learning sequence, we highlight foundational constructs of measurement and data modelling which are fundamental to competence development in both science and mathematics. The sequence involved students generating and representing measures of their teacher’s arm-span, with a focus on the invention and refinement of data representations characteristic of STEM epistemic practices. We undertook a micro-ethnographic…
Special Issue: Postqualitative inquiry: Theory and practice in environmental education
This Special Issue of AJEE is an assemblage of creative starting points for postqualitative inquiry. Mazzei (2021), after St. Pierre (2011), has described postqualitative inquiry in terms of direct groundings in theoretical/philosophical literature. The purpose of theory is to help us better understand our world as well as to lead us to informed action 'Postqualitative' can be distilled by the phrase 'thinking with theory' Inquiries are shaped in…
Regeneration time: Ancient wisdom for planetary wellbeing
In these regenerative times prompted by the Anthropocene, Aboriginal voices are situated to draw on ancient wisdom for local learning and to share information across the globe as ecological imperative for planetary wellbeing. In this paper, postqualitative research foregrounds the sentient nature of life as ancestral power and brings the vitality of co-becoming as our places into active engagement. It enables coloniality to surface and reveals ho…
School strikers enacting politics for climate justice: Daring to think differently about education
Two school strikers − Niamh and Harriet − come together with two environmental education academics − Peta and Joseph − to explore what it means to be young people enacting politics for the environment in Australia, and what this might mean for re-imagining education. Niamh and Harriet are leaders of, and were integral to initiating, the highly effective School Strike 4 Climate − Australia (SS4C) movement, enacting ‘principled disobedience’. Peta …
Science education in the Anthropocene: The aesthetics of climate change education in an epoch of uncertainty
We have a responsibility as science educators to work with young people to enact education that enables collective rebalancing of relationships between humans and more-than-humans that are disturbed by human-induced climate change. However, to date, climate change education has not been prioritized in school science at a policy, curricula, classroom and community level, due to an aesthetic which does not sufficiently value climate science or reco…
Translating contemporary scientists’ knowledge and practice into classrooms: Scalable design supporting identity work
There are new demands on science education for students moving into uncertain futures, including engagement with scientific practices, and understanding of the nature of science and scientists’ work. Furthermore, there is increasing recognition of and interest in the construct of identity as a powerful way of looking at students’ engagement with science studies and futures. In Australia there has been policy-level curriculum advocacy focused on f…
Critical thinking in primary science through a guided inquiry pedagogy: A semiotic perspective
Although education research in critical thinking is a rapidly emerging field, how teachers can facilitate, monitor, and support critical thinking in primary science remains a challenge. This paper builds on recent semiotics mediated scientific reasoning research to present a fresh perspective of critical thinking in primary science. Analysis of student and teacher interactions in an innovated semiotics grounded learning design and pedagogy demons…
Deepening our capacity for teaching with Place
This paper presents a learning journey about deepening capacity for teaching with Place through relational learning and shares three pedagogical ingredients that are integral in enacting more ethical, decolonial place pedagogies. We are three women, educators working in community and teacher education with interests in environmental education, decoloniality and indigeneity. We write from the position of people whose ancestry is not Indigenous to …
Urgency through education: Futures learning through children’s literature
The purpose of this communication is to explore possibilities for children’s literature to enable futures learning. It introduces the ways in which two different frameworks might be used to analyse children’s literature. The first framework draws upon the Earth Charter Principles (ECP) (Auld et al., 2021). The second framework brings together the pillars of sustainability with the principles of Education for Sustainability (EfS) in a framework fo…
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
A transdisciplinary model for teaching and learning for sustainability science in a rapidly warming world
Eco-anxiety and a Desire for Hope: A Composite Article on the Impacts of Climate Change in Environmental Education
Responding to increasing concerns regarding human-induced climate change and shared commitment as environmental educators to support climate action, we crafted this article as a composite piece — an emerging method of inquiry. We are eleven contributors: the Editorial Executive of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education and two colleagues who each respond to prompts concerning our experience of climate change and our practices of climat…
Exploring the Political Ecology of Environmental Education and Where We Go From Here
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Towards an Indigenous-Informed Multispecies Collaboratory
How does Australia’s latest Indigenous defeat relate to Environmental Education? The answer is direct complicity . This paper begins with the premise that the failure of Australia’s 2023 referendum on “The Voice to Parliament” is directly connected with education. The chapter builds on the proposition that local and Indigenous public knowledge could — and should — be the heart of environmental education. We apply a post-qualitative practice that …
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…
Climate change education implementation: The voices of policymakers, professional development providers, and teachers in five countries
Climate change (CC) is the most significant global issue facing humanity, yet research addressing the perspectives of the key players influential in developing and implementing school-based climate change curricula at a cross-country national level is scarce. This study examined the perceptions of educators and educational leaders active in climate change education (CCE) in relation to: CC knowledge, representation in the curriculum, content and …
Research at the Nexus Between Physical Education and Environmental Education: A Narrative Integrative Review Through a Physical Literacy Lens
Following inter-/transdisciplinary ideas, environmental education inherently collaborates with other subjects, including physical education. As the work with other subjects might be jeopardised by differing worldviews and paradigms, it is worth illuminating compatible and incompatible positions for inter-/transdisciplinary work. In physical education, the concept of physical literacy (PL) has recently gained considerable attention and adopts a st…
Sociology (26 works) · Pedagogy (20 works) · Political science (17 works) · Environmental Education and Sustainability (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Ecology (11 works) · Social science (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Publishing (9 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (8 works)