Research

INTRODUCTION

Sustainable human development relies on repositioning humans within our ecocentric reality: being one species cooperating with all others to ensure life on Earth (Folke et al. 2011, Schoon and Van Der Leeuw 2015, Ives et al. 2017, Pascual et al. 2023). At least since the Anthropocene, the primary approach to managing Earth’s resources has been anthropocentric. This worldview places humans at the center of importance, prioritizing human needs, interests, and well-being over those of other species and ecosystems. By disregarding the interconnectedness of all living systems, this unrealistic understanding on biospheric ecology has failed to establish a safe, just, and resilient foundation for future generations of humans to thrive (Folke et al. 2021, Richardson et al. 2023).

To resolve the “values crisis” underpinning biodiversity loss, climate change, and socio-environmental injustices, there is an urgent need for a deliberate shift in how we attribute value to, manage, and overall relate to the biosphere (Pascual et al. 2023, IPBES 2024). This is not a personal transformation, but a transformation of the relationships between humans and the biosphere that we have historically adopted and embedded in our everyday practices, systems, and infrastructures (Huntjens 2021). Much like the Copernican revolution, which replaced a geocentric worldview with a heliocentric one, a shift toward ecocentrism represents a collective recognition of our non-dominant ecological role on Earth, grounded in recent scientific discoveries. As in disciplines ranging from medicine to technology, human progress aimed at ensuring long-term well-being and prosperity should rely on robust scientific evidence rather than self-centered, arbitrary perspectives.

Transformative sustainability education fosters this “reality revolution” by reshaping the relationships between people and planet toward a planetary culture (Singer-Brodowski 2023, Lange 2023). Similarly, ecocentric education advocates for a shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric worldviews (Kopnina 2020a, 2020b). For these educational interventions to be truly transformative, they must extend their impact beyond the classroom, shaping both individual learning and broader societal values. The transformative potential of these interventions depends to how effectively they foster a regenerative (rather than degenerative) alignment between individuals’ inner worldviews and the external values reinforced by the surrounding social norms and spatial configurations (Giusti and Samuelsson 2020, Ives et al. 2023). Achieving this regenerative compatibility requires designing and evaluating educational practices in close relation to the social, spatial, and cultural realities of the surrounding community.

We contribute to this effort by addressing calls for nature-based, ecocentric, and transformative approaches to sustainability education (Kopnina and Meijers 2014, Kopnina 2020a, Sass et al. 2020, Griffiths 2021, Redvers et al. 2023, IPBES 2024). Real-world interventions in these educational processes require a tool to design and evaluate human-nature relationships (HNR) that considers their compatibility with diverse spatial, cultural, and educational settings. Specifically, we apply a social-ecological methodology in two case studies to evaluate how aligning nature-based education with its social-ecological context foster ecocentric HNR. In Brazil, we examine how situating rural education within the everyday natural and cultural settings of students influences their HNR. In Sweden, we assess how diverse ecological features surrounding urban forest preschools facilitate meaningful nature experiences.

Limitations of disembodied methodologies

A strong connection with nature fosters pro-environmental behaviors (Saunders 2003, Gifford 2014, Zylstra et al. 2014), supports sustainable landscape management (Lewicka 2011, Meyfroidt 2013), and promotes biological conservation (Miller et al. 2006, Simaika and Samways 2010). Moreover, ecocentric HNR are also crucial for the sustainable future of our cities (Marcus et al. 2016, Colding et al. 2020, McPhearson et al. 2021, Giusti et al. 2023) and for effective public health policies (Seymour 2016, Giusti and Samuelsson 2020, Martin et al. 2020, Huntjens 2021). How these insights contribute to different aspects of a sustainable future is evident, yet different epistemological foundations (Ives et al. 2017), interdisciplinary incongruencies (Nagatsu et al. 2023), and their decontextualization from real-life situations hinder their application in practical policy interventions (Thrupp et al. 2007, Giusti et al. 2022), spatial planning (Giusti and Samuelsson 2020), and education (Thrupp et al. 2007).

Some of these limitations stem from the modern academic context, in which strict disciplinary boundaries and disembodied methodologies (i.e., methods that separating mind from body and subject from object) have shaped most conceptualizations, empirical studies, and scientific assessments, including those for HNR (see Gifford 2014, Meyfroidt 2013, Tam 2013 for reviews). In these cases, most validated methods to quantitatively evaluate HNR are psychometric assessments that associate people’s HNR with measures of environmental attitudes, affinity, or awareness (Tam 2013, Gifford 2014, Cartwright and Mitten 2018) or with a connection to an abstract representation of nature isolated from the surrounding ecological landscape (Capaldi et al. 2014, Whitburn et al. 2020, Barrable et al. 2024). These studies have outstanding value for uncovering cause-effect mechanisms behind personal pro-nature behaviors. However, they often yield assessments that are inter-correlated, converge to a single factor, or lack multi-dimensionality (Tam 2013). For example, Rosa and Collado (2019) found evidence linking nature experiences, environmental attitudes, and pro-environmentalism, yet they also report contradictory results and noted a critical shortcoming: the impossibility to provide practical guidelines for nature engagement because the evaluations ignored people’s everyday life and context. By neglecting the feedback loops between the social-ecological context and sustainable habits (Linder et al. 2022), these evaluations offer limited guidance for value-promotion policies in everyday life (Chater and Loewenstein 2023, Gal and Rucker 2023). Moreover, by separating the mind from the body and isolating individuals from their acting contexts, these methodologies disregard the social-ecological drivers of behaviors (e.g., habits, social norms, spatial infrastructure) that fundamentally shape the perception, formation, and perpetuation of anthropocentric or ecocentric values in daily life.

These limitations are evident in practice. Although, ecocentric HNR have been considered transformative leverages, if not essential requirements, for achieving just and sustainable futures for nearly a decade (Abson et al. 2017, Pascual et al. 2023, Raymond et al. 2023), they have rarely been applied in practical transformative interventions (Dorninger et al. 2020). Similarly, nature-based educators and professionals have emphasized the need for context-sensitive tools to capture a diverse and culturally specific range of nature connections and to validate the positive impact of different nature-based activities on different people (Charles et al. 2018, Salazar et al. 2021). Shifting HNR in practice requires an understanding of both the educational interventions and their capacity to influence, or be influenced by, their local context. These considerations underscore the necessity of investigating the embodied aspects of HNR and determining what types of interventions (e.g., educational, social, infrastructural) are needed to ensure their effective application in practice.

A social-ecological approach to transformative sustainability education

In line with emerging research (Bennett and Reyers 2024, van Heel et al. 2024) and solution-oriented sustainability science (Lang and Wiek 2022), this paper prioritizes the practical requirements of real-world sustainable interventions for transformative sustainability education. Drawing on insights from several disciplines, it becomes clear that the value that people attribute to nature derives from complex relationships that people have developed over time with their surrounding landscapes as part of their social identities (Giusti et al. 2014, Marcus et al. 2016, Giusti 2019, Riechers et al. 2020). For example, taking into account the social and ecological context of people’s connection with nature improves the prediction of the desire to protect nature from 33% to 47% (Giusti 2019). Duffy and Verges (2010) also demonstrated that seasonal and meteorological factors significantly influence people’s connection with nature. Within sense of place literature, attachment and commitment to preserving natural areas are closely linked to the personal and collective meanings that people ascribe to these landscapes (Masterson et al. 2017, Raymond et al. 2017).

The collection of meanings embedded in our personal definitions of “nature” incorporate both spatial and social factors (Giusti 2019). Consequently, our relationship with nature should not be viewed as a psychological attribute tied to an abstract and external “nature” object. HNR is a complex relationship we have developed over time, where the experienced landscape and its socially constructed meaning are of crucial importance (Castree 2013, Giusti et al. 2018, Giusti 2019).

Following a similar relational turn in sustainability science (Abson et al. 2017, Chan et al. 2018, West et al. 2020), there is reason to believe that enhancing the practical usability of HNR in education, policy, and practice requires an approach that situates people’s HNR within their surrounding social-ecological system (Gupta et al. 2024, Ituarte-Lima et al. 2024). By conceptualizing and evaluating HNR as embodied relationships within their social and ecological contexts, ecocentric values and worldviews can be understood, assessed, and practically addressed in daily life and local government strategies. Together, these efforts have the potential to catalyze the systemic transformation that sustainability education aims to promote.

METHODS

A relational, embodied, and transdisciplinary framework

The assessment framework operationalized here was the ACHUNAS framework (i.e., Assessment framework for Children’s Human Nature Situations; Giusti et al. 2018). This framework is theoretically grounded on relational values (Chan et al. 2016, 2018), radical embodied cognitive science (Chemero 2013), affordance theory (Gibson 2014), and embodied ecosystems (Raymond et al. 2018). ACHUNAS was inductively developed by synthesizing the professional insights of 275 international practitioners with an average of 15.5 years of experience in promoting children’s HNR (Giusti et al. 2018) and integrating them with an interdisciplinary systematic literature review of HNR (Ives et al. 2017).

In line with the theory of affordances, actualized nature experiences serve as the entry point for evaluation. This represents the actualization of the relationship between the surrounding social-ecological context and the individual’s capacity to engage with it. These person-context relationships can be characterized as either regenerative (i.e., simultaneously promote the health of people and the ecosystems) or degenerative compatibility (i.e., promoting one at the expenses of the other; Giusti and Samuelsson 2020). In general, owing to our evolutionary history of communion with the biosphere (Kellert and Wilson 1995), nature experiences often embody ecocentric and regenerative value with direct impact on nature protection (Soga and Gaston 2020, 2024a), and climate change mitigation (Soga and Gaston 2024b). Drawing on the transdisciplinary synthesis mentioned above, ACHUNAS identifies 16 emotional, cognitive, physical, and social factors that meaningfully contribute to ecocentric HNR (Table 1).

Following Lengieza et al. (2023), we compare the development of HNR to the development of interpersonal relationships. Just as relationships with people build progressively, our capacity to relate with nature evolves over time through meaningful nature experiences that reinforce the gradual development of specific emotional, cognitive, physical, and social competencies (see Table 2). These competencies can be categorized in progressive phases (i.e., being in nature, being with nature, being for nature) that align with the shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric worldviews. Appendices 1 and 2 provide an updated and detailed description of this framework based on the insights obtained during its empirical implementation in this and other studies (Mäkelä 2019, Garbett 2020, Geytenbeek 2023, Sandin Larkander 2023). To the best of our knowledge, ACHUNAS is the only transdisciplinary synthesis of HNR that combines academic and professional expertise and proposes a framework for their evaluation.

Procedure

In this study, ACHUNAS was used to investigate two different educational contexts: rural schools in Brazil and forest preschools in Sweden. These case studies have been chosen to ensure the usability of the framework across different cultural and spatial settings. Details about the specific case studies are provided below. Considering the young age of participants, in addition to standard ethical research procedures (i.e., informed consent, confidentiality, transparency), considerations were made to prioritize and ensure children’s safety, well-being, and respect their autonomy, privacy, and cultural preferences.

Case study 1: Contextualizing rural education

Background

The aim of this case study was to investigate if the contextualization of rural education in the surrounding social and ecological context affected HNR (for details see Mäkelä 2019). This case study investigated three schools relatively close to each other (within 150 km) located within municipalities that have similar socioeconomic standards. All schools were at the southern edge of the Amazon biome in Mato Grosso (i.e., central-western Brazil), were all surrounded by similar rural ecosystems, and were all part of the public education system promoting rural education (educação do campo in Portuguese). A distinguishing factor between these schools was that one used a conventional pedagogical approach to rural education based on standard environmental education (hereafter “conventional school”), whereas the other two schools situated their teaching activities in the surrounding community and environment (hereafter “situated schools”).

In general, situated education refers to a pedagogical approach that emphasizes learning in authentic, real-world contexts, placing educational activities within the natural settings and the cultural context in which students live (Anderson et al. 1996, Durning and Artino 2011). This means that situated schools produced fruit and vegetables that were processed and cooked as school meals, they involved students in the school management and maintenance and adjusted educational activities to the demands and culture of the surrounding community, while conventional schools did not.

In situated schools, students engaged with the outdoors regularly using the school garden and the surrounding ecosystems as learning spaces and their educational activities were directly applied to the students’ social context, encouraging them to gain knowledge and learn skills that were relevant in their community. In contrast, the educational activities in the conventional school were mostly confined and restricted to indoor settings and dissociated from children’s everyday life, social context, values, or norms. The intended learning outcomes of situated schools were not knowledge alone, but the development of a regenerative compatibility between the competencies and norms taught in rural education and the surrounding social and ecological context.

In this case study, the hypothesis was that situated schools offered more comprehensive opportunities for students to develop richer relationships with nature than conventional schools. Because their curriculums were standardized at the national level, and the socioeconomic and ecological context were similar, we feel confident that these schools could be compared on their different levels of contextualization of rural education.

Methods

First, participatory observation was performed to assess the quantity and quality of nature-based activities occurring during one week of educational activities. For each school, outdoor activities were observed during a standard school week that did not include any extra-curricular activities (i.e., four to six days). During the observation of these activities, the list of meaningful attributes (Table 2) was used to deductively code these activities. Written notes were made during the observation and then were digitally transcribed into codes.

Second, students’ HNR was assessed via semi-structured interviews framed from the competencies listed in ACHUNAS and the attributes previously evaluated (see Table 1). Each competence was investigated through two to five questions according to the specifics of the interview (see Appendix 2 for the interview guide). Each competence was coded “reached” when all answers for that participant indicated that the competence was reached. If the participant’s responses were in conflict, some positive and some negative or all negative, the competence was coded as “not reached.” Third, participants were asked about the role that the school had in shaping their relationship with nature. These latter answers were coded inductively to explore the role of the schools in promoting participants’ HNR.

In total, 32 randomly selected students between 6 and 19-years-old were interviewed, 17 from situated schools and 16 from conventional schools. The requirement was that the interviewee had attended the school for at least one year. The interviews were conducted, recorded, and transcribed in Portuguese, the mother tongue of the interviewees, and then translated to English for coding. The interviews were conducted in a setting with little distraction and all questions were adapted to the participants’ age during the interview to ensure that each respondent was able to understand and answer meaningfully.

Results

The participatory observations resulted in the assessment of 25 meaningful nature-based activities from the situated schools and seven from the conventional school. The nature-based activities observed resulted in 225 codes representing all attributes that made these activities meaningful for HNR. These codes show that the nature-based activities in situated schools were richer (on average 8.7 and 6.9 attributes per activity in situated schools; 3.8 attributes per activity in the conventional school) and more complete (only 1 attribute missing in situated schools; 10 attributes missing for the conventional school), thus more likely to be meaningful to promote HNR (Fig. 1a).

The 32 semi-structured interviews performed showed that, as hypothesized, students in situated schools developed stronger and more complex relationships with nature than their fellows in conventional schools despite following the same curriculum for rural education (Fig. 1b). All participants in situated schools achieved four competencies for ecocentric HNR (i.e., comfort, lived life, stewardship, and care), whereas no competence was fully achieved by anyone in the conventional school. On average, participants in the conventional school showed 23% less reached competencies than their fellow counterparts and a remarkably inferior ability to feel one with nature (94% in situated schools; 29% in the conventional school). The quote bellow is representative of this difference:

That place where I go to bathe in the river. ... There’s a rock higher than the others. I climb on that rock and stay there, relaxing, my feet in the water. ... It’s a sacred place where I go to meditate, to think about life, sometimes to let angry feelings come out, to relax ... (17-year-old from situated school).

Students in situated schools also recognized the importance of situating educational activities performed in school in their own everyday life and how this affected their relationships with nature. The quote below exemplifies this point.

So, here at the school we learn a lot to give value, because we produce, we consume what we produced, so you see the importance of this. (16-year-old from situated school)

Here at the school we don’t deal much with nature. But since I arrived here [from the city to the countryside], my relationship with nature has changed because now I live in the countryside. But because of the school, no. (17-year-old from conventional school)

Case study 2: The ecological enablers of forest preschools

Background

The aim of case study 2 was to investigate spatial factors that enable children’s HNR (for details see Garbett 2020). This case study investigated three I Ur och Skur preschools from different locations in Stockholm (Sweden). I Ur och Skur, approximately translated as “In rain and shine,” is a full-time outdoor pedagogy that aims to inspire an emotional and cognitive connection to the natural world. Preschool 1 was a newly purpose-built outdoor preschool located in a new residential area. The school had a private natural area in the middle, natural areas radiating out behind the school building, and a larger public nature area accessible via a 15-minute walk. The area around the school was under extensive construction work and a teacher noted that in the four years since the school opened, the number of natural areas accessible from the school had decreased significantly. Preschool 2 was situated on a quiet residential street with direct access to the surrounding forest. The school had a private yard of approximately 5000 m² with trees, wooden play structures, and plants. Preschool 3 was situated within an apartment block in a densely built residential area. This school did not have its own school yard but used a nearby playpark and public natural area that was characterized by forest, gentle slopes, and clearings. In this case study, the hypothesis was that these spatial variations provide relevant variability to identify ecological enablers facilitating ecocentric education in forest preschools.

Methods

As for case study 1, coding the meaningfulness of outdoor activities was the first step. For each preschool, outdoor activities were observed during a standard week that did not include any extra-curriculum activities (i.e., five to six days) and deductively coded using the list of attributes of meaningful nature experience in ACHUNAS (see Table 2). During these observations, the essential spatial properties that enabled these nature-based educational activities were also noted. For each nature activity, the observations identified physical attributes of the landscape and organic or artificial materials that were indispensable to these nature-based activities. Thus, each nature activity was coded for its meaningful attributes to promote HNR with the associated spatial enablers. All written notes made during the observation were digitally transcribed into codes in Atlas.ti. An iterative coding process was used to cluster all the initial codes for the spatial properties into meaningful categories based on their similarity (e.g., bucket, spade, and balls as “toys”).

Results

During 17 days of observations, 953 different nature-based activities were recorded (preschool 1 = 261; preschool 2 = 348; preschool 3 = 344) with the associated 3415 meaningful attributes. The spatial properties of these activities were coded into 23 different spatial properties (see Appendix 3 for details) resulting in 1765 total codes divided into three categories (i.e., landscape, organic materials, artificial materials). In line with the I Ur och Skur pedagogy, the outdoor activities were often fun (46%) and self-driven (70%), rarely surprising (2%) or directly involving animals (6%; Fig. 2a). An ANOVA analysis showed that the activities performed across preschools were not significantly different in their combined potential to promote HNR (F[2,45] = 0.35, P = 0.7). Yet, the spatial contexts of these nature-based educational activities were meaningfully different (Fig. 2b). Preschool 1 had limited surrounding nature, so 98% of their outdoor activities involved artificial materials (e.g., toys, table, and play structures). Differently, the outdoor activities of preschool 2 and 3 relied less on artificial materials (30%; 46%). In 91% and 85% of the times these activities had a direct interaction with the natural landscape (e.g., forest floor, trees, loose grounds) and in 34% and 21% of the times, with all the organic materials naturally available (e.g., tree matter, fauna, and edible and non-edible flora).

By analyzing the co-occurrence between connecting and spatial attributes we investigated how the different spatial contexts of preschools promoted different kinds of nature experiences (see Fig. 3). Starting by calculating the coefficients of variation (i.e., [SD/mean]) we see low variability for mindful (0.06) and sensorial (0.11) activities, medium variability for self-driven (0.16), restorative (0.20), guided (0.23), endorsed (0.26), and artistic (0.28) activities, but high variability for challenging (0.30), physical (0.30), intimate (0.32), fun (0.34), structured (0.36), surprising (0.46), mind-expanding (0.49), awe-inspiring (0.48), and activities involving animals (0.56). These latter high variabilities had correspondence in the natural context of the preschools (see Fig. 3). The forest floor, fauna, and non-edible flora were considerably associated with experiences that were mind-expanding (27%; 19%; 14%), awe-inspiring (22%; 44%; 24%), surprising (17%; 26%; 22%), and intimate (14%; 9%; 20%). Still, it was the presence of trees, tree matter, and the life that comes with the forest floor that were essential enablers of most significant nature experiences. Trees and tree matter were involved in challenging (43%; 19%), physical (38%; 14%), intimate (28%; 20%), fun (23%; 14%), surprising (22%; 9%), and mind-expanding (12%; 21%) activities (see Fig. 3). Combined, trees, tree matter, fauna, and flora were part of 69% of all the nature-based activities recorded.

DISCUSSION

Ecology as a spatial enabler for ecocentric education

The landscape is a dominant enabler of nature experiences and a driver of nature-rich or nature-poor routines (Giusti et al. 2014, Giusti 2019, Colding et al. 2020). The case study in Brazil showed that when rural education was situated in the landscape, students reached competencies of HNR that students in the conventional school did not. For example, by growing and processing food for the school meals, students in situated schools directly engaged with the ecology that supports their produce. Over time, these students learned to recognize and treasure the value of the surrounding landscape by developing cognitive (i.e., ecological knowledge), physical (i.e., comfort in nature), spatial (i.e., natural place attachment), and spiritual (i.e., oneness) competencies. Unlike students from conventional schools, these students’ HNR were deeply embedded in the local ecological system.

The Swedish case study expanded on the role of the ecological context. The spatial attributes surrounding the preschools determined the types of nature experiences available to children and shaped the range of nature-based activities that teachers could implement. Most notably, the forest floor proved to be a critical enabler of mind-expanding, awe-inspiring, surprising, and sensorial nature-based activities. Trees were essential in providing organic materials, logs, and branches for nature-based playing. Edible and non-edible plants or insects and animals allowed for intimate, awe-inspiring, and surprising nature experiences. Combined, the forest with its diverse flora and fauna was the literal enabling ground for 69% of all meaningful nature-based activities recorded. In promoting transformative sustainability education, the enabling role of a functional ecological system surrounding the school grounds cannot be underestimated.

Situating transformative sustainability education

The Brazilian case study showed that when rural education was integrated within the surrounding social-ecological context, the students’ relationships with nature improved significantly. Through participation in situated rural education, students became comfortable in their ecological surroundings (i.e., comfort in nature), developed lasting memories with nature (i.e., lived life), and demonstrated a commitment to caring and advocating for nature conservation (i.e., care and stewardship for nature). Overall, they developed a closer and richer relationship with nature and a considerably higher spiritual attachment to the landscape (i.e., oneness with nature) than their counterparts in the conventional rural school.

Given the limited number of observed days, we hypothesize that these tangible differences in HNR were not an outcome of the nature-activities that we observed, but rather the results of long-term feedback mechanisms. Situated rural education helped to normalize the ecocentric activities and worldviews promoted in school within the broader system of norms, values, and habits. Over time, the values upheld within the schools became increasingly more compatible with those outside of it, facilitating a regenerative trajectory. Thus, transformative sustainability education would benefit from initiating pro-nature behaviors and ecocentric learning in schools, considering them as catalyst of broader nature-rich routines outside, beyond the classroom.

The highly urbanized environments where the Swedish preschools were located posed some obstacles to this process. Whereas in the Brazilian case study educational activities were encouraged to have a permanent impact on the functioning of the community, in contrast, each day the Swedish preschools had to remove all educational materials to minimize any lasting impact on the surrounding environments. Although, the benefits of forest preschools for promoting ecocentric HNR are undisputed; the surrounding system of property rights, urban management, and existing social norms impeded the integration of such relationships into the surrounding social-ecological system. Thus, the transformative potential of sustainability education in this case seemed to be limited by the social agreements in place that defined access, management, and use of urban spaces (Colding et al. 2020).

Pedagogical considerations for transformative sustainability education

Our results show that ecocentric values and actions promoted in educational settings can have transformative potential when they are integrated with the surrounding ecology and embedded within the prevailing system of norms, values, and habits. When planning educational activities, it is therefore crucial to evaluate their compatibility with the surrounding ecology and social context. Transformative sustainability education must ensure not only that nature experiences exist, are frequent, diverse, and are meaningful in promoting ecocentric HNR, but also that there are self-reinforcing feedback loops with the surrounding social-ecological system capable of extending their educational value outside of school. The extent to which nature-based education can effectively be transformative is indeed affected by what the surrounding social-ecological context allows, promotes, or constrains. Our results suggest that a rich ecology is central to meaningful nature experiences, that integrating nature-based activities in the social-ecological context encourages self-reinforcing feedback loops that can promote ecocentrism, and that the integration of educational practices can be constrained in cities where space is highly valuable and is bound to pre-determined functions.

Examining the compatibilities, synergies, and trade-offs between what the social-ecological context allows and what is pedagogically required to promote HNR is paramount for enriching people’s relationships with nature and ultimately influence the cultural premises of sustainable habits and routines via education. Situated pedagogical approaches and communal nature-based activities are examples of educational strategies for transformative sustainability education that can extend ecocentric education beyond the school boundaries. Spatially, school grounds can serve as the beating heart of transformative cultural change, fostering nature-rich routines and pro-nature behaviors within the local community.

This would leverage schools as pivotal social-ecological agents of transformative sustainability. Considering the social-ecological context of schools for sustainability education would also allow for the exploitation of additional synergies and co-benefits between nature-based learning and nature-based solutions. For example, school grounds are ideal locations for nature-based solutions that could mitigate the worst effects of climate change while boosting children’s health, well-being, and personal development. These synergistic considerations are particularly relevant for policies in urban areas where available space for rewilding is limited, but nature-based solutions to the climate, ecological, and inequality crises are highly sought after.

BeNature: a practical framework to design and evaluate transformative sustainability education

Whether in urban or rural settings, professionals in nature-based and transformative sustainability education require a practical framework to both design ecocentric educational curricula and evaluate their effectiveness. Through these two case studies we assessed the robustness of our original framework (i.e., ACHUNAS), identified potential variations, and determined the extent to which it could capture and accommodate the nuances of different spatial and cultural settings. This gave us insights to adapt, modify, and update it to ensure its usability across contexts, enhancing its generalizability and applicability. We term the updated version of this methodology BeNature (see Appendix 1). BeNature is designed to further ease the design and evaluation of progressive curricula to promote the transformational shift from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism.

BeNature offers a structure of progressive competencies to gradually shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric worldviews (Appendix 1: Competencies for human-nature relationships). For each competency in this progression, schools and educators can design educational activities tailored to their students and their social and ecological context. For example, in designing an ecocentric activity, BeNature can be used to identify the intended learning competence for each activity, its suitability with the participants given their HNR, and create a progressive portfolio of activities suitable for transformative sustainable education.

By being a relational and context-aware framework, BeNature enables the evaluation of synergies and barriers that exist between the activity and its social-ecological context. Educational activities can be designed to maximize such synergies, by evaluating the compatibility between the intended educational activities and their context, as demonstrated by our Brazilian case study. Alternatively, barriers and discrepancies between the educational goals of the activity and the context can be identified, addressed, or mitigated, as seen in our Swedish forest schools.

The list of attributes for meaningful nature-based activities (see Appendix 1: Attributes of meaningful nature experiences) serves as additional inspiration for enriching educational activities and facilitating their comparison. The evaluation of educational activities may highlight the lack of certain qualities, such as being “fun” or “thought-provoking,” that can be later included to enrich the meaningfulness of the educational activities. This social-ecological approach to sustainability education ensures that the evidence generated can explore potential cause-and-effect mechanisms alongside the structural and complex enabling factors that have a significant long-term influence on HNR. BeNature opens the possibility for designing and evaluating curricula for transformative sustainability education.

CONCLUSION

Our study explored how the spatial and social contexts enabled or limited nature experiences that are meaningful for developing ecocentric HNR. We approached this investigation with a transdisciplinary and relational framework to address the practical requirements of real-world transformative sustainability education. Adopting a social-ecological approach to investigating HNR allowed us to note ecological and social properties that enable ecocentric education, promote its effectiveness, and perpetuate its learned outcomes outside of the classroom. Forests, trees, flora, and fauna provided many of the attributes that define meaningful nature-based activities. Integrating rural education in their surrounding community significantly enhanced the integration of ecocentric values in students’ HNR.

The compatibility between educational practices and their social-ecological context is essential to resolve the “value-crisis” of our time through education. To leverage the potential of HNR as a transformative intervention for sustainability we must approach and evaluate HNR as relationships, embrace their complexity, and contextualize them in their social and spatial context. With the further development of the BeNature framework (see Appendix 1), this paper provides an initial transdisciplinary structure to design and evaluate embodied curricula for transformative sustainability education.

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