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Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children

Stephanie R. Januchowski‐Hartley Orcid Logo, Daphne Giannoulatou Orcid Logo, Joelle Evans, Sian Howells

People and Nature, Volume: 7, Issue: 8, Pages: 1840 - 1850

Swansea University Author: Daphne Giannoulatou Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1002/pan3.70041

Abstract

Environmental education is a process that helps children and people of all ages to learn about environments and develop skills to address associated challenges. For early childhood environmental education, place‐ and arts‐based methods can raise children's awareness and appreciation of local en...

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Published in: People and Nature
ISSN: 2575-8314
Published: Wiley 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69844
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last_indexed 2025-10-03T05:56:24Z
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Opportunities exist for combining place&#x2010; and arts&#x2010;based methods in environmental education to engage young people with local environments. Place&#x2010;based teaching intentionally leverages people's senses of place with emphasis on relationships to foster communication and engagement of broader concepts. Place&#x2010; and arts&#x2010;based methods intersect in the exploration of relationality and can create space for children to participate in the construction and modification of place meanings based on their experiences or without having visited a place. In this article, we share a combined place&#x2010; and arts&#x2010;based method to environmental education. Our approach centred on the creation of three visual media to raise river awareness with young children in Swansea, Wales, UK, and to encourage them to communicate about river places that have meaning to them. Educational activities that raise young children's awareness and encourages them to communicate about the meanings they hold for rivers can empower them to enact change. We chart the process of making and sharing Jac's River Adventure book and then give focus to a specific case that influenced our method and resulted in the creation of two additional visual media inspired by children's responses to Jac's River Adventure book. We discuss three key learnings from our creative and environmental education work, including that (1) tensions between fiction and non&#x2010;fiction can diversify pathways to environmental knowledge and nature connection; (2) anticipation of teacher enrichment and student engagement beyond initial environmental education activities is necessary; and (3) online environmental education for classrooms challenges relationship building. 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spelling 2025-10-02T09:17:43.4377537 v2 69844 2025-06-30 Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children 073f2fd6d1fa87a05fa4cb955c6c2017 0000-0003-4882-5653 Daphne Giannoulatou Daphne Giannoulatou true false 2025-06-30 BGPS Environmental education is a process that helps children and people of all ages to learn about environments and develop skills to address associated challenges. For early childhood environmental education, place‐ and arts‐based methods can raise children's awareness and appreciation of local environments by avoiding over‐reliance on scientific explanations. Opportunities exist for combining place‐ and arts‐based methods in environmental education to engage young people with local environments. Place‐based teaching intentionally leverages people's senses of place with emphasis on relationships to foster communication and engagement of broader concepts. Place‐ and arts‐based methods intersect in the exploration of relationality and can create space for children to participate in the construction and modification of place meanings based on their experiences or without having visited a place. In this article, we share a combined place‐ and arts‐based method to environmental education. Our approach centred on the creation of three visual media to raise river awareness with young children in Swansea, Wales, UK, and to encourage them to communicate about river places that have meaning to them. Educational activities that raise young children's awareness and encourages them to communicate about the meanings they hold for rivers can empower them to enact change. We chart the process of making and sharing Jac's River Adventure book and then give focus to a specific case that influenced our method and resulted in the creation of two additional visual media inspired by children's responses to Jac's River Adventure book. We discuss three key learnings from our creative and environmental education work, including that (1) tensions between fiction and non‐fiction can diversify pathways to environmental knowledge and nature connection; (2) anticipation of teacher enrichment and student engagement beyond initial environmental education activities is necessary; and (3) online environmental education for classrooms challenges relationship building. Our learnings highlight that combined place‐ and arts‐based methods have a role in environmental education and can foster awareness and communication about rivers through engagement and strengthening of local human/non‐human and human/human relationships. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Journal Article People and Nature 7 8 1840 1850 Wiley 2575-8314 arts-based methods, environmental education, inland waters, place-based learning, sense of place 1 8 2025 2025-08-01 10.1002/pan3.70041 COLLEGE NANME Biosciences Geography and Physics School COLLEGE CODE BGPS Swansea University Other European Regional Development Fund. Grant Number: 80761-SU-140 West; Llywodraeth Cymru 2025-10-02T09:17:43.4377537 2025-06-30T11:08:02.1106126 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Stephanie R. Januchowski‐Hartley 0000-0002-1661-917x 1 Daphne Giannoulatou 0000-0003-4882-5653 2 Joelle Evans 3 Sian Howells 4 69844__34622__d4d7f7c8e2c14900973bf686588a28e2.pdf pan3.70041.pdf 2025-06-30T11:08:02.0838660 Output 3216413 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2025 The Author(s). People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC BY-NC). true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
title Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children
spellingShingle Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children
Daphne Giannoulatou
title_short Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children
title_full Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children
title_fullStr Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children
title_full_unstemmed Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children
title_sort Combining visual and linguistic methods to cultivate and communicate river meanings with young children
author_id_str_mv 073f2fd6d1fa87a05fa4cb955c6c2017
author_id_fullname_str_mv 073f2fd6d1fa87a05fa4cb955c6c2017_***_Daphne Giannoulatou
author Daphne Giannoulatou
author2 Stephanie R. Januchowski‐Hartley
Daphne Giannoulatou
Joelle Evans
Sian Howells
format Journal article
container_title People and Nature
container_volume 7
container_issue 8
container_start_page 1840
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
issn 2575-8314
doi_str_mv 10.1002/pan3.70041
publisher Wiley
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
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department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
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description Environmental education is a process that helps children and people of all ages to learn about environments and develop skills to address associated challenges. For early childhood environmental education, place‐ and arts‐based methods can raise children's awareness and appreciation of local environments by avoiding over‐reliance on scientific explanations. Opportunities exist for combining place‐ and arts‐based methods in environmental education to engage young people with local environments. Place‐based teaching intentionally leverages people's senses of place with emphasis on relationships to foster communication and engagement of broader concepts. Place‐ and arts‐based methods intersect in the exploration of relationality and can create space for children to participate in the construction and modification of place meanings based on their experiences or without having visited a place. In this article, we share a combined place‐ and arts‐based method to environmental education. Our approach centred on the creation of three visual media to raise river awareness with young children in Swansea, Wales, UK, and to encourage them to communicate about river places that have meaning to them. Educational activities that raise young children's awareness and encourages them to communicate about the meanings they hold for rivers can empower them to enact change. We chart the process of making and sharing Jac's River Adventure book and then give focus to a specific case that influenced our method and resulted in the creation of two additional visual media inspired by children's responses to Jac's River Adventure book. We discuss three key learnings from our creative and environmental education work, including that (1) tensions between fiction and non‐fiction can diversify pathways to environmental knowledge and nature connection; (2) anticipation of teacher enrichment and student engagement beyond initial environmental education activities is necessary; and (3) online environmental education for classrooms challenges relationship building. Our learnings highlight that combined place‐ and arts‐based methods have a role in environmental education and can foster awareness and communication about rivers through engagement and strengthening of local human/non‐human and human/human relationships. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
published_date 2025-08-01T09:47:36Z
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