Ecologizing pedagogical artifacts: teacher learning through art-based collaboration

Despite growing studies supporting the value of art-based environmental education interventions, limited attention has been given to the pedagogical artifacts that underpin such initiatives and their role in shaping environmental learning. We consider how centering the pedagogical artifacts lends itself to deeper reflections about their relationship and embeddedness in the immediate environment. Drawing on participatory-design methodology, our research focuses on the collaborative processes between an artist and a pre-service science teacher, as part of a community-based research–design partnership. The findings indicate how participation in the artist’s approach to session design led the pre-service teacher and other facilitators to ecologize pedagogical artifacts along lines of material sourcing, Land histories, frugality, wastage, and reuse. In this process, the pre-service teacher reimagined her teaching aims and practices through increased attention to the local environment. The collaborations made space for emergent teacher learning anchored in embodied experiences mediated by engagements with the pedagogical artifacts. Through centering the design and deliberation of artifacts as constitutive of onto-epistemic experiences, our study illustrates a possible pathway to support expansive pedagogies through art-based collaborations.