Environmental artworks can enhance children’s learning about sustainabilityThe arts provide a powerful approach for increasing awareness of sustainability issues. This study examined children’s experience in viewing images and media artworks by the artist Chris Jordan, whose work highlights environmental and social justice concerns. In the study, children viewed and discussed an online image gallery related to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: <em>Life below water</em>.
Twenty-eight children in Brisbane, Australia, ranging in age from four to 12 years old, participated in the study. Interviews were conducted with children individually as they explored an online gallery of sustainability-themed media artworks and images by Jordan. The gallery depicted many negative impacts of human activity on the global ecosystem. By viewing the gallery’s “confronting images,” the study aimed to examine how children might respond to “the enormity of the sustainability issues explored in Jordan’s work.” For instance, “Would conversations about images depicting vast statistics and photographs of dead albatross chicks killed by plastic, for example, offer any useful opportunities for learning about sustainability?” Due to the potential risk involved in exposing children to upsetting images, the children’s parents or guardians were present during interviews. Additionally, parents/guardians were given access to the gallery prior to the interviews so that they were able to preview the images their children might encounter. During the interviews, the researcher guided the children to image galleries related to sustainability topics; however, the children were given freedom to explore and could choose not to view suggested images. Interview data were analyzed thematically.
Analysis revealed five key themes. The theme “connections to prior experiences and knowledge” demonstrated how children formed associations between Jordan’s images and prior exposure to sustainability issues at home or school. Children also detailed related personal experiences as they viewed and reflected on the images. The theme “linking with local contexts and places” showed how viewing the images afforded children opportunities to think about their local ecosystems and consider how pollution is impacting nearby wildlife. The theme “emotional engagement with the images” captured children’s emotional response to viewing the images, with feelings of sadness being most described. Children also expressed empathy for wildlife harmed by human actions and described the images as “depressing” and “disgusting.” The theme “solutions/action-taking, both individual and systemic” revealed how the artworks facilitated discussion about potential solutions to environmental problems and the actions children felt they could take. Children frequently suggested recycling plastic or reducing plastic consumption, cleaning up trash, and making sustainable food choices. The final theme, “post-humanism/human-nature binary,” was evident in the responses of some children who viewed humans as inherently connected to the ecosystems and animals depicted in the images. Some children drew connections between environmental degradation and eventual impacts on human health.
Findings demonstrate the potential of arts-based experiences for enhancing education for sustainability. Though this study exposed children to images of extreme environmental degradation, the author acknowledges that some environmental education scholars have differing views about whether this type of exposure is beneficial for young children. However, with the guidance of supportive adults, the study revealed that engaging with confronting environmental artworks “provided children with a platform to express their deep emotions about what is happening in the world and the impact humans are having on non-human species with which they share this planet.”
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