Abstract
This paper explores the possibilities of a more-than-human education — an approach to teaching and learning that resists anthropocentrism and cultivates relational sensibilities across human and nonhuman life-worlds. Its purpose is to theorize ecological education through the lens of Gaia theory and environmental phenomenology, and to illustrate this framework through classroom practices developed over multiple semesters in university-level sustainability courses. Using reflective and hermeneutic methods, the study draws on curricular materials, literary and philosophical texts, student assignments, and pedagogical rituals to examine how education can foster embodied awareness, ethical responsibility, and sensuous engagement with the more-than-human world. The paper details practices such as invitational pedagogy, relational language frameworks, movement-based rituals, and sustained sustainability journaling, which collectively encourage students to perceive, feel, and act in reciprocity with ecological systems. The findings suggest that more-than-human education is most effective when embedded in lived, bodily, and sensorial experiences, contests anthropocentric assumptions, and cultivates imaginative and ethical capacities for ecological responsiveness. The implications extend to curriculum design, pedagogical strategies, and community-responsive practice, offering a model for educators to integrate ecological consciousness, ethical agency, and experiential learning into higher education. By attending to the relational and affective dimensions of learning, this work advances both sustainability education and ecological theory, providing concrete pathways for cultivating ethically and sensorially attuned learners in a time of planetary urgency.
Presenters
John MullenAssistant Professor of Sustainability Education, College of Education/School of Earth & Environment, Rowan University, New Jersey, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION, EDUCATIONAL THEORY, ENVIRONMENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY, PLACE-BASED EDUCATION, GAIA THEORY
