Abstract:

Effective communication depends on shared understanding of the words / concepts being used between people. This presentation will focus on the differentiation between words (symbols that create an outer shell) and concepts (mental representations within those shells) and the need to create robust definitions of key concepts in the quest of developing ecological consciousness.

The role of definitions in developing deep meaning seems to have dissipated over time in many jurisdictions and may represent a trend towards regression from meaning. However this presentation is not about the learner memorizing textbook definitions for exam purposes but rather the focus is on the need in developing an understanding of key ecological concepts and their meaning through nature embedded embodied experience as found in the ecological macro models that I utilize in my teaching and research.

I will first review various published studies that I have conducted that have identified the limitations that university students currently have in being able to provide definitions for specific ecological concepts. What has been identified in these studies is that many undergraduate and graduate students regularly use words quite articulately without substantive understanding of what the concepts within the words mean.

Reasons for this may include:
i. that defining concepts or learning concept definitions is not a key emphasis in university nor secondary schooling and/or
ii. that teaching a process for students to be able to define concepts in a self-directed manner is absent in schooling and/or
iii. definitions that are memorized from textbooks fade over time.
In the latter case, when asked to write out a definition at a later time (e.g. in another grade or year) for an ecological concept such as biodiversity, fossil fuel, entropy, etc the resulting definitions are limited because the textbook definitions did not result in deep learning. A fourth reason may also be due to the dependence on artificial intelligence to provide answers without having to think for oneself.

Nature embedded embodied experience involves the learner being an active participant in ecological macro-models in outdoor settings such as rivers, bush, fields and parks. In these activities, the learner moves and interacts with their surroundings and other members of the activity as if they are an actual component of the concept under study. Various research studies have demonstrated that this empowers the learner to first start making meaning for themselves from their observations and participation in these ecological macro models from which they can start to derive concept definitions. Rather than learning a decontextualized definition from a textbook, the learner experiences the criterial attributes of the concept first. Subsequently, those criterial attributes can be solidified into definitions through debriefing after the outdoor experiential sessions.

This process of nature-embedded embodied experience may lead to deep learning as the learner now has an internal internal image of the activity that they participated in and can visualize all of the interactions involved in the various components of the concept under study. They carry with them a visual representation, augmented by the emotions felt during the ecological macro-model.

Recommendations for strengthening concept development in education will be discussed.

Keywords:

Ecological Concepts, Embodied Learning, Conceptual Definitions, Experiential Education, Ecological Consciousness.