Enriching Environmental Education Through Two-Eyed Seeing

Are human beings a part of nature, or are they separate? When Simon Fraser University (SFU) education professor and UNESCO Chair in Bio-cultural Diversity and Education David Zandvliet asks this question, most people respond that humans are separate from nature. Even though humans depend on nature for their very existence, most consider the natural world to be apart from them.

It is this disconnect from nature, says Zandvliet, that needs to be addressed in order for people to understand and confront ecological challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity. His recent paper, A Two-Eyed Seeing Teaching and Learning Framework for Science Education, with Connie Cirkony and John Kenny from the University of Tasmania, explores how the dominant Western science reproduces this disconnect. Alternatively, around the world, Indigenous science and knowledge has evolved as intricate relationships with lands and resources, over thousands of years.

He practices and advocates for a Two-Eyed Seeing Approach in his research and teaching, a concept developed by Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall at the University of Cape Bretton, which seeks to integrate the strengths of Indigenous ways of knowing with the strengths of Western science. Zandvliet’s Two-Eyed Seeing for Science Education (TESSE) Framework, combines the five “E’s” of teaching and learning (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) with the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning developed by Tyson Yunkaporta, for the benefit of all students.

As UNESCO Chair and the founding director of the Institute for Environmental Learning, Zandvliet’s career interests lie in the areas of science and environmental education with a special focus on the study of learning environments. He leads environmental education programming at SFU and has directed field schools in diverse locations like Haida Gwaii, Hawaii, Indonesia and Australia. He recently led a field school to Arusha, Tanzania, where students explored climate change and community resilience within a rural setting.