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Bridges to Global Citizenship: Ecologically Sustainable

Futures Utilising Children's Literature in Teacher Education

Debbie Bradbery

Australian Journal of Environmental Education / Volume 29 / Issue 02 / December 2013, pp 221 - 237
DOI: 10.1017/aee.2014.7, Published online: 10 March 2014

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How to cite this article:

Debbie Bradbery (2013). Bridges to Global Citizenship: Ecologically Sustainable Futures Utilising
Children's Literature in Teacher Education . Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 29, pp
221-237 doi:10.1017/aee.2014.7

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Australian Journal of Environmental Education, vol. 29(2), 221–237, 2013 221

C The Authors 2014. doi 10.1017/aee.2014.7

Bridges to Global Citizenship: Ecologically

Sustainable Futures Utilising Children’s
Literature in Teacher Education

Debbie Bradbery
University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

Abstract Developing an understanding of the importance of a sustainable future

is vital in helping children to become ‘global citizens’. Global citizens are
those willing to take responsibility for their own actions, respect and value
diversity and see themselves as contributors to a more peaceful and sus-
tainable world. Children’s literature — picture and story books in par-
ticular — can be used as a powerful tool to help even the youngest citi-
zens become aware of the need to assume responsibility for creating and
enjoying a sustainable future through global citizenship. Children’s lit-
erature can be utilised to help children examine and change personal
lifestyles to secure a sustainable future; to identify, investigate, evaluate
and undertake appropriate action to maintain, protect and enhance local
and global environments; to challenge preconceived ideas, accept change
and acknowledge uncertainty and to work cooperatively and in partner-
ships with others. This article explores and examines ways in which
some examples of Australasian children’s literature, specifically Storm Boy
(Thiele, 1963), Lester and Clyde (Reece, 1991), The Waterhole (Base, 2001),
Window (Baker, 1991) and Belonging (Baker, 2004), have been used in a
literacy focused preservice teacher education course to assist preservice
teachers entering their internship school placements to develop children’s
understandings of an ecologically sustainable future. It provides further
insight into methods for embedding teaching for a sustainable future into
pre-service teacher education.

Greater life expectancy, more gender and racial equality, extensive consumer choice,
and some extension of human rights and political freedoms have been just some of the
benefits enjoyed by the world’s peoples due to modern economic developments (Agnello,
White, & Fryer, 2006). But are they really benefits when they are unequally shared and
are associated with such mounting costs as ecological degradation, economic instability,
social exclusion, loss of cultural diversity, and psychological insecurity? How can the
world expect a sustainable future when in varying ways, and to fluctuating extents,
most of the world’s people are living in ways that are ecologically, economically, socially,

Address for correspondence: Debbie Bradbery, University of Newcastle, University

Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308, Australia. Email: [Link]@[Link]
222 Debbie Bradbery

culturally and personally unsustainable (Huckle, 2001)? As the earth exceeds seven
billion human inhabitants, these are questions that must be addressed, particularly as
they pertain to young children as they grow to assume responsibility for the care of the
Earth and its inhabitants. Teachers and teacher educators are crucial in educating the
future leaders to ensure sustainability.

Ecologically Sustainable Futures in Contemporary Childhood

(O)ur sense of responsibility to our land and our community, and our sense of
being a part of a continuum of history, are invisible.
We float as individuals living individual moments in history and time.
We don’t care about the fact that we’re the ancestors of future generations.
(Cullis-Suzuki, Frederickson, Kayassi, Mackenzie, & Cohen, 2007, p. 37)

The Australian Curriculum defines sustainability education as futures focused and

interconnected to issues of global significance.

Sustainability education is futures-oriented, focusing on protecting environ-

ments and creating a more ecologically and socially just world through informed
action. Actions that support more sustainable patterns of living require con-
sideration of environmental, social, cultural and economic systems and their
interdependence. (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Author-
ity [ACARA], 2011, p. 6)

There are many and varied definitions of sustainability, and as Wals and Jickling (2002)
note, these do not always include environmental issues (Littledyke & McRae, 2009);
however, environmental sustainability is important. This is especially so in light of
children’s and young people’s increasing fears for the environment (Strife, 2012), when
the Earth’s resources are being used at an alarming rate that cannot be sustained
indefinitely (Assadourian, 2010). Teacher educators are therefore vital in assisting chil-
dren and young people in working towards securing an ecologically sustainable future
(Anderberg, Norden, & Hansson, 2009) and enacting the knowledge, skills and values
of global citizenship (Davis, 2008).
There is a considerable body of research (Davis, 2008; Holden, 2011; Horton,
Hadfield-Hill, Christensen, & Kraftl, 2013) that claims that childhood is a crucial period
for developing fundamental habits, norms, dispositions, values, lifestyles, identities and
feelings of belonging and care that can have enduring environmental consequences.
Decisions made later in life often have their genus in childhood activities, actions and
beliefs (Mackey, 2012). To enable an ecologically sustainable future it needs to be under-
stood how lifestyle choices can reduce humankind’s impact on the environment and
lead to a decline in conflicts over scarce resources (Blewitt & Cullingford, 2004). The
importance of educating future generations for an ecologically sustainable future can-
not be underestimated. Contemporary childhood is increasingly global in focus and
children are profoundly affected by decisions and events occurring beyond their own
shores, whether they are World Trade Organization agreements, terrorism in New York,
deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, genetic engineering innovations, or a simple
sneeze in China that evolves into a global influenza epidemic (Bliss, 2010). As the world
becomes a ‘smaller’ place, it is important that children and young people understand
this interdependence of communities and all life forms and the impact that decisions
made in one place can and will have in another place (White, 2002). Selby (1999) argues
that by enabling children and young people to acquire the knowledge, skills and values
to make critical choices about these issues they are more likely to be able to identify
 Children’s Literature in Teacher Education 223

and take action to stop the spread of the negative effects of globalisation, considering
the world from a global citizenship perspective.
Some recent research (Roseland, 2012) has revealed that community management
and the active inclusion of the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups has shown
some success in addressing ecological sustainability issues. Approaches that empower
people to bring about legal and political change hold great promise in securing a sus-
tainable future (Selby, 2000). Humanity, whether in an industrialised or a rural sub-
sistence society, relies on the environment for its very existence, and economic growth
cannot occur without having some kind of impact on the environment. The need to use
resources sustainably is, of course, at the heart of an ecologically sustainable future.
As Burnouf (2004, p. 3) argues: ‘children need to be made aware that what affects the
world affects them as well’. Children’s literature may be one way of helping to achieve
this.
To provide for environmental sustainability, children and young people must learn
actions that will preserve, protect and enrich the environments for all species on earth.
As Wals and Jickling (2002) have claimed, economic improvements and practices that
encourage a sustainable future are inextricably related. With education, generations of
future and current consumers can understand how improvements in people’s lifestyles,
reduction of poverty and economic growth can occur without being detrimental to
the lives of the future occupants of this planet (Allen, 2011). The financing needed
to achieve this, however, will need to be many times greater than is currently bud-
geted for in most developed and developing countries (United Nations Development
Programme, 2011). Sustainability cannot be achieved without those in power recog-
nising and taking into account the need for a fair and equitable share of resources
and education on the ecological disposal of waste (Hopwood, Mellor, & O’Brien, 2005);
and modifying the rapidly accelerating overuse of available natural resources (Anand,
2011).
Global citizenship, then, involves understanding the interrelationship between
poverty, social, cultural and political persecution, and global inequality, and being able
to appreciate the interconnectedness of living on Earth (Ferreira, 2013). Educators must
assist students to acknowledge how current and future lifestyle choices can and will
impact on the environment and can lead to conflicts over the ever-increasing scarcity
of resources. It is important for the young people of today to note that these choices
impact now and will continue to in the future, on the world’s poorest inhabitants, as
these are the citizens of the world most at risk. To understand how to work towards
an ecologically sustainable future, children must be assisted to tackle injustice and
inequality and couple economic improvements with ecologically sustainable practices
addressing knowledge and understandings, skills and values (Banbury, Stinerock, &
Subrahmanyan, 2012).
As the problems facing humanity are interconnected and integrated throughout soci-
ety, so must our solutions be integrated across all areas of our learning. Children’s liter-
ature, with rich text, engaging illustrations and strong links to local communities and
cultural ethnicities, can be utilised in teacher education programs (Effeney & Davis,
2013; Ferreira, 2013; Ferreira, Ryan, Davis, Cavanaugh, & Thomas, 2009; Ferreira &
Ryan, 2013) to address some of these connections and demonstrate ways of living sus-
tainably. Highly recognised and award-winning authors of exceptional children’s liter-
ature, such as Colin Thiele, Jeannie Baker, James Reece and Graeme Base, through
the use of rich and detailed descriptions and identifiable and endearing settings and
characters, weave issues of ecological sustainability into their stories, and as such their
texts can be used to integrate teachings about a sustainable future. (Lintner, 2011;
Takenaga, 2012)
224 Debbie Bradbery

Utilising Children’s Literature to Help Secure an Ecologically

Sustainable Future
The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children.
(Quote attributed to Deitrich Bonhoeffer, as cited in Kasser, 2010, p. 213)

There has long been a substantial body of research supporting the many benefits of
using children’s literature and picture books in classrooms to improve the literacy skills
of students (Galda, Ash, & Cullinan, 2001; Galda & Cullinan, 2006), but there have been
fewer studies elucidating the benefits of using children’s literature to teach about global
citizenship and, in particular, to help in ensuring an ecologically sustainable future.
As Reid, Payne, and Cutter-Mackenzie (2010) note, the field of children’s ecoliterature
warrants further deliberation. The use of children’s literature is a well-documented
approach to instilling emotional and affective responses to important issues in educa-
tion (O’Sullivan, 2004), so examining how it can be used to help teach for a sustainable
future will add to the field.
Much of the research identifying the benefits of utilising children’s literature in pri-
mary classrooms concludes that it can be used to entertain, elicit a wealth of emotions,
stretch the imagination and develop compassion in children (Pantaleo, 2002). The read-
ing of children’s literature and the use of visual literacy as a teaching strategy (Anstey
& Bull, 2000; Callow, 2008, 2011) is a common feature of primary classrooms. Shared
reading promotes community and a love of literacy among children and teachers (Hanzl,
1993). Literature has for many years been used in the classroom to address the teach-
ing of literacy. With the introduction of basal type readers and intensive phonics and
grammar programs, however, children’s literature is no longer at the forefront of liter-
acy education in primary schools. The new Australian National Curriculum (ACARA,
2011), which although introducing the study of literature as a separate strand in the
English curriculum, appears to have a clear and intentional emphasis on the teaching
of phonics and grammar as the main tools in teaching children to read (Dewerianka,
2012). Teachers who appreciate the use of children’s literature will need to look beyond
the value of picture books in teaching literacy and use such books to teach many addi-
tional concepts across the curriculum. The use of literature to assist students in under-
standing confronting and sometimes controversial (Simon & Norton, 2011) issues can
be a powerful tool for primary teachers trying to contend with a crowded curriculum
and the explicit teaching of the skills needed to achieve in the testing regime currently
being administered in Australian primary schools. Many Australasian authors, includ-
ing Colin Thiele, Jeannie Baker, James Reece and Graeme Base, provide teachers with
quality literature that can assist in the exploration and discussion of ecological issues
with children (Reid et al., 2010). By using texts addressing these ecological issues,
teachers can then demonstrate the interconnectedness of the economic, cultural, social,
ethical and ecological problems faced (Wason-Ellam, 2010). Thiele, Baker (O’Mahony,
2011), Reece and Base acknowledge this, though not always obviously, in their writings.
Children’s literature, particularly that deemed ‘picture books’, can explore themes,
concepts and issues that are both complex and contradictory and can lead children into
‘sophisticated and satisfying discussions’ (Baddeley & Eddershaw, 1994, p. 5). While
research has shown that children’s literature can be used to teach certain moral val-
ues (Marriott & Evans, 1998), it also suggests that children’s literature can be used to
expose the reader to certain moral dilemmas and give them the opportunity to eval-
uate and develop an understanding of the concept of global citizenship, including the
dilemma of sustainable futures. Some of the problems or issues seen in children’s liter-
ature range from:
 Children’s Literature in Teacher Education 225

. . . personal problems of family and peer relationships, but also encompasses

questions of wider social and political interest such as race and gender, the envi-
ronment and conservation, social and community conflict, war and peace and
even global interdependence. (Marriott & Evans, 1998, pp. 6–7)
It can therefore be suggested that children can fill the gaps of their own understandings
about issues such as a sustainable future through the use of relevant and engaging liter-
ature. While it appears that most children globally, even in the poorest areas, are influ-
enced more by television (Morely & Robins, 2013), the most pervasive form of media,
literature can still provide children with the opportunity to view issues from multi-
ple perspectives (Merryfield & Wilson, 2005) and question the media opinions they are
being served. Literature provides children with the opportunity to begin to form their
own views and opinions and take a more global stance.
As Stephens (1992) claimed:

Children’s fiction belongs firmly in the domain of cultural practices which exist
for the purpose of socialising their target audience. Childhood is seen as the
crucial formative period in the life of a human being, the time for basic education
about the nature of the world, how to live in it . . . (p. 8)
A study of how five tutors utilised some children’s fictional texts while teaching in a pre-
service teacher education English course will assist to demonstrate how children’s lit-
erature can be used to integrate with teaching for sustainable futures and help develop
attitudes of teaching for global citizenship in preservice teachers.

Methodology and Context of the Study

As a part of their program, 140 final year preservice teachers at a large multi-campus
regional NSW university were encouraged to use examples of authentic, award-winning
Australasian children’s literature with a global education focus as a part of their teach-
ing programs when undertaking their final 10-week practicum or internship in pri-
mary schools throughout Australia. Specific examples of Australasian children’s liter-
ature were utilised and teaching pedagogies modelled throughout their final Literacy
course, a compulsory 4th-year course. This article will now examine how five tutors
brought together through teaching this course, and all having expressed a desire to
teach for global citizenship, utilised these specific texts to emphasise and demonstrate
the teaching of the global education theme of sustainable futures. Using a case study
methodological approach (Creswell, 2008), the researcher asked tutors to keep a diary
of teaching practices used (Carter & Mankoff, 2005), activities undertaken and texts
used in Literacy tutorials. Three group interviews were held with tutors to establish
basic understandings about teaching for sustainable futures, a hard copy survey was
administered focusing on knowledge of the texts chosen and the tutors’ self-efficacy in
teaching about global citizenship and sustainable futures, and the diaries of teaching
activities were examined as data collection by the researcher to identify how some spe-
cific Australasian children’s texts were used in tutorials to address the economic, social,
cultural and ecological issues of teaching for a sustainable future and how the tutors
drew these together to demonstrate the links to Global Citizenship. Tutors kept reflec-
tive teaching diaries for the semester-long course of 12 weeks, and a survey was con-
ducted prior to teaching the course. Brief 15-minute group interviews were conducted
on three occasions throughout the semester (week 1, week 5 and week 11) to address
any issues tutors may have been having with the study and also to check understand-
ings from the surveys and discuss diary entries. Specific themes were identified using
qualitative content analysis within the interviews, survey results and diary entries.
226 Debbie Bradbery

Tutors were directed to Australasian texts with strong ecological themes. The course
coordinator had deliberately chosen these texts. Tutors discussed and shared teaching
strategies and resources to accompany the texts in a weekly meeting, appreciating the
collegial network that was established, and survey and interview results indicated they
were confident in their ability to disseminate information about teaching for a sustain-
able future and linking this to teaching for global citizenship. Teaching diary entries
described particular pedagogical strategies employed in the English tutorials that may
establish links to global citizenship through teaching for sustainable futures using chil-
dren’s literature in an English program.

Implementation of the Literature Study

The focus for this study is how these specific texts were utilised and the pedagogical
strategies modelled by tutors to demonstrate to preservice teachers methods of using
authentic, high quality children’s literature to develop teaching programs that integrate
the teaching of literacy with teaching about an ecologically sustainable future. To begin
with, selecting the most appropriate texts is important.

Storm Boy (Thiele, 1963) and Environmental Description

Colin Thiele has long been renowned as a writer of high quality children’s literature who
exhibits a moral conscience about environmental issues and the importance of securing
a sustainable future. Books such as Storm Boy, written by Thiele in 1963, are skilful
ways to introduce young readers of junior fiction to amazing environmental wonders
(Holm, 2012) such as the Coorong, the place where the Murray River meets the sea
in South Australia. In the news of late (Phillips, 2013) there have been reports of an
impending environmental disaster in the Murray River basin, including the Coorong.
Some have reported that the ‘freshwater’ Coorong, once home to hundreds of thou-
sands of birds, is now in places six times saltier than the sea (Lester & Fairweather,
2009). Diary entries indicated that tutors demonstrated how children reading Storm
Boy could be introduced to the abundance of life in Coorong area and the need to pro-
tect and sustain this environment. Using this book, preservice teachers were shown
by tutors how to explore the interconnectedness of the economic, social, cultural and
environmental issues facing the people of the region and how to encourage students to
consider some possible solutions. Tutor 1 described to preservice teachers how Thiele
not only describes the area but also demonstrates the main characters’ cultural and
economic ties to the Coorong. Through examining diary entries it was apparent that
tutors decided to use a character focus activity to demonstrate how characters such as
the Indigenous man and Fingerbone Bill help Storm Boy learn about his world and
the fragility of the environment and the animals that build their lives in it. Preservice
teachers were directed by tutors to particular extracts from the text that were typical of
the simple descriptions and add richness to Thiele’s work, and in the process can teach
readers about their own world.

When talking with other tutors about how we would use this text we decided on
using the first page of the text to show students some of the really descriptive
passages. I think it worked quite well. (Tutor 2)

One of the tutors, Tutor 1, who had been teaching in primary schools for a number
of years before becoming a university tutor, identified in an interview how she had
used this text in her classroom teaching program and how young generations of readers
had been able to identify with Storm Boy (Thiele, 1963), and how utilising this text in
tutorials had helped preservice teachers to understand the interdependence of all of
 Children’s Literature in Teacher Education 227

the elements of any fragile environment and the need to protect these. This became
apparent when examining the teaching programs produced by the preservice teachers
in her tutorial group. When examining the pedagogical strategies utilised by tutors, as
indicated through interviews and diary entries, it was apparent that preservice teachers
were shown the link between the book and the local community of the Coorong region
and how the economy of this and many local regions is dependent upon an ecologically
sustainable environment. Tutors used non-fiction information provided to them about
record low inflows to the River Murray through drought and over-allocation causing a
significant social, cultural, economic and environmental impact on the Lower Lakes and
Coorong region, to emphasise yet again the interconnectedness of all of these factors and
demonstrate to preservice teachers methods of integrating factual information with a
fictional text to assist in teaching about sustainability utilising an integrated approach.
One teaching diary entry indicated that Tutor 2, who also worked in tutoring in the
HSIE course studied by this group of preservice teachers, shared information about
the South Australian Government and its aims to secure a future for the region as a
healthy, productive and resilient wetland system of international importance, knowing
that this would directly support the local economy and socially and culturally affect
communities that rely on a healthy ecological environment to prosper (Birckhead et al.,
2011).

The Waterhole (Base, 2001) and Controversial Issues

Teaching about controversial issues and the need to tackle controversial issues (Sum-
mers, Childs, & Corney, 2005), such as what needs to be activated to secure an ecologi-
cally sustainable future for our Earth, could be made easier and more meaningful when
children’s literature is carefully utilised. This was an issue that all five tutors noted in
their diaries as something that preservice teachers had requested more information
about in their teaching programs. Tutors discussed this and shared information about
the use of the visual imagery found in the text, The Waterhole (2001), by Graeme Base.
Issues such as ecological degradation and the supply of clean water were raised. When
interviewing tutors about their use of this text it appeared that preservice teachers
understood how The Waterhole could be viewed as a simple counting book, but with a
deeper study they were shown how to assist children to develop an understanding of
the interdependence of all creatures on earth.
My group had difficulty at first going beyond the counting book, but when we
discussed the constant waterhole focus and its degradation they were able to see
how it could be used by older groups. (Tutor 1)
Although the text centres on a waterhole that is progressively drying up, Base is able to
show how water is essential to life. The data revealed that all five tutors demonstrated
how this book could be used to introduce children to the concept of saving water and
caring for their local waterways (see Figure 1). They demonstrated how by using the
highly engaging and intricate visual images, preservice teachers could assist children
to examine the concept of drought and water shortages and help them to understand
the importance of ecologically sustainable lifestyles. The causes and effects of drought
and water shortages were examined through the use of this text’s bright and colourful
illustrations.
I enjoyed using this text with my tutorial group as we had to really examine
the images, and as we did so many of the students commented on how they
could use it if they were trying to help children understand what it means to live
sustainably and also teach about visual imagery. (Tutor 3)
228 Debbie Bradbery

FIGURE 1: (Colour online) The Waterhole. The diminishing waterhole. Source: Repro-
duced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd, Melbourne (a division of Pear-
son, Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) and Graeme Base, copyright (c) Doublebase
Pty Ltd 2001, 2003.

Data indicated that the integration of teaching about issues such as the social con-
text of the waterhole as a meeting place for all of the species and the degradation of
the environment were discussed and examined along the way, demonstrating the social
implications of an ecologically unsustainable environment. It has been noted that chil-
dren find it far easier to assimilate this kind of information when it is presented in the
form of a story (Diakiw, 1990).

Lester and Clyde (1991) and Critical Thinking Questioning

The text Lester and Clyde, by James H. Reece (1991), was chosen to use in tutorials
as this text is easily found in many junior classrooms throughout Australia and is reg-
ularly used as an early reader. Tutorial groups read and discussed the text and pre-
service teachers were encouraged to respond from their own background and experi-
ences. Tutors had been supplied with a list of questions that could be asked, which they
then modelled using inferential reading and critical thinking questioning strategies.
Questions included: How does the pollution of the waterways affect the people in your
local area? How does it affect people in Australia? How does it affect people around the
world? How does it affect the natural environment? What are the causes of it? What
are the solutions? Are the solutions the same for people everywhere? When something
happens in one part of the world does it affect people in other parts of the world? How
can this be a global issue? Diary entries indicated that tutors demonstrated how the
student responses could then become the basis for follow-up activities (see Figure 2).
As this particular tutorial had been assigned to focus on the teaching of visual literacy
elements, tutors used the final, visually confronting image in the text, where Clyde is
 Children’s Literature in Teacher Education 229

FIGURE 2: (Colour online) Lester and Clyde . . . until Man comes along. Source: Repro-
duced by permission of Ashton Scholastic Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand and
James H. Reece, copyright (c) 1976, 1991.

reassuring Lester about his safety with the emergence of the dark and sinister-looking
bulldozer in the background, to conduct a visual analysis in tutorials utilising elements
of the resources for visual grammar schema (Simpson, 2004). Tutors also used Anstey
and Bull’s (2009) elements and conventions of still images to demonstrate how visual
imagery can be used to stimulate children to engage in making choices about their local
waterways and the use of land in their own neighbourhoods.
Data indicated that tutors utilised this text to demonstrate to preservice teachers
that education for a sustainable future may empower students to change their ways of
thinking, being and acting ‘in order to minimise environmental impacts and to enhance
environmentally and socially sustainable practices’ within schools and homes and the
wider community (Elliott & Davis, 2009, p. 7). The preservice teachers were encouraged
by tutors to note how this text could be used in classrooms to demonstrate the need
for a sustainable future to be socially and culturally inclusive. Data from an interview
suggested that this could be linked back to a previous course students had studied about
inclusivity.
I found in this tutorial I talked a lot about global citizenship and I described
how everyone could work together to help to achieve ecological sustainability and
sometimes forgive actions that may have harmed the environment, and strive for
changes in behaviours. I also showed the students how we could use the rhyming
patterns to teach reading skills! (Tutor 5)

Belonging (2004) and Integration and Visual Literacy

Nodelman (1996) asserts that texts are able to not only educate their readers about
issues such as community values and the importance of sustainable ecologies, but to
also offer ‘access to a vast spectrum of ways of being human’ (p. 129) and build a sense
of cultural identity. Jeannie Baker’s Belonging (2004) was another text chosen to use
in the course tutorials to demonstrate the integration of the teaching of English skills
with the teaching for a sustainable future. It takes its readers on an emotional journey
by offering glimpses of what the future landscape could be like if unhindered develop-
ment is left to take hold, but then develops a vision of a sustainable community work-
ing together to make a difference. This beautiful collage picture book can be used to
230 Debbie Bradbery

FIGURE 3: (Colour online) Belonging. Changing a community. Source: Reproduced by

permission of Walker Books Ltd, London, SE11 5HJ and Jeannie Baker,
copyright (c) 2004, 2008 Jeannie Baker (from Belonging by Jeannie Baker).

assist children in becoming citizens of the world, who will care for and build a sustain-
able future by connecting with each other and creating a social and cultural commu-
nity. Tutors’ diary entries showed that by focusing on the visual and textural interplay
(Callow, 2008) in this text, preservice teachers can lead children through the collage
technique used by Baker, and show how she uses both natural and man-made recycled
material to construct her images.
By using this text in tutorials I was able to show how to integrate knowledge and
values from other. Key Learning Areas such as Human Society and Its Environ-
ment. Perhaps the preservice teachers can use it to show children the waste that
humans create and ways it can be used to not only create images of beauty but
also save money and the Earth? (Tutor 4)
Study of this text showed preservice teachers how they can use the book in their teach-
ing programs to show how just one action can start something that can change a street
and then a community, a country, and perhaps the entire world. Tutorial groups exam-
ined Jeannie Baker’s text finding that demonstrates that belonging is more than just
inhabiting, that to truly belong we must enact a sense of community and shared values
and work at and contribute to it (see Figure 3.) Preservice teachers were encouraged
to use the book to demonstrate how to help to build a sense of community, belonging
and empowerment over urbanised development in children. Tutors demonstrated using
English skills in letter writing and debating that preservice teachers could utilise to
show children how to identify and explore the opportunities to participate in and influ-
ence decision-making locally, nationally, regionally and even internationally. Data from
diary entries and interviews showed that tutors demonstrated how to deconstruct this
text’s visual elements using particular elements from the resources for visual grammar
schema (Simpson, 2004) and the elements and conventions of still images (Anstey &
 Children’s Literature in Teacher Education 231

Bull, 2009) which they were supplied with as a resource for this tutorial, so that chil-
dren could then use the knowledge and skills gained to build their own understandings
of what it is to be a global citizen and to apply this to other parts of the curriculum.
One tutor commented on how this text shows how a community can work together to
turn something that was uniform and uninspiring into a nurturing home not only for
humans, but also for local native plant and animal species that may have left the area
long ago.

During this tutorial I tried to model ways that children could be offered differ-
ent and varied perspectives on sustainable living. I showed the students how
Jeannie Baker clearly demonstrates ways to achieve a sustainable future, even
in one’s own neighbourhood, without placing economic burdens on the inhabi-
tants, by using materials that their students may have at home. We discussed
the way we could teach about recycling without it being tokenistic too. (Tutor 4)

Baker’s texts show how ‘small wins’ (Davis, 2005) can have big impacts and help with
developing understandings of a sustainable future, without impacting on economic via-
bility.

Window (1991) and Problem-Based Learning

The Jeannie Baker texts were chosen because as an author Baker is known not only
for her artistry, but also for her ability to encourage sensory, experiential, perceptual,
relational, cultural and socially critical investigations of the environments and places
featured in her books (Burke & Cutter-Mackenzie, 2010). The text Window (1991) was
chosen as a tutorial resource because she visually describes the changing environment
typical of many Australian city edges, from rural and natural to semi-urban, over a
24-year period, as seen through a window. The development of the community in her
book is reminiscent of that of many Australian communities in the past 25 years. A
key pedagogical strategy chosen by tutors to assist preservice teachers in teaching for
a sustainable future was problem-based learning (PBL).
Tutor 3 explained how she had used the text as a catalyst for problem-based learn-
ing:

I used it to demonstrate to my group how they could prompt readers to consider

their impact on the environment as a kind of moral dilemma. We then tried to
design some English-based activities to help solve this — for example, debates.
(Tutor 3)

Preservice teachers could then encourage their students when on practicum to consider
their own environments and ask: What if we could have a say about urban development?
What if we could protect green areas in our neighbourhood? A diary entry indicated how
one tutor used this text to help preservice teachers come to an understanding of place-
based learning.

We discussed how they (the preservice teachers) could use this text in their intern-
ship program to get their class to respond to a local community site that can be
changed through human intervention. (Tutor 4)

In the author’s endnotes to Window (1991), Baker calls for her readers to make a dif-
ference by opening a window in our minds, ‘by understanding how change takes place
and by changing the way we personally affect the environment’ (Baker, 1991, p. 26), to
make the necessary changes to help secure a sustainable future (see Figure 4).
232 Debbie Bradbery

FIGURE 4: (Colour online) Window. The problem of urbanisation. Source: Reproduced

by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London, SE11 5HJ and Jeannie Baker,
copyright (c) 1991, 2002 Jeannie Baker (from Window by Jeannie Baker).

Conclusions
Of late, there has been some Australian research about the practices and resources for
teaching about a sustainable future in preservice teacher education programs (Ander-
son, 2013; Ferreira, 2013; Ferreira et al., 2009; Miles & Cutter-Mackenzie, 2006; Wilson,
2012) and this article hopes to add to the field by detailing explicit texts and teaching
strategies. As Kennelly, Taylor, Maxwell, and Serow (2012) noted, however, many pre-
service teachers do not have the pedagogical content knowledge, skills or even the desire
to teach about the environment, and feel their capacity to do this is also hampered by
their work situation and a system focus on high stakes testing.
The modelling and explicit demonstrating of strategies of how children’s literature
can be utilised to assist with this is then vital in helping to produce teachers who will
be engaged and passionate educators who understand the value and benefits of a holis-
tic education: an education that provides emotionally and relationally healthy learning
communities with intellectual environments that produce not only competently techni-
cal, but also secure, caring, literate and actively participatory human beings. Children’s
literature dealing with the environment and ecological sustainability has the ability to
have a deep and lasting impact because it deals with and appeals to not only the child’s
emotions but also their intellect (Gaard, 2009). Developing an understanding of what
it means to be a global citizen in the 21st century, particularly when it seems there are
varying and diverse definitions of this concept (Banks, 2011), and of helping to secure
an ecologically sustainable future may seem like a distant goal, but by providing pre-
service teachers with the knowledge, skills and resources to introduce the youngest
citizens to an understanding of ecological sustainability it may bring about ‘small wins’
(Davis, 2005), which may in turn lead to global change over time.
By utilising authentic, award-winning, high-quality children’s literature in a univer-
sity preservice teacher education, educators can give children the opportunity to form
bridges between their own internal lives and what is happening in the environment
 Children’s Literature in Teacher Education 233

around them and the world beyond (Medress, 2008). Utilising pedagogical strategies
that will integrate the teaching for a sustainable future across Key Learning Areas, pre-
service teachers can design programs to use in schools to assist students in developing
the capacity to understand how living their lives with greater ecological awareness can
impact on their own worlds and also the world community and planet. Tutors engaged in
this study demonstrated teaching activities and explicit pedagogical strategies that may
enhance the teaching of children’s ecoliterature. Further research into the utilisation of
these teaching strategies, environmental description and the use of non-fiction sources,
confronting controversial issues, visual literacy schema and problem-based learning is
warranted. Assisting preservice teachers in designing programs of work to be used in
schools to develop children who will identify and work cooperatively to solve problems
with a sense of justice and equity is vital to work for a sustainable future.
Further research that could lead from this study is whether and how preservice
teachers chose to use these ecologically focused texts as integral resources in the teach-
ing programs they used while teaching in their internship practicum; and how and if
they were able to utilise the strategies modelled in tutorials. A focus in this area could
assist teachers in schools in implementing programs that will embed the teaching for a
sustainable future across the curriculum.

Acknowledgments
I would like to sincerely thank and acknowledge Dr Ruth Reynolds for her helpful feed-
back in compiling this article, and also Dr Amy Cutter-Mackenzie for her assistance and
persistence in refining this article. I would also like to thank Graeme Base and Penguin
Books, Jeannie Baker and Walker Books and James Reece and Ashton Scholastic Books
for granting permission to utilise the images from The Waterhole, Belonging, Window
and Lester and Clyde.

Keywords: children’s literature, ecologically sustainable futures, environment,

preservice teacher education

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Author Biography
Deborah has extensive experience in primary teaching, having taught for 27 years in
many different schools. She has received a number of teaching awards, including com-
mendations for a National Excellence in Teaching and a Lecturer of the Year Award.
Her research interests lie in the area of classroom applications of Global Education and
teaching for a sustainable future. She is currently studying for a PhD while teaching
full time at the University of Newcastle.