Links
Arts-based environmental education
Finland Art Education at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture
This is where our research group is based.
Finland Art Community Environment
The ACE Project is an educational resource, developed by students and staff of the University of Lapland, Finland and the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, that can be used to stimulate debate about current practice in the field of community, environmental art and art education. ACE serves as a research tool, allowing visitors to the site to read about a vast array of projects and compare methodologies. A key aim of the ACE archive is to keep students up to date with projects in both countries.
Finland Bioart Society
The Finnish Bioart Society (established May 2008) is an organisation supporting, producing and creating activities around bioart, and creating public discussions about biosciences, biotechnologies and bioethics. Additionally it is the finnish contact-node in international networks of bioarts.
The society is also the motor behind the plan (Ars Bioarctica) that aims at introducing bioart as an own area to educational institutions.
Currently the Bioart Society is working towards the realization of Ars Bioarctica-program, participating in various collaborative projects, and organizing an artist-in-residency possibility in Kilpisjärvi / Kilpisjärvi Biological Station. This residency will have an emphasis on arctic environment / on natural sciences / on climate change / on aurora borealis / and other relating topics.
Finland Sun Festival for Children
Sun Festival for Children is a new concept for giving children education in art, design and environmental knowledge by cross artistic and scientific work shops. The idea is to offer a fresh view to look at the environment nearby as a part of the world and to let children create their own toys, surroundings and the other artifacts needed when playing with materials. Children will get the idea of creating and designing through inspiring materials, cultural influences and social contacts. Sensitivity for environment and aesthetics develops by encouraging their natural interest in nature and handwork. The workshops are organized by a multi-professional team including designers, artists, gardeners and scientists. Use of materials in Sun Festival for Children is based on seasonal cycles.		  
Sweden Ockelbo Konst & Landskap
Ett forum för konst och debatt om vårt förhållande till naturen.
Vi känner till hoten mot vår livsmiljö. Vi vet också tillräckligt om hur en hållbar utveckling kan nås. Vi kan inte vänta på tekniska eller politiska mirakellösningar. Inte heller kan vi vänta på att andra först ska ta nödvändiga steg. Vi måste börja gå i ny riktning nu!		  
Ireland Groundswell
Linking nature and imagination. Groundswell is an environmental consultancy, its philosophy encourages creative relationships with nature and landscape. It also celebrates natural heritage and cultural traditions associated with the seasons, including special events which link people and their environment.
The purpose of the research is to involve ecological aesthetics within education and health settings. The contribution of art from the natural world to arts and health and arts and education, is its capacity to represent resilience. Within both health and education, the opportunity to create within a studio setting is a representation of growth, as new artworks are continually being made and displayed as an ecology of ideas. The relationship between physical surroundings and conditions of well-being can be explored within studio spaces.
 

Studios are alive with opportunity, and offer both children and adults the space to experiment with methods of working with art materials.
Ecological art can invigorate education and health environments with its connection to life cycles and regeneration. See also the blog on Art, Health, Education
India Sensing nature, knowing nature
Seeing nature. Hearing nature, Tasting nature, Smelling nature, Touching nature. The workshop begins with children sitting in silence and consciously listening to all the sounds. Then various situations are created for children to observe minutely the things that they normally do not notice. Children are asked to collect dry leaves of different shades and stick them in order. They then make the color by mixing the primary colors. This they repeat with various other colors in nature. They also do a color scale with two colours.They also bring colored leaf and reproduce the same by mixing colors. Then they make scenery with coloured leaves and dry leaves.
United States Horsechestnut Winds/Arts and Learning thru Movement
Nature and arts educational organization, Horsechestnut winds, works with the psycho-biological origin of the Nature-art-human interplay. This begins with the evolutionary and developmental movement and sound fundamental for non-verbal communication, imaging, languaging, metaphor, aesthetic intelligence, human relationship with Nature, and ethical-moral consciousness, the seeds for all of which begin with the experiential patterning of human fetus in utero. This work brings into focus natural leaning and teaching processes in touch with human ecological belonging and expression thru the primary arts of dance, song, story, image, and poetry. It is an in depth study of origins of human intelligence and kinship patterns of life, intrinsically organized through processes of art for life sake.
United States Eartharteducation
We believe that art and artistic behavior are meaningful ways to explore, inquire, experience, and communicate among human beings about things that count and matter in/for life. The intention of this website is to create a meeting place, resource center, community, archive and an exhibitions space for art, visions, and ideas that are born from the deep love for the environment and humanity and that aim at advancing environmental issues as social justice.
United States The story of Los Padillas Water Project
The students of Los Padillas Elementary school collaborated with artist Chrissie Orr to design and construct a water catchment and educational environment in a wild life sanctuary behind their school. They were involved in learning about the importance of water catchment in the dry, desert of the south west,permaculture, the water cycle and local myths of water. Many of the students are recent immigrants from Mexico and live without running water!The project has now been incorporated into the curriculum of the school which is now designated as having a environmental curriculum. The State of New Mexico sponsored Chrissie to create an educational book about the project and Water for use in other schools. This presenation will focus on the unique processes and outcomes of using the creative process to address environmental and cultural problems.
United States Bird Brain Dance
Bird Brain Dance is a multi-year navigational dance project by Jennifer Monson that investigates the migratory patterns and habits of birds and other animals and their biophysical and metaphorical relationships to humans as fellow travellers.
Bird Brain Dance is specifically designed for accessibility to passers-by in public spaces, as well as to the dance and environmental communities. The project aims to have a significant impact on each site visited, bringing into relief the importance of sustaining and preserving habitat for migratory species and deepening our dynamic relationship with nature through the kinetic medium of dance. 		 
United States

 

 ecoartspace

Brandon Ballengée, Silent Migration                                 

ecoartspace is one of the leading international organizations in a growing community of artists, scientists, curators, writers, nonprofits and businesses who are developing creative and innovative strategies to address our global environmental issues. We promote a diverse range of artworks that are participatory, collaborative, interdisciplinary and uniquely educational. Our philosophy embodies a broader concept of art in its relationship to the world and seeks to connect human beings aesthetically with the awareness of larger ecological systems.

 www.ecoartspace.org
ecoartspace.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/ecoartspacefanpage
 

  
United States The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
is a nonprofit organizing and education center and organic farm in Northern California’s Sonoma County. OAEC was founded in 1994 by a group of biologists, horticulturists, educators, activists, and artists seeking innovative and practical approaches to the pressing environmental and economic crises of our day.
The OAEC Arts Program explores the connections between art education and practice, and holistic, sustainable thinking. The program strives to illuminate the essential link between observable processes in natural systems and creative processes in human beings. In addition to developing and teaching arts curricula for OAEC’s School Gardens, Permaculture and other courses, we continue to expand the on-site OAEC collection of installed artworks that demonstrate a variety of alternative materials and techniques. Beyond our courses, we are committed to weaving a thread of aesthetic awareness and artistic process throughout all our programs and activities, and to exploring creative inspiration as it relates to Nature.		  
United States Sitka Center for Art and Ecology
Founded in 1970, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology fosters creative inquiry and education. The involvement, investigations, and creative work of artists and natural scientists help Sitka Center fulfill its mission to expand the relationships between art, nature and humanity through workshops, presentations and individual research projects.
Located on the central Oregon coast at Cascade Head Ranch near the Salmon River estuary, within view of the Pacific Ocean, Sitka Center is at the edge—a place where diverse people and ideas converge, co-mingle, and depart transformed. The dreams of the founders have been transformed into year-round programs that engage individuals in the creative investigation of art, ecology, and the space in between.		  
United States

The Farm Foundation for the Arts & Sciences
The Farm Foundation for the Arts & Sciences is a nexus where art intersects science, architecture, and activism - an incubator for thought and experimentation for artists and innovators who seek out and foster areas of collaboration to engage in the central issues of our time.		  
United States Going Green at School
Accredited Schools Online has put together a  guide to Going Green at School, The guide is filled with facts about the benefits of going green, tips on how to become and continue being green, and additional resources for students interested in further pursuing the ultimate objective of living a sustainable life.		  
United States Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World
The mission of the Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World is to bring to life a new vision of the relationship between the inner life of the child and the beauty, wonder and intimacy of the universe.
"Presently, the natural world is viewed as a commodity to be used rather than as a sacred reality to be venerated. A shift in our way of relating to the natural world is essential if we hope to participate in nature’s unfolding rather than in its demise. This shift is nowhere more crucial than within the field of education where the child’s way of relating to the natural world is formed."		  
Iran Paradise International Art Center
Paradise International Art Center prepared an environmental art educational course for national and international artists. This short course will introduce environmental art in both theory and practice. They will review and discuss many examples of environmental art and we will experiment with art works in nature. The aim of this education is to make a link between art and environment which is an essential need of the contemporary world. They also wish artists to learn how to develop their art concepts in nature. 		 
Scotland The Slow Forest School (8 MB)
Forest Schools were first established as an educational concept in Denmark in the1950s. Young children were being taken out into the woodlands and taught basic woodcraft skills, survival techniques and how to identify flora and fauna. They became very popular over a period of time and spread to other Scandinavian countries. They now provide the main form of pre school education for 5-7 year olds
in Sweden and are also well establish in Norway and Denmark. The Forest School approach was brought back to Britain by a group of nursery school teachers in1995 where they established programmes in Somerset.
Some of the core principles which underpin the Forest School approach and distinguish it from other educational practices are;
· Practitioners use techniques which enhance self esteem, confidence and responsibility within each child. The rationale being that you do not get competent learners without first developing a high degree of self confidence.
· Forest School practitioners also develop tasks in such a way that they cater for each child’s preferred learning style, whether it be visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. This can entail putting the task forward in three different ways so as to give children the option to engage with the learning process in their preferred manner.
· Tasks are always introduced within a relevant context and broken down into small achievable steps. In this way children are always set up to succeed rather than fail, and gradually they develop.		  
Canada The Centre for Arts, Ecology & Agriculture, Foxglove Farm
The Centre for Arts, Ecology & Agriculture was established to demonstrate and interpret the vital connections between farming, land stewardship, food, the arts, and community well being; to model the economic possibilities for small and medium scale sustainable agricultural and forestry projects, and to nurture the human spirit through public programs, classes, and events.
Our programs include one to five day retreats and workshops bringing well-known writers, artists, musicians, foresters, farmers, and ecologists to share their knowledge within the context of a working landscape. We also offer a summer “farm camp” for children, guided tours, school programs, culinary events, and an annual open house with tours, music and food.
 		  
United Kingdom University of the Trees
The University of the Trees is a participatory, global, social sculpture for developing creative responses to the ecological crisis, through new ways of perceiving our relationship to the world. The University of the Trees depends on the growth of groups in different regions of the world. It can develop wherever there are trees and a group of people wanting to create a 'space' for exploring, discussing, reflecting and acting on issues related to trees, to how we live in the world, and to shaping a humane, ecologically conscious and viable society based on mutuality and interconnectedness.
We describe it as a 'parallel process' project. Joseph Beuys used this phrase to describe processes that extend beyond linear logic and integrate different forms of knowing and communicating.
 		  
United Kingdom Going Wild!
Going Wild is about escaping into the great outdoors to discover the wonders and excitement of the natural world. Going Wild aims to inspire children and young people to switch off that TV and rush outside – here their imaginations can run riot, they can learn new skills such as judging risk for themselves and improve their confidence and self esteem by facing new challenges. Going Wild aims to help you take advantage of whatever nature offers, wherever you live, (town or country), at any time of the year (winter or summer), what ever the weather! Going Wild aims to encourage young people and families to try something new and discover what pleasures a simpler life outdoors can offer, away from commercial pressures without spending a fortune.

 

  
Art-nature-ecology-environmental-philosophy blogs  
Immanence
"Thinking the form, flesh & flow of the world: ecoculture, geophilosophy, mediapolitics."
Editor: Adrian J. Ivakhiv		  
Some Landscapes
This site is about landscapes and the arts. It highlights ways in which landscape has been evoked, depicted or transformed in painting, photography, literature, music and film
Editor: Andrew Ray 		 
Ecology without nature
Provides nteresting views and analyses on themes such as emergence, ecocriticism, ecocinema and others.
Editor: Timothy Morton (the author of Ecology without Nature)
 
Art in nature
Finland EnvironmentalArt.net
Finland Cooperation with Nature
 Land art and art education.
Finland Winter Art Gallery
The University of Lapland, Department of Art Education has made several Winter Art projects. There are almost 800 photos from snow and ice installations, constructions and sculptures in the Winter Art Gallery by students and staff of the University of Lapland, Department of Art Education.
Take also a look at their Guidebook for Snow and Ice Sculpting:
Download guidebook
Finland Tree People
A description of Finnish myths associated with trees and forests.
Latvia Open-Air Art Museum at Pedvale
Netherlands Kunstbroedplaats
Environmental art in nature areas; art reflecting on relation between humans and the more-than-human world.
International Artists for Nature
ANF brings together renowned artists from all over the world to endangered locations. Their artwork focuses attention on the need for nature conservation.
International Ecoart network
network of professionals dedicated to the practices of ecological art. We work across disciplines and within communities to:
- Focus attention on the web of interrelationships in our environment—to the physical, biological, cultural, political, and historical aspects of ecological systems;
- Create artworks that employ natural materials, or engage with environmental forces such as wind, water, or sunlight;
- Reclaim, restore, and remediate damaged environments;
- Inform the public about ecological dynamics and the environmental problems we face;
- Re-envision ecological relationships, creatively proposing new possibilities for co-existence, sustainability, and healing.
United States GreenMuseum
This online museum emerged from experiences in making environmental art and from seeing firsthand some the challenges facing artists, community groups, nonprofit organizations and arts institutions when it came to presenting and discussing environmental art.
United States EcoArtSpace
Ecoartspace is a nonprofit organization working internationally with individuals and organizations who are interested in creating radical approaches to restoring the earth. Using art as a tool, it aims to inspire communities into action when addressing environmental issues.
United States The Tree Hugger Project
The Tree Hugger Project is an ongoing work of Environmental Art designed to help us re-discover our relationship with nature at a very personal and intimate level. Made from twigs, branches, sticks, vines and other natural materials, these playful sculptures remind us that we humans are still very much a part of our natural surroundings. They bring us back to childhood memories when climbing trees, and playing with friends outdoors was a part of our daily experience. Has anyone ever climbed a tree without hugging it?
Canada Banff Centre for the Arts
The Banff Centre is an incubator of creativity that inspires and empowers artists, the mountain community, and business and community leaders from Alberta, Canada, and around the world. Located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the Centre provides a unique learning environment where individuals and groups pursue personal and professional development, create new work, engage in applied research, share ideas and experiences, and celebrate accomplishments through performances, exhibitions, and special events.

 
Art education
International INSEA, International Society for Education through Art
International EDDA Norden Network
Edda Norden is a network for debate and for the exchange of knowledge that reflects the importance of visual culture within the Nordic countries, in education and society. Its aims are, among others, to develop a long-term commitment to cooperation between the Nordic universities and university colleges that will offer students art education through the creation of a Nordic network, to promote tutor and student exchange in the Nordic countries and to further develop a joint Nordic platform for art education.

 
Research on the interface of art, environment and education
Canada Educational Insights
Education Insights is a peer-reviewed electronic journal sponsored by the Centre for Cross Faculty Inquiry at the Faculty of Education, at the University of British Columbia.
The Editorial Circle, curriculum theorists, writers, and pedagogical adventurers, are presently repositioning Educational Insights as an innovative evocative provocative intertextual space for engaging in new dialogues of enRapturing con/texts and reimagining spaces of pedagogy, inquiry, and interdisciplinarity. Our intent is to encourage a community that honours difference and polyphony, while sharing a vision of pedagogy, education, inquiry as spaces of challenge and hopeful conversations.
Sweden Centre for Place and Learning
An interactive forum for both researchers and practitioners. This is where you can keep up on the latest news. As a member, you can also share your own suggestions and experience.
Anyone who is interested in the significance of Place for Learning – and Learning for Place – will have the opportunity to find personal contacts, institutions, other workplaces, links, suggestions and literature.
Summarising and highlighting current research is a central focus of this site. The new, interdisciplinary knowledge featured here spans a number of different fields – including psychology, sociology, environmental psychology, education, outdoor education, architecture, landscape architecture, cultural geography and community planning.

 
Environmental / Nature / Outdoor education
United States Children and Nature network
The mission of the Children & Nature Network is to give every child in every community a wide range of opportunities to experience nature directly—and to do whatever we can to see that those experiences occur.
United States Center for Environmental Education (CEE), Antioch University, Maine
International resource center and clearinghouse for environmental education. We believe that anyone can become an environmental leader and that teachers, administrators, students and parents must be well informed and supported toward that end.
Their mission is to provide the necessary resources, curriculum, expertise and guidance to cultivate environmental leadership in K-12 schools. We work to create environmentally healthy schools where children learn how to choose sustainable lifestyles.
United States Center for Ecoliteracy
The Center for Ecoliteracy was founded in 1995 by Fritjof Capra, Peter Buckley and Zenobia Barlow. The Center for Ecoliteracy is a public foundation that supports a grant making program for educational organizations and school communities.
"Being ecologically literate means understanding these basic principles of organization of ecological communities and being able to embody them in the daily life of human communities. Teaching this ecological knowledge – which may be called 'principles of ecology,' 'principles of sustainability,' 'principles of community,' or even the 'basic facts of life' – will be the most important role of education in the next century. " (Fritjof Capra)
United Kingdom

Schumacher College
Schumacher College is a unique international educational institution. It provides individuals and groups from across the world with the opportunity to learn on numerous levels about subjects relating to environmental and social sustainability.
Participants, teachers and staff work together to combine and learn from diverse experiences and knowledge. The context of individual and group learning provides a powerful platform for deep and holistic engagement with transformative learning for sustainable living.

United Kingdom WildWise
Established in 1999, WildWise deliver an exciting, diverse programme of courses, camps and events for adults, children and families to inspire and inform you about the natural world. WildWise are specialists, creating exceptional opportunities in bushcraft and outdoor education for the general public, environmental organisations, corporate and private client groups. WildWise courses and camps are based on our specialist skills and knowledge of bushcraft, fieldcraft, wildlife, nature awareness, woodcraft, personal development, and storytelling.
United Kingdom Embercombe
Embercombe's ‘official’ launch is not until later in 2008, probably around mid-summer. But the train is already moving and those of us charged with driving it are finding that Embercombe seems to have a will of its own. In an attempt to demonstrate that it’s best to learn how to walk before you try running, we are only lighting the touch paper on five public programmes this year – Environmental Heroes, Awe & Wonder, The Young Leaders Programme, Baldur’s Voyage, and The Long Walk. About the programme "Awe & Wonder": "Along with many developments in our society that have benefited our children, we also have many that have in some sense weakened them. One of these is the silent exodus that has taken place over the last thirty years ago as droves of children have adopted lifestyles that are increasingly sedentary and vicarious. Awe & Wonder is a one-year programme for children at primary school, linked into the national curriculum, and which gives them a profound and joyful learning experience in and with nature."
Norway Living Learning
Living Learning: The farm as a pedagogical resource. Living Learning works building bridges between farm and garden activities and the schools of general education. Our initial project, “Living School”, from 1996 to 2000, took its point of departure from the question: “How can we contribute to fostering hope, courage and resolve in children in order for them to be able to participate in a productive way in the forming of their surroundings?”

 
Selection of individual artists working with nature
United Kingdom Chris Drury
Land artist working with nature. Drury: "I am categorised as a land artist or someone who works with art and nature. In reality my work explores nature and culture, inner and outer. I travel and walk in out-of-the-way places, often alone. More recently I have been looking at Body as Landscape or systems within the body and systems on the planet."
United Kingdom Tim Knowles
The exploration of Chance and Process is core to my artistic practice. Akin to scientific experimentation and investigation, the results of my projects [although operating within carefully developed controls and parameters] are unpredictable and outside my control. It is the wind, postmen, the motion of a vehicle, or players of a game that unwittingly determine the outcome. These drawings produced by the wind or in a vehicle, have a very unique and un-human quality and aesthetic. The viewer may try to decipher these varying marks, lines and patterns, in order to make certain conclusions, eg. the best courier, the weather conditions or the type of sport played. The work attempts to make visible the invisible.
Netherlands Erik van Hoorn
Temporal interference in landscapes.
Netherlands Ludy Feyen
Community art in nature. Feyen: "I prefer to work closely to the earth. Using natural materials I create sculpture and installations on sites, most of them outdoor, where I imaginate my inner world. In the water and on the ground I create waving patterns of energy.A sound wave, a motion, a spine, a voyage, a bridge to a different reality. I imaginate energy of life."
Switzerland Urs-P. Twellmann
Twellman could be described as an "Art-in-Nature artist" or maybe even more accurate as an "On-the-Road artist". He draws his inspiration from the material he finds on each location, the place itself and last but not least from his tools. Number one in all the work of Urs-P. Twellmann is wood in all its many forms - but ice and fire and nature in general are part of the artistic inspiration and challenge.
Sweden Marie Gayatri
Land art crossing.
Finland Lea Turto
The Sacred Realm of the Forest Elf consists of 11 tree stumps covered with red felt Central Park of Helsinki. 2005
"The Elf's Realm" consists of tree stumps covered with red felt, dotted in one area of the forest. "I cut the felt to shape as you would with garments, both to reveal and to cover the fascinating shapes of the roots and tree stumps. Other than that, I left the area in its natural state. In this art work, I wanted to examine the spiritual meaning of the forest, the pantheistic connection with nature that our Finnish culture is rooted in."

 
Eco-philosophy, thinking on nature and wilderness
United States

 The Alliance for Wild Ethics (AWE)
AWE is a consortium of individuals and organizations working to ease the spreading devastation of the animate earth through a rapid transformation of culture. We employ the arts, often in tandem with the natural sciences, to provoke deeply felt shifts in the human experience of nature.