Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region Hosts Free Lecture on Sustainability Education at VIU Feb. 19

February 16, 2015 - 2:45pm

The Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region (MABR) and its affiliated Research Institute at Vancouver Island University (VIU) is hosting two free public lectures – including one in Parksville - featuring Dr. David Zandvliet on Thursday, February 19.

Dr. Zandvliet is the Director of Simon Fraser University’s Institute for Environmental Learning and his presentations will discuss sustainability education in British Columbia and abroad.

Dr. Zandvliet’s research explores how people learn about sustainability issues in schools and within communities. He studies three main areas that impact sustainability education: the unique types of social experiences that students have in environmental learning and outdoor programs, students’ perceptions of outdoor learning environments, and at the impact of teachers’ techniques and practices on student learning.

Each lecture is free and open to the public. Topics will vary slightly and those with a keen interest can attend both. Lecture topics are as follows:

VIU Nanaimo campus, 900 Fifth Street, Building 305, ICR Lounge, 12 – 1 pm:

How can different ways of thinking across traditional curriculum areas such as science, humanities, or language arts improve our social capacity for understanding and taking action around our increasingly complex social and environmental problems? Dr. Zandvliet shares the findings of his research program, entitled “Developing Ecological Literacy at the Bowen Island Community School.”

Parksville Civic & Technology Centre, Forum, 100 Jensen Avenue East, Parksville, 7 to 8:30 pm:

How do people learn about sustainability and the environment? What does environmental education look like in BC and how does it compare to learning models abroad? Come and meet Dr. Zandvliet for an engaging presentation and discussion around these important questions.

For more information about the MABR and its affiliated Research Institute, MABRRI, at VIU, go to the new website at http://mabrri.viu.ca/.

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Photo caption: David Zandvliet

More about David B. Zandvliet, B.Sc. M.A. Ph.D.

David Zandvliet is an Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC) and Director of the Institute for Environmental Learning. He holds additional appointments as the Faculty teaching fellow for Faculty of Environment (SFU) and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Universitas Sam Ratulangi (Indonesia).

An experienced teacher and researcher, Dr. Zandvliet has published numerous articles in international journals and presented refereed conference papers on six continents and in over 15 countries. His career interests lie in the areas of science, technology and environmental education.

As a former director of the Faculty’s Centre for Educational Technology, Dr. Zandvliet has considerable experience in the design and evaluation of classrooms and in the provision of teacher professional development. He has conducted research and development on learning environments in Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.