Role Playing and Environmental Issues

I wish to make clear from the outset that I am not an environmental educator and therefore do not claim to be steeped in particular contemporary issues. I am aware of environmental concerns from a generalist viewpoint, one which I share with primary teachers expected to deliver environmental educational policy in practice. As an educator and researcher in the area of arts education, I frequently apply role playing methodologies to a range of curriculum areas focusing on human issues and would like to share some insights into its specific application to environmental education. I also wish to state that I have a particular interest in developing a socially critical approach to educational issues, so that the use of role play is coloured by this stance. I have examined a number of policy statements which attempt to influence the content and teaching approaches to environmental education in schools. The Victorian Ministry of Education (1990) Environmental Education makes reference to the importance of student/teacher attitudes, beliefs and dispositions in the social construction of environmental education. Role play deals ‘up front’ with the dispositions of all participants, and thus would seem an ideal vehicle for investigating the human aspects of learning for the environment. The Victorian document (1990: p. 11) further makes clear the approaches teachers should adopt when realising environmental education in practice. Approaches to environmental education should be ‘based on real problems’, ‘clarify values’, be ‘socially critical’ and ‘action oriented’, and also ‘involve students working together in groups’. I wish to demonstrate how this cluster of recommended approaches can be met through the use of role play. The paper has two intentions: The first is to discuss how role play can facilitate recommended environmental education in theory. The second is to show how these ideas may be practically realised during the investigation of a selected issue.