In this study, the authors were interested to examine the notion of environmental education (EE) as context for integrating the elementary curricula.
They examined preservice teachers’ understandings of EE, their ideas to incorporate EE into their future teaching, and their conceptions of EE as a context for integration.
The results support the incorporation of EE activities and instruction in science methods courses to enhance instruction in science content and teaching methods.
The authors also suggest an explicit focus in the methods course on science and engineering content, inquiry, and cross-cutting concepts as they relate to EE.
Results from this study suggest that elementary science methods instructors can include some of this content and method in elementary science method courses.