THESIS: Exploring the Role of Drama in Environmental Education: A Case Study on Child Agency and Participation on Aotea Great Barrier Island

Environmental education is increasingly important worldwide as complex environmental challenges continue to emerge. Aotearoa-New Zealand is not exempt from this, with extreme weather events, ecosystem pressures and disconnection from place all contributing to the low awareness and optimism in children regarding environmental issues. In addition, children’s agency in relation to the environment is still narrowly perceived, meaning their participation is often overlooked or excluded. It has long been recommended that opportunities to participate in environmental education must increase to address these issues. Environmental education inherently interweaves multiple knowledges, aiming to equip students with the skills and knowledge required to engage in pro-environmental behaviours actively. With growing evidence that artistic inquiry provides in-depth pathways to build awareness, knowledge and understanding of the world around us, there is an opportunity to explore how arts education might be woven into environmental education. This amalgamation can support children to be seen as active participants in the world whose unique views and experiences are integral in understanding and working with environments, local and global. This research investigates the role of drama and the arts in environmental education and their potential to support child agency. This thesis presents case study examples from the three schools on Aotea Great Barrier Island, collected through a co-designed participatory action research project, Toitū te Ngahere: Art in Schools for Forest Health, throughout 2023. Through child-led art projects, the students and teachers from Te Kura o Okiwi, Kaitoke School and Mulberry Grove engaged in an in-depth inquiry into ngahere ora (forest health), focusing on place-based learning. My core contribution was in the inclusion of drama to the arts-based practice used in the TTN project. Engagement with the schools assisted in creating narratives of learning that helped analyse observational data and focus groups with the students. This analysis revealed that students’ and teachers’ engagement with drama throughout Toitū te Ngahere positively influenced participation in environmental education and built embodied awareness of place and related issues. Broader learnings arose about the benefits of varied participation in artistic inquiry and the enhanced potential of drama for both student and teacher engagement and learning when expanded into/interwoven with other media.