Planting seeds of green: Promoting environmental citizenship through sensorial media education

This study probes how young people negotiate information received through both the common curriculum and mass media, and how the central characteristics of the media they use can influence their reasoning. The research shows that formalized education needs to take into account not only the growing importance of environmental education [EE], but also the powerful role media can play in developing environmental consciousness. Students need tools to critically evaluate the environmental discourses they encounter, and to understand and distinguish the difference between their interactions with mediated nature and the environment itself. A greater awareness about the effects of different types of-sensorial communication and, correspondingly, the different sensorial biases of environmental media can help students obtain a deeper understanding of why mediated EE can be a useful device for developing interest in environmental issues, but cannot, in the end, be a viable substitute for personal interactions with the natural world.