Built Environment Education For Children And Youth: Establishing The Field

Built environment education, or BEE, is as multifaceted as its subject: our built, designed environment. It is dedicated to raising awareness and knowledge about architecture, design, cities and landscapes and helping people to develop a stronger say in the creation, production and planning of their neighbourhoods and settlements. One of the major target groups is children and young people. Many individuals, such as architects, planners, artists, teachers in schools and kindergartens, as well as institutions like architecture and environmental centres, museums, universities, private and public entities, are dedicated to teaching BEE. Through their efforts, BEE is connected with a range of educational fields, including architecture and design education, arts education and education for sustainable development. Despite their diversity, BEE learning activities for children and young people are linked by their focus on buildings, places and spaces as topics and contexts for learning. However, there is a challenge – there are relatively few opportunities for BEE practitioners to learn from each other and to share practices or research. Looking to existing literature, the field is more difficult to discern. There is scarcely any widely accessible literature published in English for an international audience that showcases what is happening around the world. The presentation will share findings based on a current book of the same name. The first part of the presentation will provide a brief international overview of ‘movers and shakers’ – practitioners driving this field continuously forward, hosted by museums, out-of-school clubs, primary and secondary schools, universities, professional bodies and urban centres, NGOs and private bodies. The second part of the presentation will share empirical evidence arising from the research on policy and practice, BEE themes and topics, tools and methods, partnerships and pedagogical underpinnings. The presentation will end with a propositional visualisation of BEE pedagogies of space - inviting participants to think together, ultimately engaging in collaborative construction of tentative concepts for BEE pedagogies of space.