Educational Reform and Environmental Concern

‘The nature study movement spanned the English-speaking world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By providing a well-researched case study of this movement in Australia, Dorothy Kass makes a substantial contribution to the field of education history. Every scholar interested in the global rise of progressive and environmental education should read this book.’ - Kim Tolley, Professor, Notre Dame de Namur University, USA

‘One of the great achievements of New Education was school curriculum reform and the new subject of Nature Study. Dorothy Kass provides us with a wonderful, long overdue study of how it helped transform relationships between students, teachers and education reformers in Australia. The object of Nature Study was to revolutionise the relationship between the natural world and humanity. More than a century later, as Kass demonstrates, the impulse lives on in environmental education. Humanity must be educated to move beyond mere exploitation of the natural world.’ - Craig Campbell, Honorary Associate Professor, History of Education, University of Sydney, Australia

‘Although focused on New South Wales, Dorothy Kass situates her account of nature study in the broad international context of the movement in the English-speaking world. She documents its official introduction in the early part of the twentieth century when teachers and textbook writers adapted materials and methods to their particular environments and embedded the nature study outlook in the national educational system. When successive generations of administrators reframed and renamed this object-centered curriculum, Kass argues that the practice of teachers who had found its methods effective often maintained its essential elements under the rubric of science. This well-researched and cogently argued account identifies the flexibility of nature study as proponents shifted its orientation over the course of a century, from a more personal and conservation outlook to one focused on broader environmental issues.’ - Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Professor of History of Science, University of Minnesota, USA

‘Nature study was central to the lasting reforms of the Progressive Era, especially the "New Education" and the conservation of natural resources. Dorothy Kass gives us our first international examination of this timely subject. Her detailed work will reward readers interested in education, conservation and the global nature of progressive reform.’ – Kevin C. Armitage, Miami University of Ohio, USA

'Students, historians and anyone interested in the history of educationor conservation should read this well-written book. The text, dense with ideas and analysis, is augmented by lucid exposition, judicious signposting and helpful chapter summaries. Endnotes and a bibliography usefully follow each chapter, twenty suitably placed images support the argument and there is a comprehensive general index.'— Anne Coote, Historical Records of Australian Science