Enhancing Ecoliteracy through Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Proverbs

GoWoon Kim, Rahul Teku Vaswani, Wanmo Kang, Miri Nam and Dowon Lee
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GoWoon Kim: Asian Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Rahul Teku Vaswani: United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Rajadamnoen Nok, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
Wanmo Kang: Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Gwanak-ro 1, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea
Miri Nam: Interdisciplinary Program in Environmental Education Graduate School, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Dowon Lee: Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: Proverbs can be regarded as pithy axioms of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), which can be useful for sustainability education. By using an exploratory sequential mixed method, we analyzed TEK and ecoliteracy components embedded in rain- and tree-related Korean traditional proverbs, and further conducted a survey of university students to gauge their knowledge of the proverbs and draw correlations with their ecoliteracy. We classified 173 rain- and 117 tree-related traditional Korean proverbs and found that most of these were related to factual observations, such as ecological characteristics of tree species and the prediction of rainfall, which indicated people’s understanding of ecological processes and patterns. We also found that students tended to provide correct answers for questions related to TEK-based worldviews, ethics and values, which are important components of ecoliteracy, thereby indicating the usefulness of proverbs in delivering TEK-based worldviews, ethics, and values. Overall, our study reasons that the learning of TEK-related traditional proverbs can be meaningful for enhancing ecoliteracy among urban youth, particularly when this learning is complemented with field-based observational learning within integrated approaches for sustainability education.

Keywords: ecoliteracy; ecology education; proverb; sustainability education; traditional ecological knowledge; Korea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:7:p:1182-:d:103881

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