This paper considers a range of factors that may contribute to an unwillingness or inability of teachers to participate in the teaching of biology through fieldwork. Through a synthesis of the views of both pre-service teachers in training and primary school teachers in practice we explore the relative importance of a wide range of potential barriers and potential responses to them in the context of the wider literature. We conclude that although fieldwork may be impeded by the interaction of a wide range of individual barriers, including an individual's predisposition towards the outdoors, it is possible to group interacting barriers into two main areas: school culture and teacher confidence. It is also apparent that barriers may assume different levels of significance when considered in general terms rather than when applied to a particular context and that the significance of barriers may change through time. Encouragingly, we have also shown that in-service teachers have a willingness to overcome these barriers.

There are two separate but related issues that have challenged advocates, researchers and practitioners in the field of early education and care work for decades : improving the quality of children’s programs and increasing the wages and benefits of the workers. The solution has been framed as a need for professionalizing the workforce – professional development training, higher education and enhanced skills. While seeking professional status is expected to improve the quality of childcare programs and worker compensation, the relationship between quality, compensation and professional development training has not been fully explored. Through in - depth interviews with 32 early childhood educators I explored the relationship between educational qualifications and experience , with teacher pay and condition s of employment. Although the majority saw their work as “valuable and meaningful” they did not intend to remain in early childhood education. They experienced poverty wages, few benefits, high work related expenses and job insecurity. Their narratives highlight a crisis in early childhood education that requires radical change within the profession of early education . To retain the most qualified and motivated early childhood educators , pay and working conditions must be improved. Obtaining professional status and credentials for early education and care workers is not enough . Substantial increases in wages and benefits must be central to this movement; anything less suggests exploitation not professionalization.

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Background: Service-learning has historically been seen as a high-impact practice that empowers undergraduates to develop essential learning outcomes. Most service-learning discussed within the literature occurs as a required element of a credit-bearing academic course. Purpose: This study explored what happens when service-learning is reimagined to be disconnected from a specific course and credit hours, and available via application to all undergraduates regardless of the liberal arts/science major or year in the college. Methodology/Approach: HyperRESEARCH was used to identify themes and categories from 45 sets of weekly reflections submitted by 36 participants engaged in reimagined service-learning projects across five semesters. Findings/Conclusions: Key findings reveal that not only do undergraduates develop essential learning outcomes as delineated in the existing literature, but in many cases, their understandings, and abilities to execute these skills, are deepened when service-learning is reimagined. Findings also reveal that undergraduates may experience service-learning differently depending upon year in college. Implications: Results from this study suggest that practitioners should investigate ways to reimagine service-learning, with specific emphasis placed on the differential ways college students at various stages in their undergraduate career experience, and learn from, service-learning.

This paper demonstrates the positive impact of learning through ecological fieldwork upon children's ability to write and to write about science. Specifically we have carried out a relatively large-scale study (involving 379 children aged 9-11 from eight primary schools in North East England) comparing intervention classes (involved in fieldwork) and comparison classes (no fieldwork). Pre intervention assessments revealed no differences between classes in mean literacy scores; post intervention assessments revealed that significantly higher literacy scores were achieved by children who had carried out fieldwork (girls consistently out performed boys in all classes). Intervention class children achieved higher scores in science (ecology) assessments than their comparison class peers before and after the intervention. We suggest that this may be an effect of these children thinking as scientists throughout the project. Our work confirms that a child-centered outdoor learning experience focused upon science can result in learning benefits across the wider curriculum.