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The roots of arts-based environmental education as it was developed in Finland
The term "arts-based environmental education" (AEE) was first coined by Finnish art educator Meri-Helga Mantere in the 1990s. Mantere describes AEE as a form of learning that aims to develop environmental understanding and responsibility “by becoming more receptive to sense perceptions and observations and by using artistic methods to express personal environmental experiences and thoughts”. '''According to Mantere, one of the main meanings of art through the ages has been its ability to reach the deeper levels of the psyche and to act as a channel and possibility for giving shape to feelings that are often unconscious. Because of this she maintains that also the “dark” side of the mind, once having achieved for, can be integrated into the totality of the psyche, and can thus be made relative'''. AEE tends to have these two sides: it aims to increase the students' openness and sensitivity and it can help them find new and personal ways to articulate and share their environmental experiences, which might be beautiful, disgusting, peaceful or threatening. Artistic experiences improve one's ability to see; they help one in knowing and understanding. Therefore, she maintains that these can be of high value in learning about the environment. Mantere's description of her method of art-based environmental education can be taken as a first attempt at a definition:"'What do I do as an environmentalist and as an art teacher? To put it rather simply: I try to support fresh perception, the nearby, personal enjoyment and pleasure of perceiving the world from the heart. To achieve that, it is necessary to stop, be quiet, have time and feel psychologically secure in order to perceive the unknown, the sometimes wild and unexpected. At times conscious training of the senses, decoding the stereotype, is needed. I aim at an openness to sensitivity, new and personal ways to articulate and share one’s environmental experiences which might be beautiful, disgusting, peaceful or threatening. I support and facilitate the conversation with the environment.'"In short, Mantere's conception of AEE is grounded on the belief that sensitivity to the environment can be developed by artistic activities. As an artist, and as a teacher and therapist, she came to find it more and more important to go back to the basics of the process and skill of perception. Here, the question of how we perceive and how we receive or reject the messages of the environment is central. Important to underline - because it counters possible allegations of embracing a too Romantic view of nature – is that there is also room for the “shadow” side of experience, for feelings of disgust, fear and agony.

AEE and environmental art
In his article “From Environmental Art to Environmental Education,” Timo Jokela, professor in art education at the University of Lapland, claims that the visual arts can offer elements to environmental education that are lacking in other fields. To him, “artistic-aesthetic learning” involves observation, experience and increasing awareness. Art sharpens our schemes of observation and activity, and thus facilitates bringing the phenomena to our consciousness. Art continuously creates new ways of observing. Even more so, visual art can be understood as actually being a history of evolving and varying schemes of observation. Previous learning experiences dominate the way in which we subsequently observe and describe our environment, says Jokela. He underpins this claim by quoting Arnold Berleant, as follows: “environments are not physical places but perceptual ones that we collaborate in making, and it is perceptually that we determine their identity and extent”.

For Jokela, the “environmental world” and the “art world” share an educational task. Environmental art, for him, is first and foremost art that is defined by the place it is made; it is created, as it were, by the environment. Its historical antecedents go back to the 1960s (e.g. the practices of “earth art” and “land art”). The Finnish art educator goes on to list four types of exercises that illustrate how environmental art can be a method of environmental education. On the one hand, these exercises are faithful to the practice of environmental art and as such they are a basic part of art education. On the other hand, they are also methods for increasing one's sensitivity towards the environment. In the latter sense, they are essentially environmental education. These are the categories that Jokela provides:

• Exercises on focusing your observations and perceiving them more sensitively;

• Exercises which bring forward the processes happening in nature, and help one in perceiving them more sensitively: growth and decay, the flow of water, the turning of day and night, the changes of light, the wind, etc.;

• Exercises which aim to alter set ways of viewing the environment;

• Exercises which test the scale of the environment and human “limits.” The starting point is a large amount of material and the aim is a clear change in the environment.

A binding factor in Jokela's categories is the implicit driving force: they are exercises that work towards achieving or accomplishing a pre-established goal; they “aim at.” Mantere makes an illuminating distinction between (a) seeing art as a tool of environmental education, (b) seeing art itself as a form of environmental education and (c) seeing environmental education as a form of art. Each alternative, she says, is possible and tones the content and activity in a different way. '''Jan van Boeckel claimed that she sees the aspect of “open-endedness” in artistic process as one of its key defining elements. In theory, this would allow for outcomes of artistic process in/with nature that are contingent to the aims and concerns that reign in most forms of EE. ''' 