Adjunct Professor
Julie Davis

Biography

Julie’s teaching and research interests lie at the intersection of science, health, society and environment, with a special interest in early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS). Helping educators understand and grapple with issues of sustainability lies at the core of her pedagogical approaches. Acting on this interest, Julie co-founded the Queensland Early Childhood Environmental Education Network (now the Queensland Early Childhood Sustainability Network), to bring together educators, directors, parents and others keen to share resources, ideas and perspectives for embedding education for sustainability principles and practices into early childhood education. In 2011, Julie received recognition for her teaching leadership by being awarded a National Teaching Citation from the then Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

Research: In research, Julie specialises in action research as a means for developing understandings of a situation and for creating change. Julie used action research in both her Masters and doctoral studies. In 2008, she co-led a Queensland multi-university action research project aimed at embedding education for sustainability into preservice teacher education courses. This study resulted in the 2009 government report Mainstreaming Sustainability into Preservice Teacher Education. In 2012, she co-lead a followup project, funded by the Office of Learning and Teaching. The report, A state-wide systems approach to embedding the learning and teaching of sustainability in teacher education was published in 2014. Julie has initiated/been a team member of a number of qualitative studies reported on via her publications. In 2010-11, Julie conceived and led two research meetings, Transnational Dialogues in Research in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability, in Stavanger, Norway (2010) and Brisbane (2011), bringing together international researchers to promote and build capacity for ECEfS research. These events resulted in the world-first research text in ECEfS (Routledge, 2014).

Service/Experience: In 2010, as editor and chapter author, Julie published the world-first textbook (Cambridge University Press) on early childhood education for sustainability – Young Children and the Environment: Early Education for Sustainability.  In 2007 and 2008, she was invited to the first international workshops on `the role of early childhood education in sustainable development` in Gothenburg, Sweden. These led to the 2008 UNESCO report The Contribution of Early Childhood Education to a Sustainable Society and the Gothenburg Recommendations on Education for Sustainable Development (2008). Julie was the Adlerbert Visiting Professor for sustainability at Gothenburg University, 2012-13.

Research Reports:

• Stevenson, R. (Bob), Ferreira, J., Davis, J., & Evans, N. (Snowy) (2014) A state-wide systems approach to embedding the learning and teaching of sustainability in teacher education. Office of Learning and Teaching, Sydney Australia.
• Mainstreaming education for sustainability into pre-service teacher education in Australia: Stage 2
• The Impact and Potential of Water Education in Early Childhood Care and Education Settings: A Report of the Rous Water Early Childhood Water Aware Centre Program. QUT: Brisbane.
• Doctoral thesis - Educational Innovation through Action Research in Environment Education: From Project to Praxis. Griffith University.
• Masters research dissertation - Empowering the School Community for Change: An Evaluation of Participatory Action Research in the Ashgrove Healthy School Environment Project. Griffith University.