Prof. Mary Leou, Clinical Professor of Environmental Education at NYU, reflects on her work in urban environmental education, highlighting the role of place-based learning and community engagement. She shares how her experiences have shaped her approach and why environmental education remains central to advancing equity and climate justice.
Lina: You have spent more than four decades working in urban environmental education and you have established the Wallerstein Collaborative for Urban Environmental Education and Sustainability at NYU since 2000. What first drew you to environmental education, and how did your early professional experiences shape the questions that guide your work today?
Prof. Leou: I have always been attracted to nature even as a young child. I loved exploring natural phenomena in my parent’s backyard. My love of nature expanded to parks, beaches and botanic gardens and as a parent, I exposed my own children to the same outdoor experiences.
As a graduate student at Teachers College, I worked as an intern as an outdoor educator in Inwood Hill Park in Northern Manhattan where I developed environmental programs for K-8 public school children. I was influenced by Dewey’s theory of experiential learning and applied these theories to outdoor education. I began developing programs for children utilizing a place-based approach by focusing on urban forests, the Hudson River Estuary and the natural history of the park.
Lina: Before joining NYU, you served as Director of Education at the City Parks Foundation and worked on large-scale urban forest restoration efforts. How did working directly with communities and public spaces influence the way you think about environmental education?
Prof. Leou: At City Parks Foundation, my work expanded to a city-wide level. I worked directly with a variety of communities throughout the city. My classroom expanded to 5,000 acres of forest spanning across five boroughs! It gave me a unique opportunity to learn about our city’s natural areas and the importance of preserving them for generations to come. In continuing to develop programs for schools, I realized that environmental education can be a powerful way to engage the public in stewardship efforts. Providing schools with access to natural areas became part of my life’s mission.
Lina: Much of your work focuses on cities as sites of learning. In your view, what makes urban environments particularly powerful “classrooms” for environmental education?
Prof. Leou: Cities are complex urban ecosystems and can provide rich opportunities for interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Cities are also amazing outdoor classrooms where we can apply place-based theories of learning to teach about watersheds, food systems, air quality, recycling, and the ecosystem services that support life in urban environments.
Through experiential, field-based learning, we can foster systems thinking, problem-solving skills, and environmental stewardship. At NYU, I have especially enjoyed teaching a course called Cities as Classrooms, which brings these kinds of experiences to both graduate and undergraduate students.
Lina: Over the years, you have developed numerous programs for teachers, K–12 schools, and community organizations. What are some of the most effective ways educators can help students build environmental literacy and stewardship, especially in urban settings?
Prof. Leou: All the programs I have developed at NYU were designed to promote environmental literacy for teachers and students through community service and citizen science projects. The Tidal Connections program, for example, engaged elementary school students—many of whom typically do not have access to natural areas—in efforts to raise awareness about and protect critical coastal habitats.
Community service provides students with opportunities to work with local members of the community in stewardship efforts from tree plantings to beach cleanups. Citizen science activities are transformative so that students are not merely consumers of knowledge but also generators of knowledge.
However, teachers need professional development opportunities in environmental education and sustainability. Teacher education programs have a moral obligation to provide environmental literacy programs as part of pre-service and ongoing in-service education. This can be accomplished in a number of ways including workshops, intensive institutes, fellowships and summer programs designed for K-12 teachers.
Lina: Your projects often connect environmental education with civic engagement and community stewardship, such as initiatives working with teachers and students to develop local habitats. Why do you see community participation as essential to environmental learning?
Prof. Leou: Community stewardship encourages people of all ages to take an active role in caring and maintaining our local environment through a variety of activities including: cleaning up our parks or coastal areas, maintaining our city’s trees, or participating in community science projects like water quality testing or air quality monitoring and playing an active role in sharing our concerns with elected officials. Civic engagement activities can empower people to become active environmental stewards and advocates. This can be accomplished through partnerships across disciplines. As Krasny and Tidball (2012) have noted, “forming partnerships with scientists, non-profits and government helps to ensure larger impacts and longer-term sustainability driven efforts.”
Lina: Some of your recent work explores how climate-related challenges, such as flooding, affect immigrant and marginalized communities in New York City. How can environmental education help address environmental justice and ensure that these communities are included in climate conversations?
Prof. Leou: Environmental education is a powerful way to explore and investigate complex issues of environmental justice. When we look at issues such as air pollution, flood zones, or climate change, we begin to realize that some communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards and climate change.
In seeking solutions to these challenges, storytelling can be an important method for understanding people’s lived experiences and the ways environmental change affects their daily lives. These perspectives are often overlooked in traditional policy discussions.
After Hurricane Sandy, I began to think more deeply about communities that were severely impacted by flooding and how their experiences could inform both education and environmental policy. As part of my work I collected stories from Asian and Latino residents from Sunset Park. Their stories are available in Mandarin and Spanish in Bobst Library, accessible to all. I hope we can continue to collect climate stories and give voice to local citizens affected by flooding and other climate related issues in an effort to better serve them.
Lina: Over the past two decades, environmental education has evolved significantly, especially as climate change becomes more urgent. What changes have you seen in how students, educators, and institutions approach environmental education today?
Prof. Leou: Climate change has become an important issue in the field of environmental education and it has important implications in how we teach about climate change. It challenges us to create a new vision for environmental education. One of the most critical challenges educators currently face is to develop programs that promote pro-environmental behavior. I firmly believe that providing students with rich place-based stewardship experiences is one of the best ways to achieve this. Furthermore we must encourage educators and institutions to act locally where change is possible and also visible to members of the community.
The New York State Board of Regents recently approved statewide climate education for all K-12 public school students which will go into effect beginning in 2027. This is a major step in helping students understand the causes, impacts and solutions of climate change.
This has far reaching implications for cross-curricular education and for teacher preparation and teacher education programs. I look forward to working with schools and communities in implementing these changes.
Lina: As Director of the Environmental Conservation Education Graduate Program at NYU, you work closely with students who hope to build careers in environmental education and sustainability. What advice would you give students who want to create meaningful environmental change through education?
Prof. Leou: My advice to students considering a career in the environmental field is to be open to new ideas and develop educational programs that are place-based, interdisciplinary, equitable and inclusive. Embrace change and find ways to continue environmental education in both formal and non formal educational settings. Our alumni have been our greatest resource in helping newcomers to the field so I suggest students create and sustain a network of colleagues in the field that will help open doors for them!
