Undisciplining Environmental Communication Pedagogy: Toward Environmental and Epistemic Justice in the Interdisciplinary Sustainability Classroom
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is very interesting, well written, clear and necessary, but it needs to undergo changes in two important areas. In the methodological apparatus. It is not clear the intention of the authors of the methodological analysis that is intuited as qualitative but what is presented is not a series of sections without a previous description of the method that is followed, through which the results that are presented are reached, nor how these results are reached. It is not explained if there has been a sample, or if it is a review work. The discussion is not presented as a conclusion, it has to be presented in a discussion format.
In addition, in the theoretical framework, it would be necessary to further develop the arguments that are based on more sources, which are scarce.
Author Response
Comments from Reviewer 1, with Author Responses in Red:
Point 1: The paper is very interesting, well written, clear and necessary, but it needs to undergo changes in two important areas. In the methodological apparatus. It is not clear the intention of the authors of the methodological analysis that is intuited as qualitative but what is presented is not a series of sections without a previous description of the method that is followed, through which the results that are presented are reached, nor how these results are reached. It is not explained if there has been a sample, or if it is a review work. The discussion is not presented as a conclusion, it has to be presented in a discussion format.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable feedback. We appreciate your comments about the well-written and interesting nature of our manuscript. We have clarified the description of our methods by explaining that this manuscript reflects a qualitative review of extant literature through which our new model of “undisciplined environmental communication pedagogy” is explicated [see lines 83-84; lines 135-155]. We have also expanded our Discussion section by moving our discussion of sample pedagogical assignments from Results to Discussion and including an explanatory statement [see lines 691-881]. We also added a conclusion sub-section that discusses limitations of the study and future directions of research [see lines 913-950].
Point 2: In addition, in the theoretical framework, it would be necessary to further develop the arguments that are based on more sources, which are scarce.
Response 2: We further re-organized and developed the theoretical framework by discussing potential limitations of the framework and incorporating additional sources as you suggested [see lines 191-202; 299-304; 385-407].
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting paper.
Overall, I believe it is a good manuscript which could be improved with a more clear structure and perhaps being a little more focused.
I would explain my observations as follows:
- as it is presented now, this is not a research article; thus, I think it would be more appropriate to change the title of its paragraphs without forcing the structure introduction-methods-results-discussion/conclusions. Moreover, beside articles, MDPI publishes other types of manuscript (https://www.mdpi.com/about/article_types, for example opinions, essays, perspectives, editorials) which in my opinion could be more suitable for this topic and how it is presented here
- the assignments are presented in the results section, after a very long introduction; actually, they are a method, and should be described as such. If any results of these assignments are available, those should be reported in the results section, if the manuscript will be maintained as a research article describing these assignments as a pedagogical practice
- line 271 and line 304: here the authors explain how science fiction and speculative fiction could be used in education. I believe this is a very interesting part and in order to make it more understandable for readers I would put the whole paragraph 303-336 right after line 274. Some more examples beside "Cloud Dragon Skies" (both in literature and cinema/other media) could be added. A short definition of the term "worldmaking" (used at line 334) could be useful, as it may be confused with "worldbuilding", being the former a more philosphical concept and the latter a more literary one. I would suggest to mention the importance of characters in science and speculative fiction, as the fact that they are tangible beings interacting both physically and emotionally with what happens them in the story reinforces our perception of the impact of environment and its problems.
- I agree that scientists and researchers should be encouraged to share their knowledge and findings beyond the academic publications and dynamics. Nevertheless, this can be difficult for several reasons, for which researchers are not always responsible. For example, in Italy, after a law approved in 2010, the national assessment of quality in research activities considers a bibliometric set of variables including the number of academic publications, citations and h-index of each author. Other forms of publications (for example educational books, participation in online or Tv programs, podcasts and so on) are not considered, and this assessment determines the funds for academic departments and the evolution of an academic career; thus, at least in Italy, researches are influenced by this approach in their activity (I suggest to read the following article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004873331730210X)
- the "dark side" of a more widespread use by scientists of media, popular culture sources and fiction is the difficulty in guaranteeing quality, while research activity and academic publication have a well structured system for this. Wikipedia has its own guidelines, but many other media do not. This should be mentioned and addressed in the manuscript. Would there be a standardized system to check the quality of the published materials? If not, the effect of their content would rely entirely on the level of literacy of its users.
Author Response
Comments from Reviewer 2, with Author Responses in Red:
Point 1: Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting paper.
Overall, I believe it is a good manuscript which could be improved with a more clear structure and perhaps being a little more focused.
I would explain my observations as follows:
- as it is presented now, this is not a research article; thus, I think it would be more appropriate to change the title of its paragraphs without forcing the structure introduction-methods-results-discussion/conclusions. Moreover, beside articles, MDPI publishes other types of manuscript (https://www.mdpi.com/about/article_types, for example opinions, essays, perspectives, editorials) which in my opinion could be more suitable for this topic and how it is presented here
Response 1: Thank you very much for your feedback on this manuscript. We appreciate your insightful comments about the structure of the paper, and have subsequently changed the sections to better reflect the content. For example, we have changed the section previously titled Methods to Theoretical Background [see line 161], and we have clarified and explicated the structure of the manuscript to identify its format as literature review and its approach as a qualitative analysis of extant literature toward the articulation of a new theory of environmental communication pedagogy [see lines 83-94]. It is our intent that these revisions emphasize the research basis of this article, which is based on a methodical engagement with existing scholarship in order to generate a novel framework and perspective.
Point 2: - the assignments are presented in the results section, after a very long introduction; actually, they are a method, and should be described as such. If any results of these assignments are available, those should be reported in the results section, if the manuscript will be maintained as a research article describing these assignments as a pedagogical practice
Response 2: Thank you for this valuable feedback. After addressing other reviewers’ comments and reassessing the structure of the manuscript, we believe the sample assignments are best suited to the Discussion section [see lines 688-876]. This is for two reasons: (1) these assignments were not a method used by the authors; our primary method is literature review and critical analysis; (2) quantitative and/or qualitative assessment of these assignments in the classroom is beyond the scope of this study, though we believe these assignments are worthy of discussion as a way to reflect on the theoretical framework articulated in the manuscript. We have identified quantitative and qualitative assessment of these assignments in the classroom as a future direction of research [see lines 936-940].
Point 3:- line 271 and line 304: here the authors explain how science fiction and speculative fiction could be used in education. I believe this is a very interesting part and in order to make it more understandable for readers I would put the whole paragraph 303-336 right after line 274.
Response 3: This is a very helpful recommendation, which we have taken. The revised location of this section can be found beginning on line 354 of the revised manuscript.
Point 4: Some more examples beside "Cloud Dragon Skies" (both in literature and cinema/other media) could be added.
Response 4: Additional examples of relevant literary and cinematic works have been added [see lines 403-407].
Point 5: A short definition of the term "worldmaking" (used at line 334) could be useful, as it may be confused with "worldbuilding", being the former a more philosphical concept and the latter a more literary one. I would suggest to mention the importance of characters in science and speculative fiction, as the fact that they are tangible beings interacting both physically and emotionally with what happens them in the story reinforces our perception of the impact of environment and its problems.
Response 5: We have added a brief definition of “world-making” and its distinction from the more familiar term “world-building” [see lines 385-403].
Point 6: - I agree that scientists and researchers should be encouraged to share their knowledge and findings beyond the academic publications and dynamics. Nevertheless, this can be difficult for several reasons, for which researchers are not always responsible. For example, in Italy, after a law approved in 2010, the national assessment of quality in research activities considers a bibliometric set of variables including the number of academic publications, citations and h-index of each author. Other forms of publications (for example educational books, participation in online or Tv programs, podcasts and so on) are not considered, and this assessment determines the funds for academic departments and the evolution of an academic career; thus, at least in Italy, researches are influenced by this approach in their activity (I suggest to read the following article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004873331730210X)
Response 6: Thank you for providing this context and article recommendation. This is very helpful to know about. We want to clarify how our research relates to this concern: first, our research is not advocating for scholars to eschew academic publication venues; we are aware of the ways that funding and promotion in academia are dependent on conventional modes of scholarship. Recommendations for academic researchers are beyond the scope of this work. Rather, we advocate for ways of teaching college students (1) to think critically about the politics of knowledge production while being inclusive in their research archives; and (2) to experiment with forms of public communication beyond conventional scholarship. We do not advocate for these approaches to the exclusion of traditional scholarship, but rather as a valuable addition. We hope this clarifies our stance in relation to this question.
Point 7: - the "dark side" of a more widespread use by scientists of media, popular culture sources and fiction is the difficulty in guaranteeing quality, while research activity and academic publication have a well structured system for this. Wikipedia has its own guidelines, but many other media do not. This should be mentioned and addressed in the manuscript. Would there be a standardized system to check the quality of the published materials? If not, the effect of their content would rely entirely on the level of literacy of its users.
Response 7: This is such an important concern; thank you for sharing your feedback about it. We strongly believe that the answer to the problem of low quality information and/or misinformation is not to limit the type, venue, or format of information researchers engage with, but rather, to emphasize critical media literacy and critical thinking about the politics of knowledge production. To clarify this, we have expanded our discussion of methods [see lines 135-155], and further discussed the potential risks of this approach with regard to educating critical citizens [see lines 191-202].
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I thought it was a useful paper on an important topic. My recommendation is to publish after revision though I am unsure whether the changes I recommend should be considered ‘minor’.
The authors identify a pressing contemporary issue and focus on ways to address this through pedagogical approaches. They do a good job of this, although I wondered whether (wilful) misinformation is a bigger part of the problem than perhaps the authors acknowledge in their setup of public discourse around the environment.
It might be worth addressing what some might term anthropocentrism in ethical approaches to the environment. We can think of people as the only things of ethical value (and the moral value of the environment comes from its ability to support people) or we can think of the environment/ecosystem as having a moral value on and of itself. (Aldo Leopold's 'Land Ethic' is an example of the latter.) But perhaps this leads the authors away from what they are really focused on…
I felt that the idea of 'critical scavenging' needed a bit more unpacking. It is asserted that 'Critical scavenging, as a research strategy, embodies an environmental justice ethos that centers equity of access while also performing the creative and nimble research approaches necessitated by the instability and unpredictability of free and open-access virtual knowledge archives.' I'm sensitive to the need for open access publication and equity in knowledge production/consumption. But this reads a bit like you're just willfully ignoring anything you couldn't easily get hold of - which I think most would say does not really adhere to accepted standards of scholarship. I appreciate that these are the very standards the authors wish to challenge but I think a bit more justification is needed for this approach. (No details are provided for how the literature base was found/selected other than using Google, ResearchGate and Academia.edu.)
Similarly, I'm interested in the idea of undisciplinarity but I think the authors could do more to acknowledge that it comes at a price. It seems like the authors are happy to quote 'disciplined' research when it suits them while also criticising the way such research is produced. There's a fine balance to be struck here... does embracing undisciplinarity just mean cherrypicking available resources to suit your overall argument? (I would have found it helpful to have a table summarising how many of the references used are considered 'disciplined' or otherwise.)
What is presented here as a methods section is long and discursive. I would have thought this was better characterised as a kind of conceptual framework. It's well written and makes a coherent argument but it doesn't explain much about the actual methods used for this paper: mostly it clarifies concepts and elaborates their relation to each other.
In the results section we pivot to a discussion of assignments from 'Environmental Justice', and 'Culture, Power, Environment', two courses at Allegheny College. These write-ups are quite brief compared with the lead in and most of the description of the results of these interventions seems to be anecdotal (e.g. lines 582-589). For the second assignment the account is very brief and the idea seems to be that the assignment itself is an embodiment of the kind of pedagogical thinking that the authors wish to promote - but we don't learn anything about the impact of this either on learners or the wider public sphere.
The discussion section is also brief - just two paragraphs. In terms of the overall goal of the paper: I actually really liked the idea of public-facing pedagogical outputs, though I wondered whether more could be done to acknowledge risks to learners of putting themselves out there in this way when we know there are malicious agents in the public sphere. I think a bit more could be done to elaborate the features of effective public communication and how they influence pedagogical design.
The theme of undisciplining returns in the final lines but feels like a bit of an afterthought to me. Couldn't you have done exactly the same assignments without framing it in this way? The value of undisciplining could be made clearer given its prominence in the paper. After all, you can emphasize positionality without endorsing undisciplining, can't you? What do the authors think we should do in instances where scientific consensus and marginalised perspectives are not in accord? I feel that some of these issues are glossed over in the present draft.
I liked this paper and I feel the work is important. Because of this, I recommend publication after revision but I do think the current draft is a littel unbalanced and would benefit from significant development, particularly towards the end of the manuscript.
The paper is very well written and very clear, both of which I appreciate!
The authors claim that "there is little research discussing the relationship between public-collaboratory resources such as Wikipedia and issues of epistemic justice" and I'm not sure that this is the case. For instance, see the following on Wikipedia and epistemic injustice:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220401012236id_/https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/F28D40C0057D975FC5F3B3EA3E048CFA/S1049096521001220a.pdf/div-class-title-wikipedia-edit-a-thons-sites-of-struggle-resistance-and-responsibility-div.pdf
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2998581.2998600
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13614568.2020.1865463
https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/1900-v1-n1-irrodl04235/1055553ar/abstract/
https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/download/159/272
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/miao.xi/viz/DecodingEpistemicInjusticetowardsWomenonWikipedia/Dashboard
Author Response
Comments from Reviewer 3, with Author Responses in Red:
Point 1: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I thought it was a useful paper on an important topic. My recommendation is to publish after revision though I am unsure whether the changes I recommend should be considered ‘minor’.
The authors identify a pressing contemporary issue and focus on ways to address this through pedagogical approaches. They do a good job of this, although I wondered whether (wilful) misinformation is a bigger part of the problem than perhaps the authors acknowledge in their setup of public discourse around the environment.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable feedback. We agree that environmental misinformation should be addressed more thoroughly, and have expanded our discussion of this. We strongly believe that the answer to the problem of low quality information and/or misinformation is to emphasize critical media literacy and critical thinking about the politics of knowledge production. To clarify this, we have expanded our discussion of methods with regard to critical media literacy [147-151], and further discussed the potential risks of this approach with regard to educating critical citizens [see lines 191-202].
Point 2: It might be worth addressing what some might term anthropocentrism in ethical approaches to the environment. We can think of people as the only things of ethical value (and the moral value of the environment comes from its ability to support people) or we can think of the environment/ecosystem as having a moral value on and of itself. (Aldo Leopold's 'Land Ethic' is an example of the latter.) But perhaps this leads the authors away from what they are really focused on…
Response 2: This is a fascinating insight–thank you so much for sharing this. We strongly agree with this perspective, though after reviewing the manuscript in light of reviewers’ comments, we believe that this is beyond the scope of our research, particularly since our emphasis is on environmental justice, which is specifically concerned with redressing injustices toward marginalized human populations.
Point 3: I felt that the idea of 'critical scavenging' needed a bit more unpacking. It is asserted that 'Critical scavenging, as a research strategy, embodies an environmental justice ethos that centers equity of access while also performing the creative and nimble research approaches necessitated by the instability and unpredictability of free and open-access virtual knowledge archives.' I'm sensitive to the need for open access publication and equity in knowledge production/consumption. But this reads a bit like you're just willfully ignoring anything you couldn't easily get hold of - which I think most would say does not really adhere to accepted standards of scholarship. I appreciate that these are the very standards the authors wish to challenge but I think a bit more justification is needed for this approach. (No details are provided for how the literature base was found/selected other than using Google, ResearchGate and Academia.edu.)
Response 3: Thank you for these comments. We have expanded and clarified our discussion of critical scavenging to better articulate its application, and we have also provided additional context for our use of non-academic venues through which to retrieve relevant literature, including the application of principles of critical media literacy to determine the credibility of non-scholarly sources [see lines 135-155].
Point 4: Similarly, I'm interested in the idea of undisciplinarity but I think the authors could do more to acknowledge that it comes at a price. It seems like the authors are happy to quote 'disciplined' research when it suits them while also criticising the way such research is produced. There's a fine balance to be struck here... does embracing undisciplinarity just mean cherrypicking available resources to suit your overall argument? (I would have found it helpful to have a table summarising how many of the references used are considered 'disciplined' or otherwise.)
Response 4: We agree that it is important to more thoroughly explicate the challenges of an “undisciplined” approach to environmental communication pedagogy. We want to clarify how our research relates to this concern: first, our research is not advocating for scholars to eschew academic publication venues in their research (as we note: ​​This theory of “undisciplined” environmental communication pedagogy brings together scientific, data-driven evidence about environmental issues, and the interlocking socioeconomic contexts that define peoples’ environmental realities [lines 88-90]). Rather, we advocate for ways of teaching college students (1) to think critically about the politics of knowledge production while being inclusive in their research archives; and (2) to experiment with forms of public communication beyond conventional scholarship. We do not advocate for these approaches to the exclusion of traditional scholarship, but rather as a valuable addition. Additionally, we believe that, however unfortunately, cherry-picking is an unethical research practice that can and does occur irrespective of the venues through which information is collected; it is just as likely for a researcher who uses only peer-reviewed scholarship to cherry-pick their sources as it is for a researcher who broadens their archive beyond traditional scholarship. From this perspective, we believe that teaching critical media literacy [detailed in lines 147-155] in concert with discussions about the exclusionary legacies of academic knowledge is the most valuable way to address the price of “undisciplinarity” without “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” We hope this clarifies our stance in relation to these comments.
Point 5: What is presented here as a methods section is long and discursive. I would have thought this was better characterised as a kind of conceptual framework. It's well written and makes a coherent argument but it doesn't explain much about the actual methods used for this paper: mostly it clarifies concepts and elaborates their relation to each other.
Response 5: We appreciate your insightful comments about the structure of the paper, and have subsequently revised the sections to better reflect the content. For example, we have changed the section previously titled Methods to Theoretical Background [see line 161], and we have clarified and explicated the structure of the manuscript to identify its format as literature review and its approach as a qualitative analysis of extant literature toward the articulation of a new theory of environmental communication pedagogy [see lines 83-94]. We have expanded our discussion of methods, specifically with regard to how we collected and analyzed sources [see lines 135-155], and further discussed the potential risks of this approach with regard to educating critical citizens [see lines 191-202].
Point 6: In the results section we pivot to a discussion of assignments from 'Environmental Justice', and 'Culture, Power, Environment', two courses at Allegheny College. These write-ups are quite brief compared with the lead in and most of the description of the results of these interventions seems to be anecdotal (e.g. lines 582-589). For the second assignment the account is very brief and the idea seems to be that the assignment itself is an embodiment of the kind of pedagogical thinking that the authors wish to promote - but we don't learn anything about the impact of this either on learners or the wider public sphere.
Response 6: After addressing other reviewers’ comments and reassessing the structure of the manuscript, we believe the sample assignments are best suited to the Discussion section [spanning lines 691-954]. This is for two reasons: (1) these assignments were not a method used by the authors; our primary method is literature review and critical analysis; (2) quantitative and/or qualitative assessment of these assignments in the classroom is beyond the scope of this study, though we believe these assignments are worthy of discussion as a way to reflect on the theoretical framework articulated in the manuscript. We have identified quantitative and qualitative assessment of these assignments in the classroom as a future direction of research [see lines 946-950].
Point 7: The discussion section is also brief - just two paragraphs. In terms of the overall goal of the paper: I actually really liked the idea of public-facing pedagogical outputs, though I wondered whether more could be done to acknowledge risks to learners of putting themselves out there in this way when we know there are malicious agents in the public sphere. I think a bit more could be done to elaborate the features of effective public communication and how they influence pedagogical design.
Response 7: With regard to the placement of the sample assignments (we appreciate your positive feedback about this!), we have re-organized the manuscript to incorporate the sample assignments into the Discussion section [lines 709-881], while also providing a new introduction to this section that contextualizes the assignments as a way to further reflect on the theoretical concepts covered in the manuscript [lines 690-693]. We have also incorporated your suggestions about addressing the risks of public communication and the importance of critical media literacy and communication [as noted earlier, these revised sections can be found in lines 147-155].
Point 8: The theme of undisciplining returns in the final lines but feels like a bit of an afterthought to me. Couldn't you have done exactly the same assignments without framing it in this way? The value of undisciplining could be made clearer given its prominence in the paper. After all, you can emphasize positionality without endorsing undisciplining, can't you? What do the authors think we should do in instances where scientific consensus and marginalised perspectives are not in accord? I feel that some of these issues are glossed over in the present draft.
Response 8: We are grateful for this feedback, and have expanded and clarified the discussion of “undisciplining” to more cohesively contextualize the concept, particularly with regard to Reviewer 3’s question about what to do when “scientific consensus and marginalised perspectives are not in accord?” We have included an illustrative example through which to further discuss this important question and conclude by reflecting on “the importance of understanding how social identities, politics, and historical injustices converge to produce inequality of experience and epistemic injustice. From this perspective, the critical scavenging method the authors introduce can be incorporated to promote a wider breadth of perspectives on environmental issues while also encouraging critical thinking about the core question of epistemic justice: whose knowledge matters?” [see lines 913-938].
Point 9: I liked this paper and I feel the work is important. Because of this, I recommend publication after revision but I do think the current draft is a littel unbalanced and would benefit from significant development, particularly towards the end of the manuscript.
Response 9: We have expanded our discussions toward the end of the manuscript [e.g. see our response above] to more fully contextualize our articulation of “undisciplinarity” with regard to environmental communication pedagogy.
Point 10: The paper is very well written and very clear, both of which I appreciate!
Response 10: Many thanks for these kind words!
Point 11: The authors claim that "there is little research discussing the relationship between public-collaboratory resources such as Wikipedia and issues of epistemic justice" and I'm not sure that this is the case. For instance, see the following on Wikipedia and epistemic injustice:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220401012236id_/https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/F28D40C0057D975FC5F3B3EA3E048CFA/S1049096521001220a.pdf/div-class-title-wikipedia-edit-a-thons-sites-of-struggle-resistance-and-responsibility-div.pdf
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2998581.2998600
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13614568.2020.1865463
https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/1900-v1-n1-irrodl04235/1055553ar/abstract/
https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/download/159/272
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/miao.xi/viz/DecodingEpistemicInjusticetowardsWomenonWikipedia/Dashboard
Response 11: Thank you for these generous suggestions of relevant literature. We have incorporated these into our revised manuscript by expanding our discussion of extant literature about the decolonial potential of Wikipedia [see lines 762-770], while also citing several of these valuable sources [see line 770].
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear author,
Dear editor,
Thanks for the opportunity to read and review this revision of your paper. This paper tries to answer the question of what forms of environmental communication pedagogy contribute to dynamic communication competencies for students while also promoting environmental and epistemic justice. The authors began with a literature review until they concluded with woe samples for adapting in the classroom.
The Paper should be published after minor revision and with statements on the following questions:
Environmental communication also includes strategies that have been used in STEM for more than 10 years: Exploratory Experimentation and Learning in Student Laboratories in non-formal and informal education. Fundamental here is work by Eilks, e.g..
- Garner, N., Huwer, J., Siol, A., Hempelmann, R., & Eilks, I. (2015). On the development of non-formal learning environments for secondary school students focusing sustainability and Green Chemistry. In V. Gomes Zuin & L. Mammino (Eds.), Worldwide trends in green chemistry education (pp. 76-92). RSC.
- Garner, N., Siol, A., Huwer, J., Hempelmann, R., & Eilks, I. (2015). Implementing innovations in Chemistry and sustainability Education in a Non-Formal Student Laborator Context. LUMAT, 3(4), 449-461.
So I propose to include a short section on it and not skip these approaches.
Author Response
Comments from Reviewer 4, with Author Responses in Red:
Point 1:
Dear author,
Dear editor,
Thanks for the opportunity to read and review this revision of your paper. This paper tries to answer the question of what forms of environmental communication pedagogy contribute to dynamic communication competencies for students while also promoting environmental and epistemic justice. The authors began with a literature review until they concluded with woe samples for adapting in the classroom.
The Paper should be published after minor revision and with statements on the following questions:
Environmental communication also includes strategies that have been used in STEM for more than 10 years: Exploratory Experimentation and Learning in Student Laboratories in non-formal and informal education. Fundamental here is work by Eilks, e.g..
- Garner, N., Huwer, J., Siol, A., Hempelmann, R., & Eilks, I. (2015). On the development of non-formal learning environments for secondary school students focusing sustainability and Green Chemistry. In V. Gomes Zuin & L. Mammino (Eds.), Worldwide trends in green chemistry education (pp. 76-92). RSC.
- Garner, N., Siol, A., Huwer, J., Hempelmann, R., & Eilks, I. (2015). Implementing innovations in Chemistry and sustainability Education in a Non-Formal Student Laborator Context. LUMAT, 3(4), 449-461.
So I propose to include a short section on it and not skip these approaches.
Response 1: Thank you very much for this helpful feedback. We have incorporated a short section identifying this prior research and sources you suggested [see lines 299-303].
Reviewer 5 Report
A very well written comprehensive piece. It presents relevant, coherent and well-founded sections. However, I recommend that the Discussions section be more elaborate, refer to previous theoretical and empirical studies and the Conclusions section should also highlight the work's contribution to the development of knowledge in the field. Limits and future research directions, which I want you to specify, are missing.
Author Response
Comments from Reviewer 5, with Author Responses in Red:
Point 1: A very well written comprehensive piece. It presents relevant, coherent and well-founded sections. However, I recommend that the Discussions section be more elaborate, refer to previous theoretical and empirical studies and the Conclusions section should also highlight the work's contribution to the development of knowledge in the field. Limits and future research directions, which I want you to specify, are missing.
Response 1: Many thanks for your feedback on this manuscript. We have expanded our Discussion section to address previous research and how our work contributes to the development of knowledge in the fields of decolonial knowledge production, critical media pedagogy, and and environmental communication. We have also identified the limitations of our study with regard to the potential risks of an "undisciplined" approach, and identified future directions of research in relation to assessment of student experiences producing "undisciplined" environmental communication assignments [see lines 942-950].
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
My observations from the first revision step have been addressed, I think the manuscript is now improved both in readability and content.
Reviewer 3 Report
I'm satisfied that the authors have considered and acted on my feedback.
Reviewer 4 Report
dear authors,
thank you for the opportunity to read the revision of your manuscript. For me it can be accepted.
Reviewer 5 Report
The requested changes have been made. The work is accepted in this form
