Ellen Almers

Assistant Professor of Didactics
Department of Natural and Social Sciences , School of Education and Communication
Associate Professor of Didactics (Natural Sciences)
Presentation Publications

Research

Almers dissertation was written within the research program Action Competence for Sustainable Development - stories of active youths, sponsored by Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, Formas, 2006-2008. In her PhD project she studied how young people experience their acquisition and development of different aspects of action competence for sustainable development (i.e. in distance moral issues).

In the study, action competence for sustainable development includes both actions within the individual life style and actions on a more structural level with the aim to change life conditions. It also includes intergenerational and global responsibility. Respondents were found through Internet and through active participation in different kind of activities for sustainable development organized by young people.

The theoretical perspective of the project was based on life-world phenomenology and the methodology was inspired by ethnography and narrative tradition.

After the dissertation Almers initiated three research projects: Sustainability actions, Forest gardens in education and Multi-functional urban outdoor preschool settings and the promotion of health and ecosystem services: An investigation of collaborative processes. The latter project funded by The research council Formas. 

Ellen Almers is project leader for the research communication project Collaboration for multi-functional outdoor settings for play, learning and strengthened ecosystem services, in Swedish SMULLE, Samverkan för Mångfunktionella Utomhusmiljöer för Lek, Lärande och stärkta Ekosystemtjänster. 

Biography

Ellen Almers has a background as science teacher (biology and chemistry) in lower and upper secondary school since 1986. Since 1995 she has been educating student teachers in science education and Education for sustainability at the School of Education and Communication. In 2010 she became the coordinator of the research platform Sustainable Development at HLK, School of Education and Communication and in 2017 the research leader for the group Sustainability Education Research (SER). She is an associate professor in education, with specialization in natural sciences and sustainability.