Ethno-Pedagogy with Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Application with Indonesian Pre-Service Teachers and Implications for Environmental Education

The study proposes the application of the ethnopedagogy to protect biocultural diversity through environmental education using traditional ecological knowledge. Indonesia, which is the background of this study, has indigenous traditional cultures in more than 250 regions and attempts are being made to utilize them in education. The study aims to understand the pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards ethno-pedagogy and their competencies in teaching traditional cultures through ethno-pedagogy. This study used qualitative content analysis and interview with pre-service teachers on developing teaching materials for ethno-pedagogy. The participants of this study were 62 pre-service teachers from two teacher preparation institutions in Indonesia's eastern Java Ponorogo region. And the interviews were conducted with a total of eight (8) pre-service teachers among them. As a result of analyzing the contents of the teaching materials developed by the pre-service teachers, the participating teachers were willing and able to accept a new method of teaching using the local traditional knowledge. In the interviews with pre-service teachers who applied their own teaching materials to classrooms, pre-service teachers were interested in the ethno-pedagogy approach as a new teaching method, but they were indecisive in that they had to spend a lot of time and effort. In order for the ethono-pedagogy to be applied to the field of environmental education, the foundation for on-site application through pre-service and in-service teachers will need for utilizing traditional ecological knowledge in environmental education.