ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the case for arts-based research in the pedagogy of environmental communication by outlining how environment and art are linked in scholarship, practice, and pedagogy. The arts-based research and teaching come with challenges, such as underdeveloped theoretical foundations, issues around the level of artistic skill and expertise required, criteria to assess the contributions of arts-based research, logistics of the scholarly publication of results, and potential resistance to less orthodox forms of presenting research. The door to arts-based research and pedagogy in environmental communication is wide-open. The resulting short film, Voices from the Visual Volley: Filmmakers, Tar Sands and Public Health explores that debate through the interplay of image, voice, text and music in an experimental collage, while responding to the literature's call to position environmental concerns as public-health issues and to engage a broader public in productive dialogue and action on more sustainable environmental practices.
