Tracing the Evolution of Environmental Justice in Science Education

Environmental justice has evolved from a localised concern of environmentalism into a global agenda penetrating the science education ecosystem. Over time, new terms and concepts related to rights and justice have emerged within the science education ecosystem, reflecting the evolving understanding of environmental justice through the lens of education. Given that the emerging phenomenon started to be widely discussed, this review aims to analyse the temporal changes from the data derived from the Google Books Collections based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) using the N-Gram Viewer (NGV). Based on the graph plotted the key documents from text based on the various periods, century-wise analysis was conducted manually. Despite challenges such as the complexities of big data, restricted access to comprehensive records, and the number of duplicated entries, this review extracted the historical perspectives based on titles, keywords, and snips of available content. The results showed that scientists, prominent individuals of the period, major regulations, and other significant worldwide events influencing scientific education started the evolving consciousness of environmental justice in educational settings. In line with the more general issue of peace-centred sustainable development, this assessment offers a contextual perspective of how the ecology movement has evolved into an essential component of mainstream scientific education.