The research fields that Jan van Boeckel is particularly drawn to are: arts-based environmental education, environmental aesthetics, philosophy of nature, education science in general (and specifically environmental education and education for sustainable development), art and ecology, sustainable- and meta-design, (eco)phenomenology, and the psychology of climate change.

Jan explored the latter theme through arts-based presentations and activities at the Climate Existence conferences (2016 & 2018) in Sigtuna, Sweden. In 2016, he was a member of a research commission of the British Educational Research Association that focused on ‘Reviewing the potential and challenges of developing STEAM education through creative pedagogies for 21st century learning.’ The final report (2018, in PDF) can be downloaded here. Between 2011 and 2014, Jan was member of the Dutch advisory group ‘Designing for the future’ (Ontwerpen voor de toekomst) on sustainable development and art education, established by EDU-ART.

Presently, Jan van Boeckel is member of two research groups. One on the theme of Art & Science in Education (Kunst og vitenskap i læring) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås, headed by Professor Edvin Østergaard. The other on Arts-Based Environmental Education at Aalto University in Finland, led by Professor Anniina Suominen. In 2017, Van Boeckel was guest editor-in-chief for a special issue of the Arts & Teaching Journal Artizein. For this edition (which appeared in November 2017), authors and artists were invited to reflect on new developments at the interface of art, education, and the natural environment. Here is the overview in PURE of Jan’s most recent research activities.

Jan’s doctoral dissertation, At the Heart of Art and Earth, first appeared in 2013 and was reprinted in 2014, 2017, and 2022. On this page, a form opens up through which you can order a printed copy. A PDF of the book is downloadable here (Open Access), and via this link you can easily scroll through it on screen, page by page.

Review by Professor Carl Leggo
(University of British Columbia, Canada)
Review by Wioletta Anna Piaścik
(Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland)
Short review by Oleg Koefoed

Here is an overview of Jan van Boeckel’s other publications:

• van Boeckel, Jan (2022). A pedagogy of attention to the light in the eyes. In T. Ingold (Ed.), Knowing from the Inside: Cross-Disciplinary Experiments with Matters of Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2022). The landscape of the lines of the hand: Imagining the storied memories of sensorial experience of place. In M. Häggström & C. Schmidt (Eds.), Relational and Critical Perspectives on Education for Sustainable Development: Belonging and Sensing in a Vanishing World. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2022). Lines of the hand activity, In A. Geffen, A. Rosenthal, C. Fremantle & A. Rahmani (Eds.). Ecoart in action: Activities, case studies, and provocations for classrooms and communities. New York: New Village Press.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2022) Silent Becoming: Making the World out of Clay. Description of the workshop. Unpublished.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2021). I would still plant my apple tree. Booklet that was published on the occasion of my inauguration as Professor of Art & Sustainability at Hanze UAS on May 10th, 2021.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2020). Linking the missing links: An artful workshop on metamorphoses of organic forms. In: P. Burnard & L. Colucci-Gray (Eds.),  Why Science and Art Creativities Matter: (Re-)Configuring STEAM for Future-Making Education. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2017). Practicing active non-activeness in the facilitation of arts-based environmental education. Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, 84 (peer-reviewed journal published by Vilnius Academy of Arts), 69-81.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2017). Artful empiricism and improvising with the unforeseen: Two approaches in seeking understandings of nature through art. In Sari Asikainen, Claudia Brites, Katarzyna Plebanczyk, Ljiljana Rogac Mijatovic & Katriina Soini (Eds.). Culture in Sustainability: Towards a Transdisciplinary Approach. SoPhi, University of Jyväskylä, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Jyväskylä, Finland.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2017). The world is breathing me: Introduction to Artizein. Artizein: Arts & Teaching Journal 2(2), Article 2.
• Jolly, L.; van Boeckel, J.; & Slåttli, S. (2017) Biology, art and sustainability. Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal 2(2), Article 7.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2015). Never mind where, so long as it’s fast: Jacques Ellul and La Technique. In Technê and Technology: Dark Mountain issue 8.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2015). Angels talking back and new organs of perception: Art making and intentionality in nature experience. Visual Inquiry: Learning & Teaching Art, 4(2), 111–122. DOI:10.1386/vi.4.2.111_1
• van Boeckel, Jan (2015). Til að kerfi geti talist fullgert verður það að gera ráð fyrir hinu ófullgerða (“For a system to be complete, in-completion must be included in it”), Mæna, 6, March, Iceland, 51-55.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2013). Lectio praecursoria: The role of artistic process in connecting to the natural environment. SYNNYT/ORIGINS, 3 (Finnish Studies in Art Education), 32-36.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2013). At the Heart of Art and Earth. Doctoral dissertation. Helsinki: Aalto Publications.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2012). Engaging with landscape through artmaking. In S. Grierson (Ed.). Intersections (pp. 49-51). Perth, UK: Threshold Artspace.
• Eernstman, N.; Van Boeckel, J.; Sacks, S.; & Myers, M. (2012). Inviting the unforeseen: A dialogue about art, learning and sustainability. In A.A.E. Wals & P. Blaze Corcoran (Eds.). Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change (pp. 201-212). Wageningen, Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2012). Original thinking: Review of An Ecology of Mind. Resurgence Magazine, 270.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2012). When we find meaning in art, our thinking is most in sync with nature: A review of An Ecology of Mind. www.anecologyofmind.com
• Jolly, L; Slåttli, S; Van Boeckel, J. (2011). Biologi, bilder og bærekraft. Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift 4, 299-313.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2011). A point of no return: Artistic vulnerability and the more-than-human world. In A.F. Aarø & J. Servan (Eds.). Environment, Embodiment & Gender (pp. 293-313). Bergen, Norway: Hermes Text.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2011). Reflections on the Doli Seminar. In E. Østergaard & L. Jolly (Eds.). Researching Art and Science in Teaching on the Doli seminar in Greece, December 2010. IMT-Report 44, NMBU. Ås, Norway.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2010). Hidden agendas and utopian wanderings: Trying to be conscious of epistemological challenges and errors in doing research in art education. SYNNYT/ORIGINS, 4 (Finnish Studies in Art Education), 65-78.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2009). Arts-based environmental education and the ecological crisis: Between opening the senses and coping with psychic numbing. In B. Drillsma-Milgrom & L. Kirstinä (Eds.). Metamorphoses in children’s literature and culture (pp. 145-164). Turku, Finland: Enostone.
• van Boeckel, Jan (2006). Forget your botany: Developing children’s sensibility to nature through arts-based environmental education. International Journal of the Arts in Society, 1, 3-15.
• van Boeckel, Jan (1995). Ergens tussen de berg en de mier. Oefeningen in duurzaamheid: Perpectieven naar 2040. Utrecht: Jan van Arkel.
• van Boeckel, J. & Verheij, C. (1989). De onthulling van het sacrale: De gevolgen van de film ‘Broken Rainbow’ en andere media-bemoeienis voor de strijd van de Navajo- en Hopi-Indianen bij Big Mountain. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam (unpublished master thesis), 1989. (‘Revealing the sacred: The impacts of the film ‘Broken Rainbow’ and other media interference on the struggle of Navajo and Hopi people at Big Mountain’ – Abstract).
• van Boeckel, J. & Verheij, C. (1989). De confrontatie tussen Indianen en fotografen. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam (unpublished), 1989. (‘The confrontation between Indians and photographers’).

Most titles can be accessed here (opens in a new window).

In 1992, Jan was content editor and illustrator for the book De risico’s van het denken (‘The risks of thinking’), written by his father, Jos van Boeckel (but which he never finished during his life). Its subtitle is ‘The confrontation between Native American spirituality and Western technology.’ The book was published (under pseudonym Jaap Breeveld) by publisher Jan van Arkel in The Netherlands. A summary in English of the book can be accessed here. The whole book can be downloaded as pdf, and ordered as a printed publication.