Hi Roberta. This is an interesting question, but yes, there is a difference. I've worn both hats; in my work as a graduate student studying high school students in school science coursework (even in an environmental science class), and again as a teacher educator in the university setting studying math and and science teacher preparation and professional development, I considered myself a science education researcher. As an informal educator at a botanical garden, and now as a researcher and evaluator at a Zoo, I consider myself a conservation (or environmental) education researcher. To me, the difference comes down to whether content, or content and behavior change, are is the goal of the programs under study. Curious to hear what others have to say on the topic.

Roberta - I'm definitely immersed in both. EE is more broad, but there is plenty of productive overlap with science education. Since I teach and do research in both, usually at the same time, I would find it difficult to rank them. Are you concerned about conflicting goals? That might make for an interesting topic...

This is interesting because Bryan said EE is broader and Joy said science was! So even in this small sample there are very different mental models. I see them as more venn like than hierarchical or umbrellas of each other because I think sometimes they clearly overlap and sometimes they are clearly different, especially in the realm of research.

Fascinating. As with others, I am also between disciplines. As an educational psychologist with deep interest in the structures of learning outside of formal, my career in EE and in informal science research grounds me in both and neither. With Bryan, I find EE broader than science as it must include economics, society, history, and every other tool available to understand humans interacting with the natural (and sometimes unnatural) world being an important part of the second "E." But like Joy, I find science larger than EE with the first "E" bringing the science part of EE under the science umbrella. At the University I always complained to colleagues that EE didn't belong in the School of Environment and Natural Resources (where some faculty did not like having 'fluff' in the school) but we also most certainly did not belong in the College of Education (I taught several years cross departments with research in CoE and EE courses in the School) where the focus on formal ed so overwhelmed the few who worked outside those bounds, though that has changed in recent years, mostly post my retirement from academia. I used to call EE one of the "stepchildren" that belonged to both and neither.

I come from a mixed trajectory-PhD degree and teaching six years in Bioanalytical Chemistry, then directing and teaching in an Environmental Science program for 14 years, and now moving to the Education Department six years ago as a teacher educator in environmental education. My focus and methods have changed with the positions. I now define myself mostly as an adult developmentalist interested primarily in how college students develop environmental literacy. That work and the literature I read is squarely in environmental education, which I believe is epistemologically broader than science education. When I worked in Environmental Science I did not ask questions about development, but if I did I would have viewed them through the lens of a science educator.