Tonya Joy Rooney

Tonya Joy Rooney is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education within the Faculty of Education and Arts. Her research focuses on environmental education, early childhood pedagogies, and the intersection of technology with learning environments. Rooney explores how digital tools reshape educators' practices and children's engagements with their surroundings.

Her work emphasizes climate change education through weather-based learning, advocating for embodied and sensorial approaches to understanding ecological systems. She critically examines surveillance technologies' impacts on childhood experiences and spatial dynamics in educational settings.

Key research themes include: environmental pedagogies, material culture in early childhood, digital documentation ethics, and temporal awareness in posthuman contexts. Rooney's methodologies often blend artistic practices with ethnographic inquiry to highlight marginalized narratives in education.

Her publications demonstrate a commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship, bridging environmental humanities, childhood studies, and educational theory. Current projects explore weather as a pedagogical medium and the ethics of digital documentation in early years education.