This article examines the work of pre-service teachers in a new environmental education course at an Egyptian faculty of education, when they are given the assignment to investigate and take action with respect to an environmental issue in their community(s). Their explorations take us from apartment houses, through the farming countryside, past roadside canals and to city store fronts. Using a theoretical framework provided by critical place-based pedagogy, we analyze their work in (re)inhabitation and decolonization to further identify the challenges to, and the supports for environmental citizenship in Egypt. The Arab Spring resonates as the political backdrop for the research.