Environmental education

Environmental education is fast emerging as one of the most important disciplines in the United States and in the world. Merging the ideas and philosophy of environmentalism with the structure of formal education systems, it strives to increase awareness of environmental problems as well as to foster the skills and strategies for solving those problems. Environmental issues have traditionally fallen to the state, federal, and international policymakers, scientists, academics, and legal scholars. Environmental education (often referred to simply as "EE") shifts the focus to the general population. In other words, it seeks to empower individuals with an understanding of environmental problems and the skills to solve them.

Background

The first seeds of environmental education were planted roughly a century ago and are found in the works of such writers as George Perkins Marsh, John Muir , Henry David Thoreau , and Aldo Leopold . Their writings served to bring the country's attention to the depletion of natural resources and the often detrimental impact of humans on the environment . In the early 1900s, three related fields of study arose that eventually merged to form the present-day environmental education.

Nature education expanded the teaching of biology, botany, and other natural sciences out into the natural world, where students learned through direct observation. Conservation education took root in the 1930s, as the importance of long-range, "wise use" management of resources intensified. Numerous state and federal agencies were created to tend public lands, and citizen organizations began forming in earnest to protect a favored animal, park, river, or other resource. Both governmental and citizen entities included an educational component to spread their message to the general public. Many states required their schools to adopt conservation education as part of their curriculum. Teacher training programs were developed to meet the increasing demand. The Conservation Education Association formed to consolidate these efforts and help solidify citizen support for natural resource management goals. The third pillar of modern EE is outdoor education, which refers more to the method of teaching than to the subject taught. The idea is to hold classrooms outdoors; the topics are not restricted to environmental issues but includes art, music, and other subjects.

With the burgeoning of industrial output and natural resource depletion following World War II, people began to glimpse the potential environmental disasters looming ahead. The environmental movement exploded upon the public agenda in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the public reacted emotionally and vigorously to isolated environmental crises and events. Yet it soon became clear that the solution would involve nothing short of fundamental changes in values, lifestyles, and individual behavior, and that would mean a comprehensive educational approach.

In August 1970, the newly-created Council on Environmental Quality called for a thorough discussion of the role of education with respect to the environment. Two months later, Congress passed the Environmental Education Act, which called for EE programs to be incorporated in all public school curricula. Although the act received little funding in the following years, it energized EE proponents and prompted many states to adopt EE plans for their schools. In 1971, the National Association for Environmental Education formed, as did myriad of state and regional groups.

Definition

What EE means depends on one's perspective. Some see it as a teaching method or philosophy to be applied to all subjects, woven into the teaching of political science, history, economics, and so forth. Others see it as a distinct discipline, something to be taught on its own. As defined by federal statute, it is the "education process dealing with people's relationships and their natural and manmade surroundings, and includes the relation of population, pollution , resource allocation and depletion, conservation, transportation , technology and urban and rural planning to the total human environment."

One of the early leaders of the movement is William Stapp, a former professor at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and the Environment. His three-pronged definition has formed the basis for much subsequent thought: "Environmental education is aimed at producing a citizenry that is knowledgeable concerning the biophysical environment and its associated problems, aware of how to help solve these problems, and motivated to work toward their solution."

Many environmental educators believe that programs covering kindergarten through twelfth grade are necessary to successfully instill an environmental ethic in students and a comprehensive understanding of environmental issues so that they are prepared to deal with environmental problems in the real world. Further, an emphasis is placed on problem-solving, action, and informed behavioral changes. In its broadest sense, EE is not confined to public schools but includes efforts by governments, interest groups, universities, and news media to raise awareness. Each citizen should understand the environmental issues of his or her own community: land-use planning, traffic congestion, economic development plans, pesticide use, water pollution and air pollution , and so on.

International level

Concurrently with the emergence of EE in this country, other nations began pushing for a comprehensive approach to environmental problems within their own borders and on a global scale. In 1972, at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the need for an international EE effort was clearly recognized and emphasized. Three years later, an International Environmental Education Workshop was held in Belgrade, from which emerged an eloquent, urgent mandate for the drastic reordering of national and international development policies. The "Belgrade Charter" called for an end to the military arms race and a new global ethic in which "no nation should grow or develop at the expense of another nation." It called for the eradication of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, pollution, exploitation, and domination. Central to this impassioned plea for a better world was the need for environmental education of the world's youth. That same year, the UN approved a $2 million budget to facilitate the research, coordination, and development of an international EE program among dozens of nations.

Effectiveness

There has been criticism over the last 15 years that EE too often fails to educate students and makes little difference in their behavior concerning the environment. Researchers and environmental educators have formulated a basic framework for how to improve EE: 1) Reinforce individuals for positive environmental behavior over an extended period of time. 2) Provide students with positive, informal experiences outdoors to enhance their "environmental sensitivity." 3) Focus instruction on the concepts of "ownership" and "empowerment." The first concept means that the learner has some personal interest or investment in the environmental issues being discussed. Perhaps the student can relate more readily to concepts of solid waste disposal if there is a landfill in the neighborhood. Empowerment gives learners the sense that they can make changes and help resolve environmental problems. 4) Design an exercise in which students thoroughly investigate an environmental issue and then develop a plan for citizen action to address the issue, complete with an analysis of the social, cultural, and ecological consequences of the action.

Despite the efforts of environmental educators, the movement has a long way to go. The scope and number of critical environmental problems facing the world today far outweigh the successes of EE. Further, most countries still do not have a comprehensive EE program that prepares them, as future citizens, to make ecologically sound choices and to participate in cleaning up and caring for the environment. Lastly, educators, including the media, are largely focused on explaining the problems but fall short on explaining or offering possible solutions. The notion of "em powerment" is often absent.

Recent developments and successes in the United States

Project WILD, based in Boulder, Colorado, is a K–12 supplementary conservation and environmental education program emphasizing wildlife protection, sponsored by fish and wildlife agencies and environmental educators. The project sets up workshops in which teachers learn about wildlife issues. They in turn teach children and help students understand how they can act responsibly on behalf of wildlife and the environment. The program, begun in 1983, has grown tremendously in terms of the number of educators reached and the monetary support from states, which, combined, are spending about $3.6 million annually.

The Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN), begun at the University of Michigan under the guidance of William Stapp, has likewise been enormously successful, perhaps more so. Teachers all over the world take their students down to their local river and show them how to monitor water quality , analyze watershed usage, and identify socioeconomic sources of river degradation. Lastly, and most importantly, the students then present their findings and recommendations to the local officials. These students also exchange information with other GREEN students around the world via computers.

Another promising development is the National Consortium for Environmental Education and Training (NCEET), also based at the University of Michigan. The partnership of academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and corporations, NCEET was established in 1992 with a three-year, $4.8 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Its main purpose is to dramatically improve the effectiveness of environmental education in the United States. The program has attacked its mission from several angles: to function as a national clearinghouse for K–12 teachers, to make available top-quality EE materials for teachers, to conduct research on effective approaches to EE, to survey and assess the EE needs of all 50 states, to establish a computer network for teachers needing access to information and resources, and to develop a teacher training manual for conducting EE workshops around the country.

[Cathryn McCue ]

RESOURCES

BOOKS

Gerston, R. Just Open the Door: A Complete Guide to Experiencing Environmental Education. Danville, IL: Interstate Printers and Publishers, 1983.

Swan, M. "Forerunners of Environmental Education." In What Makes Education Environmental?, edited by N. McInnis and D. Albrect. Louisville, KY: Data Courier and Environmental Educators, 1975.

PERIODICALS

Hungerford, H. R., and T. L. Volk. "Changing Learner Behavior Through Environmental Education." Journal of Environmental Education 21 (Spring 1990): 8-21.

"The Belgrade Charter." Connect: Unesco-UNEP Environmental Education Newsletter 1 (January 1976).