Environmental Education is too Important to be Left in the Hands of Teachers Alone

Abstract

Environmental education may be characterized along the following dimensions:

• 1. The interdisciplinary nature of the relevant subject matter. A number of disciplines may be considered as sources for environmental education, e.g. biology, geography, sociology, history, etc.

• 2. The nature of the target population which is not confined to school pupils but encompasses all ages and all levels of education.

• 3. The aim of environmental education is to change attitudes and behavior patterns and enable citizens to act and react wisely in situations involving environmental quality.

• 4. The necessity of accompanying environmental education with a continuous evaluation process aimed at clarifying the causal links between components of the education plans and the observed outcomes.

These characteristics have a number of implications for a strategy of environmental education. Environmental education has to be problem oriented and not discipline oriented. Thus will its interdisciplinary nature become evident to learners. Members of the community representing different occupations have to be recruited as agents for environmental education. Teacher education in all subject areas should include special courses in environmental education.

Environmental education has to emphasize the practical implications of present knowledge giving learners a large amount of concrete experiences in activities designed to improve environmental quality. Environmental education as a continuous task of society has to become an integral part of all educational endeavours for all age levels from kindergarten to adult education. An intensive attempt should be made to include environmental aspects in all new curricula using all media available. Newspapers, radio and television should include environmental topics in their ongoing programs. All voluntary organizations should allocate part of their time and effort to environmental concerns. Panels of experts have to design evaluation programs for components of the comprehensive strategy of environmental education.

The paper specifies the elements and interrelationship of the proposed integrated educational strategy.