The Educational Dilemma Of Environmental Security: Hard Science Or The Art Of Decision Making?

Abstract

Working to overcome twenty-first century environmental challenges requires that university graduates possess a broad range of skills that can not be delivered by traditional university curricula based on the concept of the environment as a subject of ‘hard’ natural science. This concern poses difficulties for many university teachers in post-Soviet countries (and elsewhere) who see the role of environmental education as a means to provide a platform for sound scientific research rather than to introduce decision-making concepts and tools. The paper discusses the implications of recent socio-economic changes in the post-Soviet region for methodological and pedagogic approaches employed in the universities of the region for teaching environmental studies. Using the example of the changing system of the assessment of anthropogenic impacts on the environment, the paper also analyzes the current problems of the educational system and changes required for it to adequately address the environmental security issues faced by the modern world.