Environmental education

About: Environmental education is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 14551 publications have been published within this topic receiving 211056 citations. The topic is also known as: environmental learning.

Sustainable Society and Environmental Education: Future Perspectives and Demands for the Educational System.

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of the OECD (CERI) programme on ‘Environment and School Initatives’ (ENSI). It describes the emergence and development of an ecologically‐driven agenda for school change, and its rationale, within a shifting policy‐context in which the environmental concerns of the public are being increasingly acknowledged. The programme can be interpreted as a policy response to public concerns. However, ENSI's agenda, the author argues, radically differs from a school improvement agenda based on economistic assumptions. The idea of ‘sustainable development’ as an education policy goal is examined in the light of these two agendas and found to carry ambiguous meanings. ENSI's agenda is concerned with transforming existing structures and processes of schooling to enable students to play an active role in shaping an ecologically sustainable social and economic order. The school improvement agenda is dominated by concerns about the economic performativity of individuals in society. ...

Design-Based Interventions for Promoting Students’ Identity Exploration within the School Curriculum

Abstract: Purpose Identity exploration is a central mechanism for identity formation that has been found to be associated with intense engagement, positive coping, openness to change, flexible cognition, and meaningful learning. Moreover, identity exploration in school has been associated with adaptive motivation for learning the academic material. Particularly in the fast-changing environment of contemporary society, confidence and skills in identity exploration and self-construction seems to be increasingly important. Therefore, promoting students’ identity exploration in school within the curriculum and in relation to the academic content should be adopted as an important educational goal. The purpose of this paper is to describe a conceptual framework for interventions to promote students’ identity exploration within the curriculum. The framework involves the application of four interrelated principles: (1) promoting self-relevance; (2) triggering exploration; (3) facilitating a sense of safety; and (4) scaffolding exploratory actions. Approach We begin the paper with a conceptual review of identity exploration. We follow by specifying the conceptual framework for interventions. We then present a methodological-intervention approach for applying this framework and describe three such interventions in middle-school contexts, in the domains of environmental education, literature, and mathematics. Findings In each intervention, applying the principles contributed to students’ adaptive motivation and engagement in the academic material and also contributed to students’ identity exploration, though not among all students. The findings highlight the contextual, dynamic, and indeterminate nature of identity exploration among early adolescents in educational settings, and the utility of the conceptual framework and approach for conceptualizing and intervening to promote identity exploration among students. Value This paper contributes to the conceptual understanding of identity exploration in educational settings, highlights the benefits and the challenges in intervening to promote identity exploration among students, and discusses the future directions in theory, research, and practice concerned with the promotion of identity exploration in educational settings.

Environmental Education, Knowledge, and High School Students' Intention toward Separation of Solid Waste on Campus.

Abstract: To achieve substantial and sustainable levels of separation of municipal solid waste (MSW), it is essential to engage young people as they are important drivers of change and will have a major influence on the future of the world. This study aimed to understand Chinese high school students’ intention toward the separation of solid waste on campus (SSWC). The study has used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as its theoretical framework, and further incorporates two additional constructs (environmental education and environmental knowledge) to explain the separation of solid waste (SSW) behavior of 562 high school students. The results indicate that environmental education is essential to ensure that students have required knowledge and positive attitudes toward SSWC. Knowledge was the best predictor of high school students’ separation behavior. Moreover, a lack of subjective norm from the important people could prevent students from participating in this process, regardless of their positive attitudes. The implications for policy and scope for further research are discussed.

Socio-Scientific Issues, Sustainability and Science Education

Abstract: Thepapersinthisspecialissueprovideavariety ofperspectivesonSSIandsustainabilitylinkedto science education. Indeed, if one were looking for some indication of convergence in thisgrowing area of research interest one would not find a clear indication of it here. However, thepapers are interesting for this very reason of the ir diversity, since they represent a number ofstrands of thinking relating sustainability and SSIs, and school science. While the papers allrelatecentrallytoSSIasanapproachto teachin gandlearning,theyfocustoavaryingdegreeonsustainability, and on science. In this commentary, I will first attempt an overview of the issuesthey raise and attempt to situate them with respect to some common strands of thinking, beforeresponding to the key implications I see in the pa pers for the school science curriculum. I willjustifydoingthisonthreegrounds.First,allthepapersinsomemeasurehavethingstosayaboutpedagogy, structure and epistemology of school science, and they say this in interestinglydifferent ways. Second, whatever the historical approach in environmental education/ESDresearch, often involving an antagonistic stance to the traditional science curriculum and itscompanion epistemology (an issue raised by Robottom and echoed to some degree in a numberof the other papers), these papers as a set demons trate clearly the important role that the schoolscience curriculum could, and sometimes does, pla y in student learning about sustainability. Infact, on my reading, the ‘pointy end’ of the issues raised in the papers relates to this issue of thenatureandstatusofscienceknowledgeinthecurri culumanditsappropriaterole.Third,Ihavealongstandinginterestinreforminscienceeducation,andtheissuesraisedinthesepapersprovidesomepowerfulcommentariesonthewaysthatscienceeducationmightbe,andshouldbeframedif it is to engage students in a science that is relevant and powerful for them as future citizens.The papers have much to say on a number of important curriculum dimensions:1. the structures of teaching and learning about SSI related to the science curriculum area2. the pedagogies evident in the models of SSI teaching and learning3. the broader purposes that frame the interventions4. the epistemological stances evident in the interventions described, particularlyconcerning the status and setting of scientific knowledge

Challenges of Biodiversity Education: A Review of Education Strategies for Biodiversity Education.

Abstract: 72 1024x768 Normal 0 21 false false false TR X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Normal Tablo"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Biodiversity conservation has increasingly gained recognition in national and international agendas. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has positioned biodiversity as a key asset to be protected to ensure our well-being and that of future generations. Nearly 20 years after its inception, results are not as expected, as shown in the latest revision of the 2010 CBD target. Various factors may affect the implementation of the CBD, including lack of public education and awareness on biodiversity-related issues. This paper explores how biodiversity education has been carried out and documents successes and failures in the field. Based on a comprehensive literature review, we identified four main challenges: the need to define an approach for biodiversity education, biodiversity as an ill-defined concept, appropriate communication, and the disconnection between people and nature. These represent obstacles to the achievement of educational targets, and therefore, to accomplishing conservation goals as set forth by the CBD. Keywords: Biodiversity education, environmental education, education for sustainable development, biodiversity awareness, biodiversity communication.