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.

Integrating environmental sustainability into universities

Abstract: Universities play a fundamental role in addressing global environmental challenges as their education, research and community involvement can produce long-lasting environmental effects and societal change. By demonstrating best practice in their operations, research and teaching, universities have both multiple and multiplier effects on society. For universities to comprehensively address sustainability, a ‘learning for sustainability’ approach needs to be embedded across every aspect of institutional operations in a synergistic way. Using semi-structured interviews, this research explored the factors that influence the integration of sustainability into the operations, teaching and research activities of universities in Australia and England. The research found that individuals, committed to the goal of a more sustainable world, play a vital role in the success of integrating environmental sustainability into universities. The factors critical to enabling universities to undertake the transformational changes necessary to embed environmental sustainability into all university areas included: a strong policy environment, resourcing of strategies, and encouragement of leaders and environmental sustainability advocates. Educating and building the awareness of university staff of the importance of environmental sustainability to future generations was key to a successful strategy.

Do Experiences With Nature Promote Learning? Converging Evidence of a Cause-and-Effect Relationship

Abstract: Do experiences with nature –– from wilderness backpacking to plants in a preschool to a wetland lesson on frogs, promote learning? Until recently, claims outstripped evidence on this question. But the field has matured, not only substantiating previously unwarranted claims but deepening our understanding of the cause-and-effect relationship between nature and learning. Hundreds of studies now bear on this question, and converging evidence strongly suggests that experiences of nature boost academic learning, personal development, and environmental stewardship. This brief integrative review summarizes recent advances and the current state of our understanding. The research on personal development and environmental stewardship is compelling although not quantitative. Report after report –– from independent observers as well as participants themselves –– indicate shifts in perseverance, problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, and resilience. Similarly, over fifty studies point to nature playing a key role in the development of pro-environmental behavior, particularly by fostering an emotional connection to nature. In academic contexts, nature-based instruction outperforms traditional instruction. The evidence here is particularly strong, including experimental evidence; evidence across a wide range of samples and instructional approaches; outcomes such as standardized test scores and graduation rates; and evidence for specific explanatory mechanisms and active ingredients. Nature may promote learning by improving learners’ attention, levels of stress, self-discipline, interest, and enjoyment in learning, and physical activity and fitness. Nature also appears to provide a calmer, quieter, safer context for learning; a warmer, more cooperative context for learning; and a combination of “loose parts” and autonomy that fosters developmentally beneficial forms of play. It is time to take nature seriously as a resource for learning — particularly for students not effectively reached by traditional instruction.

Schooling and environmental/sustainability education: from discourses of policy and practice to discourses of professional learning

Abstract: The gap between policy rhetoric and school practices in environmental education has not only persisted but probably increased over the past twenty years, given the contested advent of education for sustainable development (ESD) as the dominant international policy discourse in this area, and an increased focus in schools on didactic teaching in traditional content areas resulting from narrowly defined accountability measures in many national educational policies. After examining changes and continuities in the discourse of environmental education/ESD and the policy contexts of schools over the past twenty years, this article argues for re‐conceptualising the rhetoric–practice gap such that practices in schools are not simply assessed in relation to policy discourse but policy discourse itself is re‐examined in relation to teachers’ practical theories and the contexts shaping their practices. Although the structures and norms of schooling continue to work against inquiry‐based action‐oriented environmental...

The Influence of an Educational Program on Children's Perception of Biodiversity

Abstract: In this study, the author investigated the influence of the educational program Nature on the Way to School on children's everyday perception of species. More than 4,000 children (8–16 years old) from 248 classes in Switzerland participated in the study. Possible influences of the program were evaluated with the help of pretest and posttest questionnaires completed by test-group and control-group teachers and students. Participation in the program significantly increased the number and diversity of species that children noticed on the way to school; the positive effects increased with the time spent on the program. The program had a similar positive effect on both younger and older children and on girls and boys.