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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.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe one example of preservice teachers teaching elementary school students environmental science lessons in the outdoors during their science methods course, which positively impacted their confidence level as future teachers of science and helped them recognize the potential for using the outdoor setting as an effective location for science instruction.
Abstract: Teachers’ self-efficacy develops based on their appraisal of their experience with a task or similar tasks. Elementary science education should provide opportunities for students to experience science learning opportunities in authentic settings. This retrospective study describes one example of preservice teachers teaching elementary school students environmental science lessons in the outdoors during their science methods course. The preservice teachers’ recognition of the students’ enthusiasm and excitement of learning science in the outdoors positively impacted their confidence level as future teachers of science and helped them recognize the potential for using the outdoor setting as an effective location for science instruction.

104 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, knowledge about ecology, the environment, and pollution was found to be predictive of actual behavior related to improving the environment; an outcome leading to new and different implications for environmental education and for planned attempts to modify conservation-related human behaviors.
Abstract: The purpose of the study was to administer and to validate further three of four scales from Maloney, Ward, and Braucht's revised or short-form ecology inventory. Unlike earlier findings, knowledge about ecology, the environment, and pollution was found to be predictive of actual behavior related to improving the environment— an outcome leading to new and different implications for environmental education and for planned attempts to modify conservation-related human behaviors.

104 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that teachers encouraged and enabled students to direct open-ended primary and secondary research as sources of motivation and direction for their activist projects, and they concluded, based on constant comparative analyses of qualitative data, that school students' tendencies towards socio-political activism appeared to depend on myriad, possibly interacting, factors.
Abstract: In many educational contexts throughout the world, increasing focus has been placed on socio-scientific issues; that is, disagreements about potential personal, social and/or environmental problems associated with fields of science and technology. Some suggest (as do we) that many of these potential problems, such as those associated with climate change, are so serious that education needs to be oriented towards encouraging and enabling students to become citizen activists, ready and willing to take personal and social actions to reduce risks associated with the issues. Towards this outcome, teachers we studied encouraged and enabled students to direct open-ended primary (e.g., correlational studies), as well as secondary (e.g., internet searches), research as sources of motivation and direction for their activist projects. In this paper, we concluded, based on constant comparative analyses of qualitative data, that school students’ tendencies towards socio-political activism appeared to depend on myriad, possibly interacting, factors. We focused, though, on curriculum policy statements, school culture, teacher characteristics and student-generated research findings. Our conclusions may be useful to those promoting education for sustainability, generally, and, more specifically, to those encouraging activism on such issues informed by student-led research.

104 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, student autonomy in issue investigations and action planning should supplant coercive, advocacy programs if a new generation of critical thinkers is to solve new environmental problems and maintain or improve environmental quality on both the local and global scales.
Abstract: This century will be one of continued global population growth, technological advancement, and subsequent burdens on the natural world from consumer demands. A citizenry capable of understanding the complexity of environmental issues and actively participating in their resolutions is vital. The ultimate goal of environmental educators should be to facilitate the creation of this active citizenry. The means by which educators achieve this goal are equally important. Student autonomy in issue investigations and action planning should supplant coercive, advocacy programs if a new generation of critical thinkers is to solve new environmental problems and maintain or improve environmental quality on both the local and global scales. To date, nearly all evaluations of environmental education (EE) have focused on educational outcomes. Evaluations of impacts to environmental quality linked to actions resulting from EE efforts will be necessary if this discipline is to remain relevant in a world facing a century o...

104 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The National Environmental Education Act (NEA) as mentioned in this paper has been used to increase the public's awareness of environmental issues, however, the NEA is outdated and was not written to provide for systemic change.
Abstract: In 1990, Congress passed the National Environmental Education Act, thereby charging the United States Environmental Protection Agency with providing national leadership to increase environmental literacy. Since the first appropriation in 1992, almost $100M has been spent to increase the public's awareness of environmental issues; nevertheless, the author believes that the Act is outdated and was not written to provide for systemic change. With the recently increased attention to global warming and climate change, many in the environmental education field believe that environmental education is a critical tool for engaging the public and that opportunities exist to increase resources. The author suggests that now may be the time to consider new environmental education legislation that is more systemic in nature and that provides substantive increases in funding for national-level grants, educator training, and research initiatives. The author also suggests broadening the scope of strategic-level conversati...

104 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023377
2022796
2021505
2020675
2019631
2018607