v-xEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Communications,
Education, and Media Relations
(1704)
EPA-171-F-98-016
August 1998
invironmental Education Advances
lua ity Education
What is Environmental Education?
Environmental education is a learning process that
increases knowledge and awareness about the
environment and develops skills that enable responsible
decisions and actions that impact the environment.
Environmental education encourages inquiry and
investigation and enables the learner to develop
critical-thinking, problem-solving, and effective
decision-making skills. Environmental education
enables individuals to weigh various sides of an
environmental issue. It does not advocate a particular
viewpoint or course of action.*
What Do Education Reformers Want? How Does Environmental Education Advance
Education Reform Goals?
"Education reform" means different things to different people. But the one thing that all
"reformers" agree on is that the goal of education reform is to improve learning. Many advocates
of education reform are stressing the need to use new approaches to teaching and learning that
involve changes in curriculum and instruction. Others are calling for the need for more
fundamental changes at the school site and greater accountability and assessment of progress in
improving learning. The following are some examples of specific changes reformers are calling for
and suggestions about how environmental education can be used as a vehicle to advance these
reform goals. For example, reformers are calling for the need to:
* See the UNESCO Tblisi Declaration
(1978) and the National Environmental
Education Advisory Council's "Report
Assessing Environmental Education in the
U. S. and the Implementation of the
National Environmental Education Act"
(1996) (EPA-171-R-96-001). Obtain a
free copy of the report by contacting the
National Center for Environmental
Publications and Information by telephone
at 800-490-9198 or order on line at
.
Provide a real world context for learning and linking the
classroom to the needs of the community
-- Environmental education teaches about real
issues that impact every community such as
drinking water quality, indoor and outdoor air
quality, habitat improvement, pesticide use and
exposure, lead paint poisoning, as well as solid
and hazardous waste management.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Region 5, Library (PL-12J)
77 West Jackson Boulevard, 12th Floor
Chicago, IL 60604-3590
-------
Move away from textbook-driven, teacher-led
instruction by using "hands-on," learner-centered,
and cooperative learning approaches where students
are actively engaged in their own learning process
- Environmental education engages the
learner in a hands-on, student-driven
investigative learning process. Learners
could collect and scientifically analyze air
samples from their community or water
samples from a local stream to assess
indicators of air or water quality.
EE and Education Reform
at the School Site
The State Education and Environment
Roundtable (SEER) supports the efforts of 12
state departments of education to improve learning
by using the environment as the context for
integrating learning across the curriculum. The
twelve states are CA, CO, FL, IA, KY, MD, MN,
NJ, OH, PA, TX, and WA. For example, the
Washington Creating Model Links is a project in
which schools have developed a curriculum
integration plan with EE as the focus of their
restructuring efforts ().
Focus on the need to develop the learner's
critical-thinking, problem-solving, and decision-
making skills
— Environmental education enables the
learner to develop critical-thinking,
problem-solving, and decision-making
skills. Teams of students could investigate
the availability and viability of various local
modes of transportation as alternatives to
single-occupancy, privately-operated
vehicles (such as bike paths, use of existing
parking lots for car pool parking, and
commuter bus and rail lines) and develop a
plan for improving citizen choice in local
transportation issues.
Curriculum in EE and
Education Reform
Project Learning Tree, Project WILD, and
Project WET are K-12 environmental education
programs that use their interdisciplinary
educational materials to foster the development
of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
These programs address a diverse range of topics
that include forest ecology, municipal solid
waste, risk assessment, energy issues, schoolyard
habitat, wildlife conservation and management,
wetlands and groundwater management, and
water conservation issues. Many of these
supplementary curriculum materials were
designed specifically with systemic education
reform in mind (,
, and
,
respectively).
Replace the traditional, compartmentalized
academic subjects with an interdisciplinary
curriculum that more authentically connects fields
of knowledge
— Environmental education uses an
interdisciplinary curriculum that
connects various academic subjects.
Students could use an interdisciplinary
municipal solid waste curriculum which
includes activities that teach about
scientific inquiry, solve mathematical
problems, promote understanding of the
history of local land uses, and improve
writing and other communication skills.
Instruction in EE and Education Reform
The California Science Implementation Network
uses an interdisciplinary curriculum called
A Child's Place in the Environment in more than
100 California elementary schools as part of a
systemic professional development effort that
focuses on whole school change. Lead teachers
participate in 21 days of professional
development throughout the year and help
engage the entire school in the systemic reform
process. The curriculum is aligned with
California's science and social science frameworks
().
-------
Place emphasis on the need to set higher
academic standards and to develop
performance-based assessments of the learner's
ability to meet those standards.
- Teachers can meet higher
education standards by selecting
environmental education materials
that are correlated to their local,
state, or national academic
standards. Environmental
education provides the opportunity
to use authentic assessments
because students are often involved
with real-life projects.
Assessment in EE and Education
Reform
The Maryland School Performance Assessment
program measures the performance of
Maryland schools by examining how well
students solve problems individually and
collectively, apply what they have learned to real
world problems; relate and use knowledge from
different subject areas. The primary purpose of
the assessment is to provide information to
improve instruction in schools. The
Assessment includes the use of environmental
issues as a problem-solving framework.
Getting More Information
Visit EdGateway's "Environmental Education and Education Reform" World Wide Web site
which includes information and examples on linkages between environmental education and
education reform relating to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and the school site
(< http: //www. edgate way. net/eereform/ >).
Obtain a copy of a forthcoming publication tentatively titled "Linking Environmental Education and
Education Reform" which examines linkages relating to instruction, professional development,
assessment, standards and guidelines, and school structure. The expected publication date is Fall 1998.
For upcoming information, visit the World Wide Web at or or contact EPA's Office of Environmental Education at 202-260-4965.
Attend the annual conferences of fazNorth American Association for Environmental Education
(NAAEE). The theme of the 28th annual conference is "environmental education and education
reform." The conference will take place in Cincinnati, Ohio from August 27 through 31, 1999. For
information, contact Janet Thoreen at 937-676-25164 (phone), jthoreen@erinet.com (E-mail), or visit
their World Wide Web set at .
Attend the annual conferences of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
The Association has an Environmental Education Network which meets as part of each conference.
Their next conference takes place in San Francisco, California from March 6 through 8, 1999.
For information, contact ASDC at 703-578-9600 (phone) or visit their World Wide Web site at
.
------- |