Environmental Education
- LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024
- LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0312
- LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024
- LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0312
Introduction
In broad terms, environmental educators provide educational activities that foster meaningful learning about challenges to the flourishing of communities of life on Earth. They nest this work within diverse understandings of the ways that human activities shape life on this dynamic planet—a situation that also underscores that the potential subject matter for environmental education (EE) is extensive and evolves. To illustrate, EE provision might address historic to contemporary qualities of environment-related consciousness and experience, the strengths and limitations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing about people-environment relations in particular places, the roles of citizens and other actors within different levels of environmental governance, and models and aspirations for ecosystem health across multiple scales. Given the breadth of possibility for EE, environmental educators may engage and/or redirect the practices of related fields of scholarship. These typically include—but are not limited to—the principles and priorities of environmental appreciation, conservation, and restoration; “learning beyond the classroom”; and sustainability-related education. Unsurprisingly, significant challenges emerge in determining what (not) to support or do as EE, topics we consider throughout this bibliography. Key considerations include the factors and intricacies that influence a person’s environment-related awareness, knowledge, understandings, motivations, decision-making, and commitments within and across the life span. Another layer is the multiplicity of contexts for—and limitations on—the ways we might live and learn. Put differently, research shows there are various barriers and enablers to becoming “environmentally educated” that individuals and groups will need to be aware of. Many of these become clearer as we consider the capabilities of educators and learners, alongside their constraints, readiness, and priorities. Each of these, and more, influence the effectiveness of environment-related teaching and learning, whatever point of engagement one proceeds from. In this, reflections on the field’s roots, mainstays, and innovations return us to a series of questions. These questions examine the value of education in addressing a plethora of concerns arising from how people relate to their environments in ways that avoid damaging all parties historically, now, and into the future. As questions of what to prioritize as EE are subject to debate, those working to provide and develop EE often tackle a range of considerations that may prove equally contested. In this, scholarly discourse usually centers around questions of the quality of provision, including: Is this expression of EE educationally rich, and to whom is it most relevant, and why?
General Overviews of Environmental Education
Since the field’s inception, environmental educators have been routinely encouraged to see EE as fundamental to any lifelong and lifewide process of education (Schoenfeld 1970). To help realize this expectation, environmental educators draw on various ideas about, and settings for, education. Yet EE remains primarily understood via the language and grammar of school-based educational experiences (Smyth 1995). Thus, provision for EE is typically categorized by way of curriculum activities (e.g., academic subjects and/or cross-curricular provision), co-curricular activities (e.g., environmental clubs that complement and/or strengthen curriculum-based instruction), and extracurricular activities (e.g., optional learning opportunities, such as community or service-focused projects). Some approaches to EE have tried to integrate these possibilities. Community tree planting within school grounds, for example, is typically uncontroversial and may draw on single or multiple curriculum areas supported by co- and extracurricular activities to ensure a holistic, coordinated, systems-thinking type approach (Meadows 1989). Other attempts at integration may receive pushback because of the implications or optics of provision, such as an EE that surfaces the importance of civic participation as a key step in any action-focused educational process that directly addresses environmental challenges. An important point here is to consider the distinctiveness of EE when compared with related forms of education. Its locus, culture, and values usually have questions of environmental quality as its North Star, regardless of the channels used to explore them, within or outside of schooling (Clark, et al. 2020). This can inevitably present challenges to pluralistic approaches to education; some educators, for example, including environmental educators, champion certain activities, frameworks, or models largely to the exclusion of alternatives (Öhman and Östman 2019). Thus, a caution that has sat alongside the first recommendations for a strategic approach to developing the field is as follows: forming cliques and/or engaging in partisanship on key priorities is usually counterproductive to ensuring the field’s inclusiveness, growth, and impact (Reid and Dillon 2016). This is not to say that members of a field cannot learn from its failures or mistakes (Sterling 2001); identify better approaches for particular contexts or audiences (Sauvé 2005); or shift its horizons as particular challenges endure and dissipate, and/or new ones emerge (Jickling and Sterling 2017). It does, however, speak to (a) questions of how plurality of provision is cultivated as a field professionalizes and diversifies; and (b) the focus of intergenerational dialogues, be those of a field’s roots and contemporary problems, if not its short- to longer-term ambitions (Braus, et al. 2022).
Braus, Judy, Joe Heimlich, Nicole Ardoin, and Charlotte Clark. 2022. Building bridges, not walls: Exploring the environmental education ecosystem. Applied Environmental Education & Communication 21.4: 319–330.
DOI: 10.1080/1533015X.2022.2115226
Building on Clark, et al. 2020, this essay emphasizes the importance of fostering and sustaining vibrant professional cultures for environmental educators in realizing the field’s goals. Key points include how various ecosystems for EE provision are enriched through partnership-based work toward shared ends-in-view. Examples include the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) and the Global Environmental Education Partnership (GEEP), key regional and international backbone organizations that help develop practice, policy, and professionalism.
Clark, Charlotte, Joe Heimlich, Nicole Ardoin, and Judy Braus. 2020. Using a Delphi study to clarify the landscape and core outcomes in environmental education. Environmental Education Research 26.3: 381–399.
DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2020.1727859
This report summarizes a survey of EE professionals in North America assessing the contemporary consensus on EE’s goals. Five core outcomes were identified, summarized thusly: “EE works to move people to action for the tangible benefit of the environment and humanity. To realize these benefits, people must connect experientially with the environment, learn needed skills, and understand the complicated social and cultural connections between humanity and the natural environment” (p. 381).
Jickling, Bob, and Stephen Sterling, eds. 2017. Post-sustainability and environmental education: Remaking education for the future. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-51322-5
This collection articulates more complete visions of education better attuned to contemporary ecological challenges. Chapters offer critiques of efforts to embed sustainability into educational systems rooted in philosophical, ethical, and pedagogical analyses of the complex relationships of humans with nature. The overarching call is for better educational experiences that (a) circumvent the limitations of mainstream schooling, and (b) reconstruct imperatives for EE otherwise compromised by fixations on sustainability.
Meadows, Donella. 1989. Harvesting one hundredfold: Key concepts and case studies in environmental education. Nairobi: United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).
UNEP’s collection of case studies illustrates a range of possible settings and activities for EE. Sourced from ideas and initiatives originating in the work of UNEP’s Environmental Education and Training Unit and its International EE Taskforce, Meadows, a renowned systems theorist, was tasked with sifting through various options. She recommended environmental educators prioritize systems thinking concepts and highlighted the value of particular activities that combine “thinking globally” with “acting locally.”
Öhman, Johan, and Leif Östman. 2019. Different teaching traditions in environmental and sustainability education. In Sustainable development teaching: Ethical and political challenges. Edited by Katrien Van Poeck, Leif Östman, and Johan Öhman, 70–82. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
This thought-provoking chapter shows why answers to the question of what constitutes good teaching in EE often depend on the tradition with which an educator aligns. The authors identify three traditions: fact-based, normative, and pluralistic. Each tradition affects (a) what students are socialized into as people-environment relations, and (b) associated barriers to effective provision. Key differences emerge in approaches to (i) facts and values and (ii) democratic principles in schooling.
Reid, Alan, and Justin Dillon, eds. 2016. Environmental education: Critical concepts in the environment. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Over four volumes, this reference collection illustrates milestone statements and diverse scholarship on foundational to cutting-edge expressions of EE. The editors provide a synopsis of central debates and unpack matters of intellectual context and pedigree. Entries serve to illustrate a wide range of ways environment and education have been connected; factors shaping EE principles, priorities, and practice; major and minor traditions in the field; and enduring to novel horizons for EE.
Sauvé, Lucie. 2005. Currents in environmental education: Mapping a complex and evolving pedagogical field. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education 10:11–37.
Sauvé’s article celebrates the creativity and richness of the field by mapping fifteen distinct currents in EE. Currents are ways of envisioning and practicing EE. They flow from distinct understandings of, and architectures for, relating environmental and educational concerns. This particular cartography charted each current’s historical emergence and characteristics. Although combinations of currents and critique are always possible, we note Sauvé also expected her analysis to lead to innovation.
Schoenfeld, Clay. 1970. Toward a national strategy for environmental education. The Journal of Educational Research 64.1: 3–11.
DOI: 10.1080/00220671.1970.10884076
Schoenfeld was the first editor of the Journal of Environmental Education. The launch editorial focused on what was new about EE, distinguishing it from conservation education, one of its parent disciplines in the United States. In this parallel editorial for a broader audience, Schoenfeld wrote that EE “views resources as a community of which man [sic] is a part, not as a commodity which man [sic] is to exploit” (p. 3).
Smyth, John. 1995. Environment and education: A view of a changing scene. Environmental Education Research 1.1: 3–20.
In the first article published in Environmental Education Research, Smyth offers an insider’s perspective on developing international and national strategies for EE. Smyth’s reflections illustrate why promoting innovation in educational approaches is crucial, while to prevent “mission creep,” constructs associated with sustainability should be engaged carefully rather than automatically. For Smyth, the risks are twofold: the muddying of priorities regarding the “reform” of education that addresses human-induced environmental change, and relatedly, human nature itself.
Sterling, Stephen. 2001. Sustainable education: Re-visioning learning and change. Bristol, UK: Schumacher Briefings.
In this influential monograph, Sterling contends that systemic changes in educational priorities and culture are required to realize both human potential and social, economic, and ecological well-being. While provision of EE is necessary in this project, Sterling argues it is simply not a sufficient means for transforming education as a whole. Rather, we must co-create an authentically ecological view of education capable of supplanting the “prevailing managerial and mechanistic paradigm.”
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- Academic Audit for Universities
- Academic Freedom and Tenure in the United States
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- Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Courses
- Advocacy and Activism in Early Childhood
- African American Racial Identity and Learning
- Alaska Native Education
- Alternative Certification Programs for Educators
- Alternative Schools
- American Indian Education
- Animals in Environmental Education
- Art Education
- Artificial Intelligence and Learning
- Assessing School Leader Effectiveness
- Assessment, Behavioral
- Assessment, Educational
- Assessment in Early Childhood Education
- Assistive Technology
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- Development, Moral
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- Digital Citizenship
- Digital Divides
- Disabilities
- Distance Learning
- Distributed Leadership
- Doctoral Education and Training
- Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Denmark
- Early Childhood Education and Development in Mexico
- Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand
- Early Childhood Education in Australia
- Early Childhood Education in China
- Early Childhood Education in Europe
- Early Childhood Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Early Childhood Education in Sweden
- Early Childhood Education Pedagogy
- Early Childhood Education Policy
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- Emotional and Affective Issues in Environmental and Sustai...
- Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
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- Environmental and Science Education: Overlaps and Issues
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- Epistemic Beliefs
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- Equity, Ethnicity, Diversity, and Excellence in Education
- Ethical Research with Young Children
- Ethics and Education
- Ethics of Teaching
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- Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention
- Family and Community Partnerships in Education
- Family Day Care
- Federal Government Programs and Issues
- Feminization of Labor in Academia
- Finance, Education
- Financial Aid
- Formative Assessment
- Future-Focused Education
- Gender and Achievement
- Gender and Alternative Education
- Gender, Power and Politics in the Academy
- Gender-Based Violence on University Campuses
- Gifted Education
- Girls' Education in the Developing World
- Global Mindedness and Global Citizenship Education
- Global University Rankings
- Governance, Education
- Grounded Theory
- Growth of Effective Mental Health Services in Schools in t...
- Higher Education and Globalization
- Higher Education and the Developing World
- Higher Education Faculty Characteristics and Trends in the...
- Higher Education Finance
- Higher Education Governance
- Higher Education Graduate Outcomes and Destinations
- Higher Education in Africa
- Higher Education in China
- Higher Education in Latin America
- Higher Education in the United States, Historical Evolutio...
- Higher Education, International Issues in
- Higher Education Management
- Higher Education Policy
- Higher Education Research
- Higher Education Student Assessment
- High-stakes Testing
- History of Early Childhood Education in the United States
- History of Education in the United States
- History of Technology Integration in Education
- Homeschooling
- Inclusion in Early Childhood: Difference, Disability, and ...
- Inclusive Education
- Indigenous Education in a Global Context
- Indigenous Learning Environments
- Indigenous Students in Higher Education in the United Stat...
- Infant and Toddler Pedagogy
- Inservice Teacher Education
- Integrating Art across the Curriculum
- Intelligence
- Intensive Interventions for Children and Adolescents with ...
- International Perspectives on Academic Freedom
- Intersectionality and Education
- Knowledge Development in Early Childhood
- Leadership Development, Coaching and Feedback for
- Leadership in Early Childhood Education
- Leadership Training with an Emphasis on the United States
- Learning Analytics in Higher Education
- Learning Difficulties
- Learning, Lifelong
- Learning, Multimedia
- Learning Strategies
- Legal Matters and Education Law
- LGBT Youth in Schools
- Linguistic Diversity
- Linguistically Inclusive Pedagogy
- Literacy
- Literacy Development and Language Acquisition
- Literature Reviews
- Mathematics Identity
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- Mathematics Teacher Education
- Measurement for Improvement in Education
- Measurement in Education in the United States
- Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis in Education
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- Methodologies for Conducting Education Research
- Mindfulness, Learning, and Education
- Mixed Methods Research
- Motherscholars
- Motivation
- Multiliteracies in Early Childhood Education
- Multiple Documents Literacy: Theory, Research, and Applica...
- Multivariate Research Methodology
- Museums, Education, and Curriculum
- Music Education
- Narrative Research in Education
- Native American Studies
- Nonformal and Informal Environmental Education
- Note-Taking
- Numeracy Education
- One-to-One Technology in the K-12 Classroom
- Online Education
- Open Education
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- Organizing Schools for the Inclusion of Students with Disa...
- Outdoor Play and Learning
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- Pedagogical Leadership
- Pedagogy of Teacher Education, A
- Performance Objectives and Measurement
- Performance-based Research Assessment in Higher Education
- Performance-based Research Funding
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- Play
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- Politics of Education
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- Post-humanism and Environmental Education
- Pre-Service Teacher Education
- Problem Solving
- Productivity and Higher Education
- Professional Development
- Professional Learning Communities
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- Qualitative Data Analysis Techniques
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- Qualitative Research Design
- Quantitative Research Designs in Educational Research
- Queering the English Language Arts (ELA) Writing Classroom
- Race and Affirmative Action in Higher Education
- Reading Education
- Refugee and New Immigrant Learners
- Relational and Developmental Trauma and Schools
- Relational Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education
- Reliability in Educational Assessments
- Religion in Elementary and Secondary Education in the Unit...
- Researcher Development and Skills Training within the Cont...
- Research-Practice Partnerships in Education within the Uni...
- Response to Intervention
- Restorative Practices
- Risky Play in Early Childhood Education
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- Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Impro...
- Scaling Up Research-based Educational Practices
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- School Choice
- School Culture
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- School Improvement through Inclusive Education
- School Reform
- Schools, Private and Independent
- School-Wide Positive Behavior Support
- Science Education
- Secondary to Postsecondary Transition Issues
- Self-Regulated Learning
- Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
- Service-Learning
- Severe Disabilities
- Single Salary Schedule
- Single-sex Education
- Single-Subject Research Design
- Social Context of Education
- Social Justice
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Pedagogy
- Social Science and Education Research
- Social Studies Education
- Sociology of Education
- Standards-Based Education
- Statistical Assumptions
- STEM-related Education, Indigenous Science Education and
- Student Access, Equity, and Diversity in Higher Education
- Student Assignment Policy
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- Student Participation
- Student Voice in Teacher Development
- Sustainability Education in Early Childhood Education
- Sustainability in Early Childhood Education
- Sustainability in Higher Education
- Teacher Beliefs and Epistemologies
- Teacher Collaboration in School Improvement
- Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness
- Teacher Preparation
- Teacher Training and Development
- Teacher Unions and Associations
- Teacher-Student Relationships
- Teaching Critical Thinking
- Technologies, Teaching, and Learning in Higher Education
- Technology Education in Early Childhood
- Technology, Educational
- Technology-based Assessment
- The Bologna Process
- The Regulation of Standards in Higher Education
- Theories of Educational Leadership
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- Tracking and Detracking
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- Using Ethnography in Educational Research
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- Virtual Learning Environments
- Vocational and Technical Education
- Wellness and Well-Being in Education
- Women's and Gender Studies
- Young Children and Spirituality
- Young Children's Learning Dispositions
- Young Children's Working Theories