REPORT OF UNESCO EXPERT MEETING ON - APCEIU

Overall conclusions
The richness and diversity of these traditions and the many ways in which they embody notions of stewardship
of nature are very striking. However, despite the individual differences, the focus group interviews and surveys
yielded remarkably consistent pattern in the findings about the environmental awareness, knowledge, beliefs
and behaviour of young people across the region. These findings have important implications for
environmental education policy and curriculum development.
First, as might be expected, awareness and knowledge of individual environmental concepts vary considerably.
Nevertheless it could be said that there is at least some awareness in every country of all the concepts
discussed in the research. These concepts included: the carbon cycle, sustainable development, biodiversity,
renewable resources, ecology, intergenerational equity, the precautionary principle, the greenhouse effect,
ozone layer depletion and carrying capacity. Even the least known concepts, intergenerational equity and the
precautionary principle, were known to at least 20% of students in all countries. However, those concepts that
were less discipline-specific and more sustainable development related – the newer ones – were far less well
known and understood perhaps a sign of curricula in most countries failing to keep up to date with
developments in national policy
Second, young people recognise environmental problems as real and significant and are knowledgeable and
concerned about a wide range of local, national and global problems. However, questions can be asked about
the depth of understanding that lies beneath these high levels of awareness. For example, in every country the
destruction of the ozone layer was seen as the most important environmental issue facing the world. Yet, this is
one of the very few global problems that international action seems to have solved, although recovery to pre-
1980 levels is not expected until around 2050. Probing this situation might lead to several questions. Are
students’ misunderstandings due to incomplete teaching, inadequate educational resources or, perhaps, the
tendency for environmental courses to focus on problems rather than solutions and success stories?
Third, environmental beliefs are widely shared by young people across all countries despite differences in local
cultural traditions, environmental situations and education systems. The great majority of students in all the
countries in the study expressed strongly environmentally supportive views and beliefs. It could therefore be
said that young people in all countries have moved decisively towards the adoption of an environmental
paradigm. Interestingly, the young people generally believed that while protecting the environment is more
important than economic growth, it is possible to have both a healthy environment and a prosperous economy.
However, they do not seem to have a sound understanding of the relationships between social, economic and
institutional frameworks, and ecological degradation and sustainability.
This may be because the young people in every country said that the media, particularly television, was their
major source of environmental information, followed by schools, whose contribution was often regarded as
more reliable but also more boring. Increased attention to the humanities (especially media literacy) and the
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