Planning education to care for the earth - IUCN Knowledge Network

Scotland: developing a national strategythe Scottish Environmental Education Council (SEEC), a voluntary body,and it was funded by a government agency, the Countryside Commission forScotland (later amalgamated with the Nature Conservancy Council forScotland into Scottish National Heritage (SNH)). The Working Group’ssecretariat had a full-time coordinator.The terms of reference were to develop proposals to increase environmentalawareness and understanding for everyone. In consequence, the WorkingGroup’s tasks were:• To establish a framework for development over the next decade;• To review and interrelate current activities;• To identify shortfalls within the existing provisions and the meansof overcoming them;• To develop ways of achieving a more coordinated approach;• To review the skills and training requirements of those involved;• To recommend a programme for action and delivery, andsystems for monitoring and evaluation.The internationally-accepted definition of environmental education (adoptedat Tbilisi in 1977, and reinforced at Moscow in 1987) served as a basis forthe group’s work. The group acknowledged that better care for theenvironment will not be achieved without sustainable development. It wasconcerned with the whole environment - spatial, social and temporal, builtand unbuilt, political, economic and cultural.The group acknowledged education as a way of guiding behaviour towards amore caring approach (using the principles of sustainable living which form theframework of IUCN’s “Caring for the Earth” (1993)). It accepted education as asustained learning experience for everyone throughout life. Formal education,home and family, community and peer groups, workplace and recreation, publicpolicy and the media are all important and to succeed environmental educationmust touch them all, and if possible draw them into partnership.At the outset, members of the Working Group contributed information basedon their own experience. The identified range of knowledge and interests tobe tackled by the group was so wide, however, that it was decided at an earlystage to call in outside assistance. Five lines of action were taken:•A questionnaire was distributed to a wide range of people andorganizations in the public, private and voluntary sectors. The excellentresponse showed that the group’s concerns were widely shared;•A data base was established to record and analyze the results of thequestionnaire and other inquiries and a library of documents andcontributed papers was created;•Consultations were held with key persons in environmental andeducational bodies;•Workshops and seminars on environmental approaches to a range oftopics were set up. These included play programmes, youth work,113