people and planet

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TABLE 1.2:
Environmental education has evolved over the years
Three types of contemporary environmental education
Nature conservation education Environmental education Sustainability education
Starting period Late 19th century Late 1960s, early 1970s Early 1990s
Main focus
Connecting with nature, understanding web of life, protecting
species, raising awareness, knowledge and understanding
Raising environmental awareness about pollution of water,
soil and air
Increasing citizen engagement, participation in sustainable
development issues and increasing understanding of
connections between environment, economy, culture and
ecology, and how today’s actions affect future generations
Intended impact
Examples
Ecological literacy, societal support base for nature
conservation through national parks
Visitor centres in national parks, public awareness campaigns,
nature programmes in schools, school gardening
Changing individual environmental behaviour, developing
agency and societal support for environmental legislation
Environmental education centres in cities, public awareness
campaigns, school curricula, teacher training
A more holistic or integrated approach of dealing with issues
around water, food, energy, poverty and biodiversity, in
governance, education and business
Multistakeholder platforms focusing on sustainable
development issues, whole school approaches to
sustainability, corporate social responsibility
Source: Wals (2012).
A Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report)
analysis of 78 national curricula shows that topics
associated with sustainable development are
widespread – although sometimes framed and defined
differently depending on the country – and generally
draw on similar types of content: 73% of countries
mention ‘sustainable development’, 55% use the term
‘ecology’ and 47% ‘environmental education’ in their
curricula. These concepts are embedded in various
parts of the curricula.
Some countries have prioritized environmental
education programmes. In India, for example,
environmental education was mandated by the
Supreme Court in 1991, and in 2003 the government
directed the National Council of Educational Research
and Training to produce extensive content on
environmental education (Centre for Environmental
Education, 2015). As a result, over 300 million school
students in the 1.3 million schools currently receive
some environmental education training (Gardiner, 2015).
Evidence shows that curricular design affects student
knowledge. In the 2006 Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) test of ‘science
competencies for tomorrow’s world’, students in Estonia
and Sweden – where sustainable development content
is in the curricula – were more likely to answer questions
about environmental science correctly than their peers in
countries at similar development levels (see Chapter 16).
In 62% of 119 countries covered by the Gallup World
Poll conducted in 2007 and 2008, education level and
beliefs about the cause of climate change were often
the top predictors of climate change awareness and risk
perception (Lee et al., 2015). People with more schooling
were better able to identify various environmental
issues in 70 out of 119 countries. People with access
to communication tools were also more aware,
demonstrating the growing importance of information and
communications technology in environmental education.
Schooling improves sustainability-related knowledge,
skills and attitudes
Education not only increases knowledge and awareness
but also improves skills and enables individuals to
make better, more environmentally informed decisions.
Evidence from the 2010
International Social
In 31 countries, more Survey Programme (ISSP)
on 31 mostly high income
education increases
countries shows that each
the chance that step on the education
people will express ladder, from primary to
lower secondary, upper
concern for the
secondary and tertiary
environment
education, increases the
chance that people will
express concern for the
environment, even after taking into account factors
such as wealth, individual characteristics and political
affiliation (Franzen and Vogl, 2013).
People with more education are also more likely to
follow up environmental concern with activism to
promote and support political decisions that protect
the environment. Analysis of the 2010 ISSP finds that
in almost all participating countries, respondents with
more education were more likely to have signed a
2016 • GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 25