Conceptual Analysis in Environmental Education: Why I Want My Children To Be Educated For Sustainable Development

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 73-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy van Rossen

In recent years, there has been a growing global movement towards sustainable development (defined in the Brundtland report Our Common Future as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED 1987)). Indeed, the Brundtland report, along with the revised World Conservation Strategy (IUCN 1990) and Agenda 21 (UNCED 1992) all place high expectations on environmental education as a key means of achieving sustainability. Changes for sustainability will affect individual lifestyles, and attitudes to, and relationships with nature, and education is a critical part of turning the idea of sustainable development into reality (Slocombe & van Bers 1991, p. 12). In arguing that our children should be educated for sustainable development, we must evaluate the arguments about sustainability and see what role environmental education has to play.Jickling (1992, pp. 6-7) claims that various attempts to analyse the meaning of the term sustainable development have resulted in a ‘conceptual muddle’ which precludes the possibility of accepting any educational prescription for it. However, in drawing this conclusion, he appears to have neglected the alternative conceptions of sustainable development that have been proposed (Fien & Trainer 1993a, p. 14) and the values basis underlying them and, thereby, has not provided a critical direction for a pathway to sustainability.

2021 ◽  
pp. 345-353
Author(s):  
Pornchai Mongkhonvanit ◽  
Chanita Rukspollmuang ◽  
Yhing Sawheny

AbstractModernization theory, which believes that “development equates economic growth” and changes in social, political, and cultural structures are the pathways for societies to become modernized, has been the predominant paradigm for the development of nations for decades. However, the model was met with a lot of criticism, and there was a movement to rethink the real meaning of development and well-being. Alternatives for development were proposed, but the most widely accepted paradigm is “sustainability” or “sustainable development” which was defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in the 1987 Brundtland Report (also called “Our Common Future”) as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Under this development paradigm, programs, initiatives, and actions aim not only at the preservation of a particular resource but also at other distinct areas: economic, environmental, and social - known as the three pillars of sustainability. The Brundtland Report has had a worldwide impact. “Agenda 21”, a comprehensive plan of action to build a global partnership for sustainable development to improve human lives and protect the environment, was adopted in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, followed by many other agendas, including the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) (2000–2015) and the present United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or the 17 SDGs.


1992 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 115-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Greenall Gough

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between national economic and political priorities and environmental education policy formulation and curriculum strategies. This relationship will be placed in the historical context of developments in environmental education in Australia from 1970 until the present and will be analysed in terms of the ideological and pedagogical stances implicit, and explicit, in the developments during this period. I will argue that the emphasis throughout the period has been to sustain the development of environmental education without any questioning of why, what and how this development should occur.‘Sustainable development’ has become a slogan for governments, industry and conservation groups in recent times. It was the subtitle for the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN 1980) and the National Conservation Strategy for Australia (DHAE 1984) - living resource conservation for sustainable development - and was popularised in the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, more commonly known as the Brundtland Report or Our Common Future (WCED 1987). The definition of sustainable development given in the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN 1980: section 1.3) and repeated in the National Conservation Strategy for Australia (DHAE 1984: 12) is as follows:Development is…the modification of the biosphere and the application of human, financial, living and non-living resources to satisfy human needs and improve the quality of human life. For development to be sustainable it must take account of social and ecological factors, as well as economic ones; of the living and nonliving resource base; and of the long term as well as the short term advantages and disadvantages of alternative actions.


1993 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 135-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Thomas

During the 1970s and 1980s there has been a growing awareness of the environment. This has been particularly evident in the general community through:• passing of environmental legislation;• growth in status of environment groups;• media coverage of environmental issues.As a result the direction of formal education has been influenced. For example, through the Victorian State Conservation Strategy, the community has indicated the direction for tertiary institutions, where one of the objectives of this strategy is to:promote and strengthen inter-disciplinary environmental education programs in schools and tertiary institutions. (Victorian Government, 1987, p.89)Similarly, the Australian Government's Ecologically Sustainable Development process (ESD) has proposed the incorporation of ESD, in tertiary curricular (Ecologically Sustainable Development Steering Committee, 1992).Linke (1979) has described the development of environmental education curricula during the 1970s whereby consideration of aspects of the environment became more common. Most activity was noted to be in primary and secondary sectors, however, at tertiary level a range of subjects focussing on the environment were apparent, as were several courses which were specifically designed to provide training in environmental understanding.


2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-102
Author(s):  
Annette Gough

Documenting a history of environmental education in Australia within an international context has been a research focus (some would say obsession) of mine since 1974, when I undertook a ‘needs for environmental education’ survey for the Curriculum Development Centre. Given the human-centred issues that launched the field (clean air and water, population), it was disturbing to see how it became characterised as nature focused from the 1990s onwards, to distinguish it from education for sustainable development (ESD). As we now look post-decade, we find that ESD is not yet integrated into mainstream education and sustainable development agendas, and the need to promote global citizenship is being added to the agenda. Most of the UNESCO priority action areas from 2014 look very familiar: policy support, whole-institution approaches, educators and local communities. The fifth area is Youth, a category that emerged in its own right for the first time in Agenda 21. Having been in this historical space for so long, I expect I will continue to document a history of the field for as long as I can, to see where the journey leads us.


2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Sleurs

AbstractEnvironmental Education is one of the cross-curricular themes, introduced in the mid 1990s in the curriculum of Flemish secondary education (12-18 yr). Both the Brundtland report and the ENSI philosophy inspired the development of the objectives for EE. A strong partnership exists between the departments of education and the environment of the Flemish Ministry and the provincial authorities, which resulted in the project ‘MOS’, an environmental management system for primary and secondary schools. Besides environmental objectives, the pedagogical objectives of the project are strongly emphasised. The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development provides a strong stimulus to link Environmental Education to the other cross-curricular themes, Citizenship and Health Education and to include the ‘MOS’-project into the broader framework of Education for Sustainable Development.


2001 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 77-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Fien

Education has an enormously important role to play in motivating and empowering citizens to participate in environmental improvement and protection. Nearly three decades ago, Schumacher (1973) described education as our ‘greatest resource’ in his endeavour. In the last decade, major international reports have stressed this also. The theme of the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living (prepared as the World Conservation Strategy for the 1990s) (1991), and Agenda 21 (the Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro) (1992) is that it is possible to sustain ways of living that can redress environmental decline without jeopardising the ecosystem or resources base for the future. Each report speaks to the imperative of education to engender this ethic (see Fien 1995).In the Asia-Pacific region also, education has been identified as a critical factor and countries have adopted a range of strategies for implementing programs in environmental education. Many workshops and training programs have been organised since 1986 Regional Meeting of Experts in Bangkok at which an action plan was developed for environmental education from primary through post graduate levels. Significant work is taking place in redefining environmental education in a Pacific context, particularly to incorporate concepts of sustainable development. Much exploration of how teacher education can rise to the occasion of the great need for environmental education and for teacher education in environmental education is on-going in the region (see Fien & Corcoran 1996).


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Rodríguez Orozco ◽  
Madelin Rodríguez Rensoli

El desarrollo de la educación ambiental para el desarrollo sostenible, se convierte en una necesidad de la formación de los estudiantes del nivel técnico medio dentro de la Educación Técnica Profesional (ETP), es por ello que en el presente artículo, a partir de aplicar los métodos de revisión documental y sistematización, se debate acerca de los términos educación ambiental y gestión ambiental para el desarrollo sostenible, posibilitan identificar la necesidad que tienen el tratamiento metodológico y didáctico para que los docentes y funcionarios incorporen los temas medio ambientales en la formación de los técnicos medios de la especialidad de Refrigeración.   Palabras clave: Educación ambiental; Desarrollo sostenible y Educación Técnica Profesional   ABSTRACT   The development of the environmental education for the sustainable development becomes a necessity for the formation of the technical middle level students of the Technical Professional Education. Hence, it is debated in this article, by applying the methods of documentary review and systematization, the terms environmental education and environmental management for the sustainable development, identify the need for the methodological and didactic treatment, so that the docents and officials incorporate the environmental topics into the technician´s formation in the specialty of refrigeration.   Key words: Environmental Education, Sustainable development, and Technical Professional Education   Recibido: diciembre 2015Aprobado: febrero 2015


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-140
Author(s):  
Florica Manea ◽  
Georgeta Burtica ◽  
I. Vlaicu

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1611-1626
Author(s):  
Milica Andevski ◽  
Snezana Urosevic ◽  
Milan Stamatovic

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rakesh Rangwani

Despite substantial improvements over the past 23 years in many key areas of sustainable development, the world is not on track to achieve the goals as aspired to in Agenda 21, adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and reiterated in subsequent world conferences, such as the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. While there have been some achievements in implementing Agenda 21, including the implementation of the chapters on “Science for Sustainable Development” and on “Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training”, for which UNESCO was designated as the lead agency, much still remains to be done. This decade had seen the idea of a “green economy” float out of its specialist moorings in environmental economics and into the mainstream of policy discourse. It is found increasingly in the words of heads of state and finance ministers, in the text of G20 communiqués, and discussed in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. The research paper focused to establish a relationship between sustainable development and green economics. The research paper is descriptive and analytical in nature. The data collected from secondary sources such as report from niti aayog, IMF indicators, RBI reports, newspapers, journals. The research design was adopted to have greater accuracy and in depth analysis of the research study. The statistical tools for the analysis are also being used.


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