Education about, in, and for the environment represent three different paradigms useful in helping us view environmental education and environmental science programs and activities.  Based on research by Rachel Michel (1996), these three paradigms can briefly be described as follows:

• Education about the environment is viewed as an approach in which information about the environment (concepts, facts, information) is transmitted by teacher to students. This approach reinforces traditional methods of teaching including lectures, reconstructive laboratory activities, and the recall of information. It is based on the older, traditional model of teaching.
• Education in the environment focuses on using the environment as the medium for teaching and learning. Michel points out that this form of environmental education emphases experiential learning, and that experiences in the environment aids personal growth and moral development. Student projects tend to fall into a safe zone such as anti-littering campaigns, and environmental awareness activities.
• Education for the environment, according to Michel, evolved from conservation education which focused on the preservation of basic resources and nature conservancy. This concept of environmental education expanded to include environmental protection, and the role that citizens began to take action (individually and collectively) in the solution of environmental problems. Michel claims that education for the environment could be interpreted as a response to the perceived environmental crisis. Michel also points out that education for the environment is the approach advocated by several international proposals including the Belgrade Charter (1976) and the Tbilisi Declaration (1978).

I’ve included a chart that compares education about the environment with education for the environment.  The list of attributes of Education about the environment  are characteristics that describe the traditional approach to curriculum, and help us understand how many of our courses are organized and taught.  On the other end of the continuum we find education for the environment which Aikenhead would describe as humanistic science education.  The STS movement in countries around the world resulted in programs based on this paradigm.  

Education about the Environment	Education for the Environment
• Reproductive curriculum           • Predominately an emphasis on the sciences • Employment of “traditional” teaching methods (lecture, recall, worksheets) • Emphasis on cognitive skills • Operates within the existing hierarchical, subject specific school organization	• Reconstructive curriculum           • Predominately an emphasis on social science • Advocation of student-centered approach with emphasis on inquiry and problem solving. • Emphasis on awareness, values, and attitudes as well as skills and knowledge. Advocation of practical action in the environment. • Interdisciplinary approach

 

 

Figure 1 Comparison of Education About the Environment with Education for the Environment (Michel, 1996).  

 

 

Environmental education that is based on the “education for the environment” model embodies some of the principles of Deep Ecology (Devall & Sessions, 1985). Deep Ecology, coined by Arne Naess, is a deeper approach to the study of nature exemplified in the work of Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson.  In this sense, teachers encourage their students to engage in projects that help them see the link between themselves and nature as well as advocating a wholistic approach to looking at environmental topics. Students might investigate the health of a nearby stream not only by making physical, chemical and biological studies, but also exploring the value of the stream to the total ecology of the area, explore further the causes of any pollution found in the stream, and indeed take some action on trying to resolve the problem. Perhaps teachers help students realize Commoner’s major “laws” of ecology which describe a deep ecology perspective (as cited in Devel & Sessions, 1985):

1. Everything is connected to everything else.
2. Everything must go somewhere.
3. Nature knows best.
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or everything has to go somewhere.

Education for the environment conceives of students who are not only involved in learning about the environment, but “are provided with the knowledge, values, attitudes and commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment (Tibilisi Declaration, 1978, p.3, as cited in Michel, 1996). 

Many of the environmental education programs that have been developed over the past 20 years such as Project Wild, Project Learning Tree, Global Lab, Global Thinking Project (GTP), and GLOBE might be looked at from the paradigms of education in and education for the environment.  

Dr. Galina Manke, a science educator and researcher at Moscow Scholol 710 and The Russian Academy of Education, was one of the contributors of the Global Thinking Project.  She was responsible for teacher training in Russia for Russian science teachers and schools who implemented the GTP in their science programs.  One of the beliefs she held was that through programs such as the GTP, students and teachers became “fighters for the environment,” an apt phrase for the learning paradigm, education for the environment.   

Resources:

Children & Nature Network

Teaching Students to Think Globally

Michel, Rachel (1996). Environmental education: A study of how it is influenced and informed by the concepts of environmentalism. Doctoral Dissertation. La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia