The Israeli Environmental Education Project: A New Model of Interdisciplinary Student-Oriented Curriculum

Abstract

The Ministry of Education of Israel—through its Center of Curriculum Development—commissioned the development and implementation of environmental education curriculum for grades eleven and twelve in the national educational system. The aim of the curriculum was as follows: “This curriculum will deal with the interrelationships between man and his environment and will develop within students the readiness and the capability for personal contribution and social activity towards the improvement of the environment they are living in.” This aim has been translated and crystallized into a new innovative curricular model which, in turn, determines the characteristics, the processes, and the products of the Israeli Environmental Education Project (IEEP). This interdisciplinary, science-, student-, and value-oriented model is based on our contention that environmental education (EE) is problem-oriented education about the environment, in the environment, and for the environment and the human being as part of it, in which the wholistic, interdisciplinary system approach is used for the analysis of issues and the working out of possible alternative solutions. IEEP is currently in the stage of massive development, field testing, and initial implementation.