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Abstract
Environmental education (EE) emerged in Portugal as an organized field of collective action about 30 years ago. At this time of the return to democracy, major social and environmental changes had begun to occur. Yet, after 30 years of EE, together with significant improvements in the education system and curricula, the real impacts of these mostly voluntary and aggressive efforts aimed at preparing future citizens to deal effectively and sensitively with environmental problem solving are not yet evident. The pathways and social context of these efforts aimed at upgrading EE in Portugal, and their apparent failure to meet their objectives, form the basis of the analysis in this paper. The authors examine the results of a survey questionnaire sent to 15,000 public and private schools all running projects formally associated with both EE and education for sustainable development (ESD). The primary purpose of the analysis was to identify the trends, constraints, and potentials for these EE/ESD projects and initiatives within primary and secondary schools. In addition, perspectives as to the emerging trends in ESD in Portugal are discussed, bearing in mind the shifting educational context.
Notes
With the financial support and patronage of the Commission of the European Communities, the European Blue Flag Campaign was launched in 1987, during the European Year of the Environment. This was also the beginning of the Fourth Environmental Action Programme (1987–1992), followed in May 1988 by the adoption of European Resolution on EE.
In an international review of whole-school sustainability programmes, Henderson and Tilbury Citation(2004) found some evidence for a constellation of critical success factors: ‘alignment with national government priorities; access to expertise in EE and/or education for sustainability during program design and implementation; significant and continuous funding; alignment with educations for sustainability approaches; investment in professional development of program team as well as school partners; creating links with EE initiatives already in operation; establishment of multi-stakeholder partnerships’ (Henderson & Tilbury Citation2004, p. 6).
Another survey using a different questionnaire—a first foray into the field—was applied by the authors to non-school promoters of EE/ESD from January to May of 2005 and firstly served to look at issues, problems and contradictions in case examples as a basis for the more comprehensive questionnaire that was subsequently applied to schools. In this case, more than 6500 non-school organizations were initially contacted (Schmidt et al., Citation2010a, Citation2010b).
Only 51% of the 15,000 schools that were contacted were included in the survey (they filled the section of the questionnaire about the general conditions of school buildings and surroundings). However, only 20% of them fulfilled the section concerning the EE/ESD projects in course, whose data form the analysis of this paper.
The Projecto de Sensibilização e Educação Florestal da População Escolar (PROSEPE), Project for the Promotion of Sensitiveness and Education of School Pupils on Forests, was an educative programme launched by a research centre of the University of Coimbra devoted to forest fires and targeted to all schools.
The Programa Regional de Educação Ambiental pela Arte (PREAA), Regional Programme for Environmental Education by Art, was launched by the Delegation of Algarve of the Ministry for Education for the schools of the region (Algarve), although it was extended to other regions in Southern Portugal (e.g. Alentejo) and Spain (e.g. Andalousia) through the cooperation of some municipalities. The programme promoted the use arts and artistic tools for EE activities.
These educative centres for the promotion of science, called Ciência Viva Centres, were created by the Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture to promote science and technology among the very young.
This is particularly the case of climate change, since the survey was applied at the peak of a worldwide attention on the issue. This culminated with the Al Gore book and movie An Inconvenient Truth. Gore also made a high profile visit to Portugal for a conference sponsored by a major bank.
Curriculum is an important component of the implementation and accreditation process. However, as Henderson and Tilbury (Citation2004, p. 270) emphasize, ‘the relationship between the national curricula and whole-school sustainability programmes differs as some are (a) based on and assist in implementing the national curriculum, (b) developed independently but complement to the national curriculum, and (c) value add and extend the national curriculum’. In spite of all efforts in the 1990s aiming the articulation of EE/ESD within national curricula, the Portuguese case is currently better described by situation (b).