A Framework for Environmental Education Strategies

Abstract

Environmental education (EE) includes a broad range of teaching methods, topics, audiences, and educators. EE professionals have worked over the last 30 years to provide distinct definitions, guides, objectives, and standards that will help educators know how to differentiate environmental education from other educational efforts and how to deliver it effectively. This article incorporates several recent frameworks of educational strategies into one that has usefulness to formal and nonformal educators as well as communicators. Our purpose is not to redefine EE, but to provide a framework that can help practitioners consider a suite of possible purposes and interventions that can belong under the umbrella of EE. We define four categories of EE according to their purpose: Convey Information, Build Understanding, Improve Skills, and Enable Sustainable Actions.

Notes

¹Several education authorities identify practice and application as an essential component of effective learning (American Psychological Association Board of Educational Affairs, 2003; Trowbridge & Bybee, 1986).

²Social learning platforms create strong interpersonal relationships, a more universal definition of the task and objectives, better and more management options to achieve these objectives, and broad support for these options. These opportunities enable people to learn from each other. Social learning can be spontaneous but can also be encouraged in the interest of designing more sustainable interventions (Keen et al., 2005).