Environmental Education for Sustainability | Author: Thura Aljubury

In a world that lacks a basic understanding of our natural resources, a new approach is needed to reach citizens of all ages and backgrounds; this approach is called ‘Environmental Education’. All humans need to understand and work towards the current environmental issues through laws, public policies, planning, resource management, and research and education. Empowering learners to live respectful and responsible lives and to address multiple global challenges means that education has to promote abilities like critical thinking, predicting future situations and making decisions in a cooperative way. Environmental education opens doors for new approaches to learning, the development of vibrant, sustainable economies and societies, and the appearance of ‘global citizenship.’

There are many definitions of environmental education, but I chose to define it as a process that permits individuals to be aware of environmental issues, involved in solving a problem, and take measures to make the environment better. As a result, individuals would eventually develop a deeper understanding of environmental issues and have the necessary skills to make well-informed and responsible decisions. One aspect of environmental education is teaching individuals how to weigh several sides of an issue through critical thinking, and therefore, enhancing their own problem-solving and decision-making skills and abilities.

In a time where more people are disconnected from nature, there comes the importance of making an actual investment in environmental education and learning. We should not underestimate the power of education and its essential role in improving the environment. Environmental education could be an effective way to engage adult learners in learning, raising the awareness of community members of environmental issues, and encouraging individuals to pursue a career in environmental studies. In addition, environmental education is a significant part of running a business, or an organization. Without this component, companies would be a lot more irresponsible towards natural resources and the land they are using to move their businesses forward. Furthermore, it allows an individual, community, organization to enhance their decision-making skill by considering the different sides of a problem and generate an opinion about it before taking action. Through environmental education, educators could be savvier and more mindful of the environment when doing environmental friendly planning, for instance.

Gandhi once said “Be the change you wish to see in the world” which is the inspiring saying that motivates me as an educator to make a difference in my learners’ lives, in order to make a positive change in the world.

Possible approaches to environmental education could include supplementing the current educational curriculum with additional environmental materials or developing separate programs to raise the awareness of the ecological problems. Any curriculum should be grounded in well-thought-out and distinct ideas that an educator desires the learner to acquire.

The decision on how to introduce this topic should be made as early as possible and allocate time for planning. Infusing the environmental component late and without proper planning into the curriculum is not very appropriate to the learners. With regards to the materials, educators should incorporate the existing and locally available resources for environmental education and reference to local situations and problems, in order to promote a greater uptake, applicability, and sustainability. The selected activities should be made simple and level appropriate to reduce the likelihood of dependence on external support to their continuation. On the other hand, in some cases, it may be appropriate to adopt new teaching approaches, e.g., activity-based lessons, problem-solving based methods, to environmental education. These approaches may require new skills and competencies from educators, in addition to the capacity building that might also be required to develop teaching resources and methods.

In addition to the formal environmental education programs, there should also be informal ways of raising the awareness of individuals of the environmental problems and natural resources. In a country like Canada that receives a big number of refugees every year; there should be awareness programs for newcomers before and after they arrive to introduce the damaging behaviours to the environment and the possible ways to avoid them. Examples of that include choosing building materials, the cooling systems they use, energy conservation, selecting the car fuel type. Regarding regulations, newcomers should also be informed of rules and policies concerning natural resources. This approach would require a presence of an environmental agency that works collaboratively with the authorities to be updated with the latest environmental policies in order to deliver standardized environmental educational information sessions and workshops to those who just arrive in the country.

In addition to the formal environmental education programs, there should also be informal ways of raising the awareness of individuals of the environmental problems and natural resources.

Working towards a sustainable future requires educational models that go outside teaching codified ‘what’ facts to models that emphasize ‘how’: that train learners in the transdisciplinary, collaborative ways of knowing how that have been lately categorized as “new knowledge production” (Hessels& Van Lente, 2008). Environmental Education should provide mature individuals with the theory and tools to be active agents of the environment in their neighbourhoods and communities. Citizens, who are environmentally educated, are significant factors for identifying, preventing and resolving environmental problems and therefore achieve a sustainable community. Environmental education also frequently goes beyond interest and into participation of public service and leadership projects with multiple recipients, e.g., schools, religious organizations, public parks, impoverished neighbourhoods, and senior citizens.

In conclusion, environmental education in its two forms, formal and informal, helps improve human health; adults learn to make well-versed choices as consumers and reduce the contamination of air, food, and water. Environmental education promotes sustainable development by developing its natural resources and not overspending its ‘natural capital.’ Environmental education helps the workforce become more educated about the environment and its relations to the economy and society and gears sustainable practices in the workplace. Gandhi once said “Be the change you wish to see in the world” which is the inspiring saying that motivates me as an educator to make a difference in my learners’ lives, in order to make a positive change in the world.