Transcript A Brief History of Environmental Education

A Brief History of
Environmental Education
Perspectives on the Foundation of
Environmental Education (NAAEE)
1969
 Dr. William Stapp, University of Michigan, was the first
to concisely define environmental education in 1969:
 Environmental education is aimed at producing a
citizenry that is knowledgeable concerning the
biophysical environment and its associated problems,
aware of how to help solve these problems, and
motivated to work toward their solution.

(Stapp, W.B., et al. (1969). The Concept of Environmental Education. Journal of
Environmental Education, 1(1), 30-31.)
1970
 In his 1970 Environmental Message to Congress, President Richard
Nixon emphasized the importance of environmental literacy.
 …It is also vital that our entire society develop a new understanding
and a new awareness of man's relation to his environment - what
might be called "environmental literacy." This will require the
development and teaching of environmental concepts at every point
in the educational process.

(Nixon,
R.M. (1970). President's Message to the Congress of States In Environmental Quality, the First
Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality, together with the President's Message t
Congress. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, S/N 0-389-110. ED 062-109, p.11)

In October of 1970, President Nixon signed the Environmental Education Act
(P.L. 91-516) into law. The Act defined EE as:
 ...The educational process dealing with man's relationship with his
natural and manmade surroundings, and includes the relation of
population, conservation, transportation, technology, and urban and
regional planning to the total human environment.

(U.S. Public Law 91-516. The Environmental Quality Education Act. Enacted October 30,
1970, p. 1)
1972-77
 At an international level, EE gained prominence during the
1972 Stockholm Conference on the Environment.
Recommendation 96 of this conference recommended
environmental education as a critical means to address the
world's environmental crises.
 This recommendation was addressed at the 1975
International Environmental Workshop in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, which resulted in the Belgrade Charter (Barry, J.
(ed.).(1976).
 The Belgrade Charter: A Global Framework for
Environmental Education. Connect: UNESCO-UNEP
Environmental Education Newsletter, 1 (1), p.1-3) a
document which begins to define the goals and objectives of
environmental, p.26-7
1977 cont.
 The Belgrade Charter was further refined at the
Intergovernmental Conference on EE in Tbilisi, Republic of
Georgia in 1977:
 … Environmental education, properly understood, should
constitute a comprehensive lifelong education, one responsive
to changes in a rapidly changing world. It should prepare the
individual for life through an understanding of the major
problems of the contemporary world, and the provision of
skills and attributes needed to play a productive role towards
improving life and protecting the environment with due regard
given to ethical values. (UNESCO, 1977, p.24)
 The Tbilisi declaration also explicitly stated the objectives of
environmental education as: awareness, knowledge, attitudes,
skills and participation.

(UNESCO. (1977, 14-26 October). Final Report - Tbilisi. Paper presented at the
Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia
1980
 Hungerford, et al. published, "Goals for Curriculum
Development in Environmental Education" in the
Journal of Environmental Education (11:3, pp. 427) in 1980. Using the following as the super
ordinate goal of EE:
 ...to aid citizens in becoming environmentally
knowledgeable and, above all, skilled and dedicated
citizens who are willing to work, individually and
collectively, toward achieving and/or maintaining a
dynamic equilibrium between quality of life and
quality of the environment (Hungerford, et al.,
1980, p.44).
1980 cont.
 Hungerford et al. developed a framework to guide
the development of EE curricula in a manner that
would be consistent with guiding principles
established at Tbilisi.
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Level 1: Ecolological Foundations
Level 2: Conceptual Awareness - Issues and Values
Level 3: Investigation and Evaluation
Level 4: Environmental Action Skills - Training and
Application
 Events that affected EE in the USA