INCLUSION OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION INTO PUBLIC SCHOOL CURRICULA
Date
2017
Authors
Tracy, Sean Richard
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Abstract
In recent years there have been growing proenvironmental trends in the United States, as well as internationally (Bekoff, 2014). Environmental education (EE) in U.S. public curricula can be a driving force for these trends (Andrews, 2006). However, there are major barriers to inclusion of EE into public school curricula; lack funding, the multi-curricular nature of EE, and the controversy surrounding some environmental issues. National and global socioeconomic and political changes affect public attitude and attitude, in turn, affects these changes. Shifts in environmental attitudes have been assessed using multiple different scales, but most prominently with the New Environmental Paradigm scale (Dunlap, 2008; Sutton and Gyuris, 2015). Findings over the past decades have shown differences in proenvironmental behavior between genders, but studies have found limited differences in attitude using the NEP scale. For this reason, several studies have begun linking value scales to the NEP in order to gain insight into the underlying causes of change in environmental attitudes (Sutton & Gyuris, 2015). Findings in this study indicated that the differences may be in individual aspects of the attitude and value scales rather than in the total score. Regardless, increased exposure to outdoor experiences has been shown to positively impact student attitudes towards the environment (Kellert, 1984, 1997; Louv, 2005, 2007, 2012; Mainella et al., 2011). If the ultimate goal of environmental education is to produce environmental stewards, comprehensive learning experiences in outdoor spaces can help to solidify pro-environmental behaviors in students, giving them a sense of place in the natural world.
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Keywords
Environmental education, Environmental studies, Education history, Consilience, Consilient education, Environmental education, New environmental paradigm, Outdoor education, Stewardship