KEY PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Like all of Peace education, Environmental education is education for, or/and about peace. On one hand, Environmental education aims at equipping with knowledge and skills that will lead to awareness and concern about the total environment and its associated problems. On the other hand, it also aims to guide learners, by virtue of the acquire skills and knowledge, to imbibe attitudes and values that will motivate them to become committed to work individually and collectively towards solution of identified current problems, and the prevention of the occurrence of new ones.

The first UN conference on environmental education in Tbilisi (1977) endorses some guiding principles for environmental education.


According to the Tbilisi Declaration, environmental education should:

 Consider the environment in its totality—natural and built, technological and social (economic, political, cultural-historical, ethical, esthetic);

 Be a continuous lifelong process, beginning at the preschool level and continuing through all formal and non-formal stages;

 Be interdisciplinary in its approach, drawing on the specific content of each discipline in making possible a holistic and balanced perspective;

 Examine major environmental issues from local, national, regional, and international points of view so that students receive insights into environmental conditions in other geographical areas;

 Focus on current and potential environmental situations while taking into account the historical perspective;

 Promote the value and necessity of local, national, and international cooperation in the prevention and solution of environmental problems;

 Explicitly consider environmental aspects in plans for development and growth;

 Enable learners to have a role in planning their learning experiences and provide an opportunity for making decisions and accepting their consequences;

 Relate environmental sensitivity, knowledge, problem-solving skills, and values clarification to every age, but with special emphasis on environmental sensitivity to the learner's own community in early years;

 Help learners discover the symptoms and real causes of environmental problems;

 Emphasize the complexity of environmental problems and thus the need to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills;

Utilize diverse learning environments and a broad array of educational approaches to teaching, learning about and from the environment with due stress on practical activities and first-hand experience.