Focal points in the further development of environmental education
Environmental education is the essential part of education system in develop countries because they are aware of the consequences of global warming, On the other hand we are still in the process of improving basic education system in our country.
United Nations has designated the period of 2005 to 2014 as the decade of “Education for Sustainable Development”. The objective is to integrate environmental education and the concept of sustainable development in education curriculum of the member countries.
“Action Competence, Conflicting Interests and Environmental Education - The MUVIN Programme is the title of the English translation of the Danish research report Handlecompetence, interessekonflikter og miljøundervisning – MUVIN projektet. The MUVIN Programme, or MUVIN Projct was an innovative research and development initiative in the Danish folkeskole for primary and secondary school. With its special focus on democracy and environmental education it is very relevant for the present. focus on the development of ESD, Education for Sustainable Development. These research finding are interesting for all involved in more meaningful teaching and learning. The MUVIN research combined qualitative methods with quantitative methods and the book discusses important theoretical aspects of environmental education of relevance for ESD.”
In this chapter the author describe the focal points of further development in environmental education which required further research.
1. Teachers
The teachers assume that environmental education is for the environmentalist only, it is not their job. On other hand environmentalist are too busy in research about the worsening global environmental conditions, that they have no time for education and awareness purpose. So it is the responsibilities of all, to involve in this process and especially it is the responsibility of a teacher to educate coming generation and prepare them for their role and to protect the earth from this disaster. Teachers have the tools and time; they should use every opportunity in the class room to create awareness about environment. They should use example which are related to environment during their teaching.
MUVIN play a vital role in the Teacher Development. MUVIN arrange different programme for teacher skill development and professional growth. Improve the presentation skills of the teachers and establish co-operative setup between teacher and school management. Enhance teacher communication and public relation skill so they could work with students in more co-operative environment.
Teacher also helped a lot in MUVIN programme by sharing their precious experience with the organizer and researcher of MUVIN programme. Teachers are will inform persons about environmental issues. Due this reason, they could help in the development of environmental education. Teacher can show how to involve the students in process of environmental education.
· Give responsibility to students for environmental education and by using their influence for this purpose.
· Teacher should be open to change at any time. Teacher should be not an authority and he should be no longer the solver of every problem. Teacher should give a chance to the students to solve the problem by themselves.
· Teacher should be ready to enter in a new era of mutual co-operation with colleagues at school.
· Teacher should involve community in education process and use member of the community as resource person.
· Teacher should be ready to take his students outside school for better experience.
· Teacher should have the guts to bring new change in education process which at the time some people may not like it.
2. School
School is the most important tools in the process of environmental education. In fact environmental education is not a separate educational matter and nor need a separate educational institution. Developing environmental education in school would give teacher new skills and tools which could help them in their own subject and vice versa. MUVIN programme can also benefit from the experience of the teachers.
3. Research
MUVIN research project helped in the development of curriculum for different levels regarding environmental education, which is more practical in nature. The publication of MUVIN describes different aspect of co-operation between community, teacher and student and a practical educational programme for them.
These publications also point out focal points for further research in the field of environmental education.
· Using the conflict of interest concept when a person use a natural resource and benefit from them and later on he faces the consequences of that action. This concept is difficult for teacher to master, so they could use it in their daily class room environment.
· For the area of teaching we need to develop general and academic concept and theories of environmental education. These theories and concepts with combination of other learning will help the students to understand the dilemma of global whamming
· The action concept is necessary for developing environmental education pedagogy; give practical environmental problem to students for solving. And evaluate the outcome of their concrete efforts.
A look for the future of environment education in the crystal ball:
In the near future students will be live in a very different world from the world in which they born, here is brief what we could guess today due to ongoing environmental education programme and the struggle by the parts of our political leaders.
· A well inform person with infinite resources for information retrieval.
· Global conditions will influence individual lives.
· Unpredictable global conditions due to faster global changes.
· People will perceive industrial development as cause and would pressurized democracy for this to bring change.
· The population of the world will grow
· Resource will be more limited
· Pollution well increase globally
· Health problems due to pollution
· The world of IT and communication
· A person’s basic training will only be a first step toward life long learning
References
Action Competence, Conflicting Interests and Environmental Education - The MUVIN Programme | Environmental Education .Net. (n.d.). Environmental Education .Net. Retrieved December 27, 2010, from http://www.environmental-education.net/?page_id=53
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