What Environmental Education Is

Contemporary Issues and Trends in Education

Environmental education teaches people in, about, and for the environment. This chapter defines the field and its three goals, shows who learns it and where, walks through the continuum that runs from raising awareness to building a community’s capacity to act, and ends with the vision behind it: an informed public able to protect a better quality of life.

What Environmental Education Is

Education in, about, and for the environment, and the three goals that define the field.

Who Learns and Where

Every age group, in both formal classrooms and informal public settings.

The Learning Continuum

Four kinds of activity, from raising awareness to building the capacity to act.

The Vision of EE

An environmentally literate public, empowered to make proactive, informed decisions.