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Unit 31 : Environmental Education : Concept and Need

“Environmental education is a way of implementing the goals of environmental protection. It is Notes
not a separate branch of science or field of study. It should be carried out according to the principles
of life-long integral education,”
UNESCO (1976) Seminar at Jammi
31.1.2 Characteristics of Environmental Education
The review of the definitions of E.E. indicates the following main characteristics :
1. It is a process of recognizing the interrelatedness among man, his cultural and biological
surroundings.
2. It appears to be a process the equips human with awareness, skills-attitudes, values and
commitments to improve environment.
3. It refers to the knowledge and understanding of physical, biological, cultural and
psychological environment and to perceive its relevance for real life situation.
4. It identifies the imbalances of environment an tries to improve it in view of sustainable
development.
5. It entails practice in decision making and self formulations of a code of behaviour about
problems and issues concerning environmental quality.
31.1.3 Objectives

The objectives of Environmental Educational are classified as follows:
(i) Awareness: to help social groups and individuals acquire and awareness of sensitivity to the
total environment and its allied problems.
(ii) Knowledge: to help social groups and individuals to gain a variety of experiences and acquire
a basic understanding of the environment and its associated problems.
(iii) Attitudes: to help social groups and individuals to acquire a set of values and feeling of
concern for the environmental and the motivation for actively participating in environmental
improvement and protection.
(iv) Skills: to help social groups and individual to acquires the skills for identifying and solving
environmental problems are the objective of environmental education.
(v) Participation: to provide social groups and individuals with an opportunity to be actively
involved at all levels working towards the resolution of environmental problems.
However, these objectives can only be achieved and understood properly, if we know what our
environmental is, what is contained in it. Objectives of environmental education can be subsumed
in three domains discussed by Bloom in his book.
“Taxonomy of Educational objectives.” Cognitive, affective and psychomotor.
(i) The cognitive domain includes those objectives which deal with the recall or recognition of
knowledge of development of intellectual skills and abilities, which means, it includes the
following behaviors: remembering; problem solving; concept formation and to a limited extent,
creative thinking. In other works, this area includes all conscious mental processes from
ordinary recall or recognition to higher ones, like solving a problem which involves abstract
thinking.

The objectives of environmental education are very essential for the successfully
formulation, implementation and evaluation of its programme.

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