Environmental education (EE) is how we connect and become more aware of the world around us. Changes in the environment happen all the time, but most of them are too far from us to notice or too minor to pay attention to. After a while, these changes can be disastrous for the world as we know it. To spread awareness of the issues and prompt people to take action, environmental education has been introduced in academic curriculums worldwide.
EE has many benefits to the students, their communities, as well as the environment. Let’s delve into details.
Teaching Strategies: Why Planning is Needed in Environmental Study Teaching
To achieve a more sustainable future, we must understand the importance of environmental awareness and include this in education. By teaching young people about environmental conservation and the best sustainable practices, we can foster a new, informed generation of people equipped to tackle the biggest environmental problems. One great way to do this is by giving them access to free essay examples. If we incorporate the environmental problems and solution in essay topics, this can encourage students to think more critically about addressing the issues in our environment. By instilling the value of environmental education in the younger generation, we can create a ripple effect of positive change for a sustainable future.
The importance of environmental education is more prominent than ever. Fortunately, there are many resources that offer diverse essay topics discussing this matter. By using such resources, the student can find the information they need to write an assigned research paper, but also gain a better understanding of the world we live in.
The Need of Environmental Education in the World
In September of 2019, there was a global climate strike movement. This movement gathered around 6 million people from all around the world. Around 2 million of them were students, which tells us that the youth is becoming more aware of what’s happening to their environment, as well as more vocal in expressing their opinions.
This happens despite the deficit of environmental education in many academic institutions around the world. The youth has expressed themselves clearly – the opportunities for learning about the topic are too limited even today. An EU research shows that 41% of young people in the Union believe that this is not taught in schools and should be a bigger priority in educational circles.
The consequences of human actions are already visible, and the harm to our environment is bigger than ever. Knowing this, the need to include this in everyone’s curriculum is enormous, and most people will agree that training and EE still has a lot of room for improvement.
The Benefits of Environmental Education
If this is done on a global level and tackled the right way, environmental education can come with many benefits to humankind as well as the environment. Here are some of these benefits:
· Heightened enthusiasm and engagement in learning
· Encouraged healthy lifestyles
· Courage to take responsible action to protect the environment
· Decline of biophobia and nature deficit disorder
· Enhanced tolerance and understanding of different culture
· Stronger communities
· Enhanced creative and critical thinking skills
· Helps students apply their learning in the real world and see the connection of economic, cultural, ecological, social, and political issues
Challenges in Implementing Environmental Education
A lot has changed in the educational world over the years. As disasters become imminent unless we take action to protect the environment, educational institutions have started implementing EE in their curriculums around the world. We are already witnessing an increase in awareness, and students are becoming more active in protecting the environment every day.
Still, this doesn’t happen overnight and it is definitely not easy. The urgent need to address the issues is there, but changing education that existed for so long is not an easy thing to do.
For starters, the number of pedagogical resources is still limited with the exception of online information in the form of articles and essays and a few books. Professors are not properly trained to educate students on this topic, or trained how to tackle the barriers that come with it.
The school programs come with constraints and resources in this field are mainly dedicated to research. That being said, there’s still a lot to do to make environmental awareness a success in educational circles.
Even so, hope is not gone. On the opposite – technology and access have given us an amazing opportunity to educate ourselves and others of the environmental risks and issues. Students now have access to data from different parts of the world in the form of statistics, videos, images, interviews, etc.
By combining all the knowledge with all the data, educational systems can quickly adapt to EE ways of learning and make students more aware of what is happening to their environment. With a bit of luck and a lot of effort, this youth today might just be the people who will improve the world in the years that follow.
