About Environmental Education

Why It's Important

Environmental Education: Doing what works, teaching what matters. There are two parallel facets of environmental education. One is developing the environmental literacy of our citizens. The other is utilizing the EE approach to increase student learning. Both are important and can be accomplished simultaneously.

The challenges and issues of our world demand that we are all well informed and active citizens. Environmental education grew with the recognition that humans are negatively impacting our life support systems. EE provides a progressive process to develop environmentally literate citizens that are able to make informed choices about their individual and our collective impacts on the environment and actions that can be taken to address these impacts. EE programs develop informed and active citizens. EE programs do not advocate for specific positions on or beliefs about environmental issues, but rather provide available information and the range of options available.

Because environmental education is inherently real world, interdisciplinary, and experiential, it is also an effective approach to education. Throughout history, humans have developed physically, emotionally, and educationally in relation to our environment. Therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that education set in the context of the learners' environment is more engaging, exciting, and effective.