The National Research Council recently published the Framework for Science Education for students K-12 and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These publications highlight new research regarding necessary scientific knowledge and curriculum for K-12 students. States are altering their school education standards to mirror the Framework and NGSS. These changes offer an opportunity for practitioners to incorporate environmental and sustainability education (ESE) into their curriculum. Previous research demonstrates that ESE may be included in science classes because of overlapping concepts. Although ESE is interdisciplinary, an interdisciplinary approach to ESE may not be feasible; evaluating how environment and sustainability education plays a role in science education may lead to its further development. This study evaluated how ESE topics are currently integrated in science classrooms in two states to determine a strategy for incorporating ESE education into science curriculum in other states.
The researchers selected two states, Washington and Vermont, because they have already integrated environmental and sustainability topics into their state science requirements. Furthermore, previous research had documented the process for each state. Vermont incorporated Sustainability and Understanding Place into their standard in 2000, and adopted the NGSS in 2013. Washington pledged to incorporate sustainability into its schools during the 1990s and created the Integrated Environmental and Sustainability Learning Standards (IESELS). By analyzing the experience of these states, the researchers sought to understand how these states have incorporated ESE into K-12 school standards and discover implications for educators. The authors extensively researched literature from the following fields: Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Environmental Education (EE), Education for Sustainability (EfS), and Sustainability Education (SE). After the literature review, they analyzed 282 Washington standards and 204 Vermont expectations. The researchers identified 20 common themes that highlight the interaction between humans and nature. Examples of themes included climate change, economic development, environmental justice, human health/disease, and natural resource conservation.
The authors found that even though these states took innovative approaches to ESE, the standards only address a few of the ESE themes and are inconsistent across grades. Vermont's science requirement includes five focuses, but only one of them—Universe, Earth, and Environment—contained a significant number of ESE themes. Washington's science requirement contains six focuses, with Life Science highlighting the greatest number of ESE themes. Overall, only 5.8% of Vermont's expectations and 3.1% of Washington's standards mentioned one of the ESE themes.
The authors cautioned that the study fails to reflect other ways these states may address sustainability in their schools, thus underestimating the ESE focus. The researchers also point out that the standards vary across these two states. In addition, practitioners should use caution when implementing ESE standards within schools as this study did not evaluate how each state established their respective program. However, the authors do provide a source that includes this information. Lastly, this study does not evaluate the efficacy of ESE programs nor does it demonstrate if students within certain age groups benefit more than others. Therefore, practitioners should use caution when generalizing ESE standards to all schools.
The results of this study have implications for practitioners, standard reformers, and curriculum developers. For practitioners, the authors recommend further review of their own state's current science standards to better understand how to incorporate ESE themes. Additionally, educators can work with teachers from other concentrations to collaboratively teach ESE topics. For reformers, this study does not recommend one standard reform approach over another (interdisciplinary versus specific disciplinary), but it does encourage states to use Vermont's disciplinary approach or Washington's interdisciplinary approach as starting points on which to expand to include ESE themes that are not mentioned in their standards. It also promotes reformers to expand their thinking regarding science to include social, economic, and natural aspects. Lastly, the researchers advise curriculum developers to establish pre-requisite knowledge that students must have to comprehend the ESE theme. For example, to confirm that students know that humans have beneficial and harmful effects on the natural world, they must be able to describe how people can improve and damage an ecosystem.
As previous research demonstrates, the U.S. educational system's disciplinary focus makes interdisciplinary ESE challenging for schools to implement. The authors recommend that schools take a positive approach to challenge the current system. Although implementing ESE themes into science curriculum is a small step, the authors hope that with this research, stakeholders will collaborate to develop an approach for creating long term focus on environmental and sustainability education.
The Bottom Line
The Next Generation Science Standards and Framework for Science education have encouraged states to modify their K-12 education standards. Some states have incorporated environmental and sustainability education (ESE) into their schools, primarily through science classes due to overlapping themes. The researchers studied two states, Vermont and Washington, that have implemented ESE curriculum in their education standards to understand how other states and educators can incorporate ESE into their state science standards. The researchers analyzed over 500 standards between the two states. The results demonstrated that although these states innovatively modified their standards, the curriculum contains little ESE content. Implementing a transdisciplinary topic such as ESE into a rigid school structure has proven to be a challenging task; however, the authors suggest that it is a step in the right direction. The researchers further encourage stakeholders to collectively strategize an approach for implementing environmental and sustainability education into K-12 schools.