Government employees have immense power to influence policies that have environmental consequences, which can either support or detract from a sustainable future. Environmental pre-service training programs have proven to be effective in increasing pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, but they have rarely been used or studied in governmental institutions.
Despite the increasing awareness that climate change poses a serious threat to human and planetary wellbeing, local communities may have limited ability to mitigate or adapt. Educational programs are essential to improve communities' preparedness for the consequences of climate change and reduce the severity of damage. In the US, Cooperative Extensions Masters Volunteering (CEMV) programs have been effective in combating other environmental challenges in the past.
The transition in fossil fuels to renewable energies presents an invaluable opportunity for educators and researchers to advance environmental education (EE) focused on energy systems. However, this study suggested that EE frameworks have been insufficient to prepare students for the energy transition. This study focuses on environmental action and change, which are actions and changes that aim to mitigate environmental impacts.
Individuals develop commitments to social and environmental action through their unique paths, which is shaped by their identities. Understanding what fosters and sustains this development is important for the field of environmental education. This study looked at adults' development of and motivations for action that promotes social and environmental change. To address a lack of research with multiple views in this domain, diverse perspectives were incorporated into this study. The researchers sought to understand three questions:
How do participants view their own activism?
Many Canadian educators recognize the importance of developing curricula through the lens of decolonization, which involves dismantling colonial institutions and restoring rights of and respect for Indigenous peoples. However, Indigenous issues can be very contentious, and educators who discuss these issues with their students may face challenges, such as resistance from students, tension with other teachers, and pushback from administrators. Given these challenges, many teachers are hesitant to broach or engage in deep dialogue about these subjects with their students.
Environmental education (EE) encompasses a wide array of topics, such as natural resource conservation, environmental justice, and renewable energy. Although the field of EE has grown and evolved, it has maintained the values of protecting the environment and enhancing environmental quality. Given these values, it is unsurprising that, on the topic of climate change, EE has traditionally emphasized the importance of mitigation. Mitigation involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions to lessen human impact on the climate system.
Secondary school students are at an age where their beliefs and values can quickly change due to separation from the influence of adult figures such as guardians and parents. For this reason, climate change education is essential so that students can make informed decisions about climate action. Previous research indicates that undergraduate students studying economics place more value on personal gain and lesser value on environmental action.
Environmental education (EE) is a broad field, and environmental educators can have a variety of roles, backgrounds, levels of professional training, goals, and so on. Efforts to professionalize and support the EE field have increased in recent years. Professionalizing the EE field requires an understanding of the field's scope (the number of professionals working as environmental educators and their type of work) and composition of the field (gender, race, age, level of education, and whether educators are paid or unpaid).
Environmental education (EE) continues to grapple with how best to develop youth leaders in sustainability. Previous research indicates that assumptions around a direct relationship between attitudes and behavior change is too simplistic. Instead, more recent literature finds that learning is complex and social. This study explored whether and how a program for high school students promoted transformational learning and action competence through a participatory evaluation process.
As the environmental movement grew throughout the 1960s and 70s, researchers sought to develop a way to measure the level of environmentalism in the general public. The New Environmental Paradigm Scale (NEP) was designed to measure the relationship between humans and the planet, and has long been the gold standard for measuring environmentalism. However, the overarching critique of the NEP scale is that it represents a particular set of attitudes, values, and beliefs that represent one's entire environmental worldview, or how people think the world works.