Environmental and Science Education: Overlaps and Issues

Abstract

While concern for the impact of humans on the environment dates back many centuries, modern environmentalism really began in the second half of the 20th century. We are now very aware of a number of “wicked problems” that are complex and impossible to solve. Such issues, which are interrelated at different levels, include climate change, biodiversity loss, water security, and poverty. These problems can be better understood with a knowledge of science, but they are not just “scientific” issues—they require knowledge from many other areas across the arts and humanities as well as the broad range of scientific disciplines. This article focuses on environmental and science education and, where relevant, suggests links to other cognate areas. One way of thinking about environmental and science education is as the place where environmental education and science education overlap. This is quite a fluid space, intellectually, partly because environmental education is itself conceptualized in many ways. It is important to point out that we are not simply concerned with environmental science, rather, this article identifies a growing need to reconceptualize the relationship between science education and environmental education.