Abstract
This is a review article on environmental education. The focus of the discussion is the relationship between environmental education and Biodiversity concern and the emergence of the concept of Biodiversity education. The position described here configures as a disagreement of the insertion of these innovative terminology, defending the maintenance of the term environmental education and its general framework, reserving to Biodiversity concern a position of one issue to be coped by environmental education. The general framework for environmental education arises from documents of the main international conferences, such as The Belgrado Charter, resulted from the international workshop on environmental education, the recommendations of the intergovernmental conference on environmental education held in Tbilisi and the treaty on environmental education for sustainable societies and global responsibility, in Rio de Janeiro. The present discussion also reject the criticism that environmental education is not enough socially relevant and interdisciplinary and it brings back those recommendation from the conference of Tbilisi which addressed goals for environmental education. These highlighted goals are relative to the encouragement of those ethical, economic and aesthetic values, the provision of a wide range of practical skills required in the devising and application of effective solutions to environmental problem, by linking educational processes to real life. Ecological literacy is considered limited if analyzed in its isolated form and it is defended that environmental education should go beyond a simple ecological literacy. Some concepts such as empowerment and some theoretical-methodological approach such as dialogical problem-posing can help environmental education to correctly accomplish its goals and principles. A Brazilian experience on production of a didactic material known as Probio-EA for its Ministry of Environment is commented in means of the accomplishment to this theoretical proposition.
Highlights
The starting point of the present discussion is an article recently published addressing four challenges of what the authors have called Biodiversity education (Navarro-Perez and Tidball, 2012).In their article, they argue that biodiversity conservation has increasingly gained recognition, biodiversity itself is considered an ill-defined concept, based on what is said by Dreyfus et al (1999); Kassas (2002a) and Weelie and Wals (2002)
The general framework for environmental education arises from documents of the main international conferences, such as The Belgrado Charter, resulted from the international workshop on environmental education, the recommendations of the intergovernmental conference on environmental education held in Tbilisi and the treaty on environmental education for sustainable societies and global responsibility, in Rio de Janeiro
In 1977, The Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education held in Tbilisi states that “environmental education should provide the necessary knowledge for interpretation of the complex phenomena that shape the environment, encourage those ethical, economic and aesthetic values which, constituting the basis of selfdiscipline, will further the development of conduct compatible with the preservation and improvement of the environment; it should provide a wide range of practical skills required in the devising and application of effective solutions to environmental problems”
Summary
The starting point of the present discussion is an article recently published addressing four challenges of what the authors have called Biodiversity education (Navarro-Perez and Tidball, 2012) In their article, they argue that biodiversity conservation has increasingly gained recognition, biodiversity itself is considered an ill-defined concept, based on what is said by Dreyfus et al (1999); Kassas (2002a) and Weelie and Wals (2002). Carlos Hiroo Saito / American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Sciences 8 (1) (2013) 12-27 continental and global) are a matter of correct environmental literacy and it is not a problem of illdefinition of the concept itself This aspects, they insist that “biological diversity seems to be an abstract and confusing issue as a theme for education” (p.20) and this will be questioned in sequence here. Taking into account this context, the objective of this article is to analyze the relationship between environmental education and biodiversity concern and present a theoretical-methodological framework to strengthen this integration and set in motion its application on present days
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
