The Current Status and Improvement Plan of Environmental Education Program in Relation to Climate Change in the Seoul Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This study was to conduct a literature review and a theoretical study on 95 environmental education programs currently being run in the metropolitan area and obtained Environmental Education Program Certification of Ministry of Environment. First, the suitability of the environmental education programs was analyzed in terms of the following criteria which the Second National Environmental Education Master Plan propose: strengthening environmental education within the curriculum, strengthening preschooler environmental education, diversification of environmental education among targeted groups, and invigoration of community-based environmental education, and evaluated the contents and the proportion relevant to climate change. Based on the result, the measure for the improvement of the environmental education programs was proposed. As a result of the analysis, there were only 15 programs for children, and 20 programs for adults. Also, only 9% of the children and adult education programs were addressing climate change respectively, which was indicating low percentage. 75 programs were directly related to the school curriculum, and 8 programs were not related to subjects in regular curriculum. Also, considering addressing climate change, 7 out of 11 programs were related to the school curriculum. 71 out of 95 programs were located in the facilities of local governments. Programs that were including the contents relate to climate change were only 11 out of 95 programs. It is necessary to operate programs by expanding environmental education programs targeting children and adults, so all people are took into account, and consider the connectivity between curriculum and environmental education program in South Korea to increase the effectiveness of education. Also, it is necessary to educate people sustainably by relating the programs with various resources which can be utilized in the local community, to include climate change related contents with more proportion, and to address various subjects rather than focusing on one part of the subjects.