Heightened environmental awareness on the part of the Hungarian people is the result of a comprehensive program directed by the government through its various ministeries and social action groups, and by educators at both pre-college and university levels. In Poland, environmental quality is a regional concern, and responses to environmental problems are orchestrated by the local academic community rather than by the central government. Both countries, however, direct considerable amount of applied environmental research toward the management of soil, water, and air. The extensive basic ecological investigations are strongly influenced by the Zurich-Montpellier of phytosociologists; thus, descriptive literature abounds on plant communities as discrete, discontinuous, and discernible entities in which certain species reach their optimum potential in the same communities. In contrast, holistic analysis is in its infancy in both countries and is vigorously eschewed by some leading ecologists. During late January and early February, 1978, on behalf of the United States Department of State, I visited Hungary and Poland to learn about environmental awareness/education activities and to exchange ideas about such activities' in our own country. In Hungary, arrangements were made through the Hungarian Institute of Cultural Relations; the itinerary was developed through the National Authority for Environmental and Nature Protection, a near equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In Poland, arrangements were made through the Polish Ministry of Science, Higher Education, and Technology; the itinerary was developed by the Departments of Basic Natural Sciences and Environmental Protection of the Warsaw Agricultural University. In both countries, I met a broad spectrum of people-government officials, academicians, scientists (pure and applied), and, in Hungary, school officials and teachers. All of those I met gave generously of their time and shared openly their interests and concerns. My observations of the attitudes and concerns of those educators are the focus of this article.