Aside from the broader objectives of educating about, for, and in, the environment, EE has many specific goals. The Ministry of Ontario’s 2009 Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow: A Policy Framework for Environmental Education in Ontario Schools, outlines these goals, breaking them into the three categories: knowledge, skills, and attitudes (p. 26-27). They are presented as follows:

 

Knowledge:

 

Environmental education should enable students to learn about:

• the resources of the Earth, particularly soil, water, minerals, and air, their characteristics, and their role in supporting living organisms;

• the nature of ecosystems and biomes, their health, and their interdependence within the biosphere;

• the dependence of humans on environmental resources for life and sustenance;

• the characteristics of human societies, including nomadic, hunter-gatherer, agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial, and the impact of each on the natural environment;

• the role of science and technology in the development of societies and the impact of different technologies on the environment;

• the process of urbanization and the implications of deruralization;

• the interconnectedness of political, economic, environmental, and social issues in the present world;

• cooperative national and international efforts to find solutions to common environmental issues and to implement strategies for a more sustainable future.

 

Skills:

 

Environmental education should enable students to:

• define such fundamental concepts as environment, community, development, and technology, and apply these definitions in local, national, and global contexts;

• use a range of resources, communications skills, and technologies in addressing environmental questions;

• develop problem-solving skills and critical and creative thinking skills, including the ability to reason and apply logic, to recognize and apply abstract patterns, to identify connections and relationships between ideas and issues, and to test ideas against new information and against personal experience and beliefs;

• work towards a negotiated consensus when there are differences of opinion;

• detect and assess bias and evaluate different points of view;

• recognize the need to incorporate an environmental perspective in decision making models.

 

Attitudes:

 

Environmental education should enable students to:

• appreciate the resilience, fragility, and beauty of nature and develop respect for the place and function of all living things in the overall planetary ecosystem;

• appreciate that human life depends on the resources of a finite planet;

• appreciate the role of human ingenuity and individual creativity in ensuring survival and achieving sustainable progress;

• become mindful of perspectives other than their own and be prepared to modify their ideas and beliefs when appropriate (e.g., understand and respect First

• Nation, Métis, and Inuit concepts of knowledge);

• appreciate the challenges faced by the human community in defining and implementing the processes needed for environmental sustainability;

• develop a sense of balance in decisions that involve conflicting priorities;

• maintain a sense of hope and a positive perspective on the future.

 

Alternatively, another source (Omoogun et al., 2016) identifies three main goals of environmental education:

 

1. to promote an awareness of, and concern for, the interdependence of human social/political/economic structures and ecological systems within rural and urban communities, in students; 

2. to provide equal opportunities to access educational experiences promoting the acquisition of the “knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment” (p. 63); and 

3. to nurture new attitudes and behaviours toward the environment.

 

They state that these goals can be supported and achieved through five core categories: awareness, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and participation (Omoogun et al., 2016). Essentially, EE students should, through their experiences, acquire: an awareness of environmental issues, knowledge and basic understanding of ecological concepts, protective attitudes and concerns for the environment, the skills required to identify and address environmental problems, and, the motivation to actively participate in solutions for environmental issues (Omoogun et al., 2016).

 

Regardless of what definition, framework, or resource you refer to, at the heart of EE, we educators aim to “increase environmental literacy in those we educate and to instill a fierce love for nature that will encourage our children to choose to protect nature for their children and their children’s children” (Kacoroski, 2015, p. 34-35).