EETAP Resource Library
“Advancing Education & Environmental Literacy”
April, 1997
Environmental Education: As Defined By The Practitioners
Environmental education carries different
images for the practitioners in the field. For some,
environmental education is a dimension of the
environmental movement that gained momentum in
the 70s. However, it has been acknowledged that the
primary antecedents of environmental education were
nature study, outdoor education, and conservation
education. The field of environmental education
continues to evolve, and the definition of
environmental education remains individually
grounded. Some educators have identified several other
educational movements as forerunners and/or
concurrent companions of environmental education.
These include resource-use education, progressive
education, and resource management education.
Following are some of the early and evolving
definition of environmental education as described by
John F. Disinger in his article “Environmental
Education’s Definitional Problems” published in
Information Bulletin No. 2 of ERIC/SMEAC in 1983.
An early concise definition which served as
the basis of subsequent efforts emerged from a
graduate seminar in the Department of Resource
conservation and Planning of the University of
Michigan’s School of Natural Resources under the
leadership of William Stapp in 1969 and declares
that:
Environmental education is aimed at producing
a citizenry that is knowledgeable concerning
the biophysical environment and its
associated problems, aware of how to solve
these problems, and motivated to work towards
their solution.
This statement was modified by R. Roth in
1970 by referencing both biophysical and socio-
cultural environments and by stressing the
management dimension, as follows:
Environmental management education is the
A publication of Environmental Education and Training Partnership, funded by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and managed
by the North American Association for Environmental Education.
Number 15
process of developing a citizenry that is:
* knowledgeable of the interrelated biophysical
and socio-cultural of which [man] is a part;
* aware of the associated environmental
problems and management alternatives of
use in solving these problems; and
* motivated to work towards the maintenance
and development of diverse environments
that are optimum for living.
Brennan (1970) furnished the following
definition of environmental education, based upon
earlier definitional discussions of conservation
education supplied by Brandwein and himself:
(Environmental education is) that education
which develops in [man] a recognition of
[his] interdependence with all of life and a
recognition of [his] responsibility to
maintain the environment in a manner fit for
life and fit for living - an environment of
beauty and bounty, in which [man] lives in
harmony. The first part of environmental
education involves development of under-
standing; the second, development of attitudes
- a ‘conservation ethics’.
In a 1975 editorial of Journal of
Environmental Education, Schoenfeld expressed
concerns with respect to the ways environmental
education was being approached by the U.S. Office of
Education. In 1980, he called for the initiation of
integrated environmental management education as the
proper touchstone for environmental education.
The U.S. Office of Education, through the
Environmental Quality Education Act, commonly called
the Environmental Education Act (U.S. Public Law 91-
516, 1970) offered this definition
For the purpose of this act, the term
‘environmental education’ means the educational
process dealing with [man’s] relationship
with [his] natural and manmade surroundings,
 and includes the relationship of population,
conservation, transportation, technology, and
urban and regional planning to the total
human environment.
In Tanner’s (1974) opinion:
Ultimately, we believe, environmental education
must focus on the Spaceship Earth concept.
It must deal with [man-man]or [man-]
society relationships only as they affect,
or are affected by, [man-]earth relationships.
Other endeavors, worthwhile though they
may be, are not environmental education.
To be useful, a concept must be both inclusive and
exclusive.
On the global/international scene,
recommendation 96 of the 1972 Stockholm
Conference on the Human Environment called for
the development of environmental education as one of
the most critical elements of an all-out attack on the
world’s environmental crisis. A need identified at that
Conference (United Nations, 1972) was:
Creating citizenries not merely aware of the
crisis of overpopulation, mismanagement of
natural resources, pollution, and degradation
of the quality of human life, but also able to
focus intelligently on the means of coping
with them.
The Belgrade Charter highlighted this goal
statement at the October 1975 International
Environmental Education Workshop:
The goal of environmental education is to
develop a world population that is aware
of, and concerned about, the environment
and its associated problems and which has
the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations,
and commitment to work individually and
collectively toward solutions of current
problems and the prevention of new ones.
The basic aim of environmental education as
defined by the participants of the 1977 UNESCO-
UNEP Intergovernmental Conference on
Environmental Education (held in Tbilisi, Georgia,
USSR), also known as the Tbilisi Declaration, is:
. . . to succeed in making individuals and
communities understand the complex nature
of the natural and built environments resulting
from the interactions of their physical, biological,
social, economic, and cultural aspects, and
acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes,
A publication of Environmental Education and Training Partnership, funded by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and managed
by the North American Association for Environmental Education.
and practical skills to participate in a responsible
and effective way in anticipating and
solving environmental problems, and in
the management of the quality of the
environment.
At the same time, in most of the world, the
goal of survival and human welfare is considered
superordinate. This causes environmental education to
be “different” from other forms of education, because it
implies efforts to change behavior. As Schmeider
(1977) wrote:
Environmental education calls for participation
in real world activities and for modification
and changes- sometimes radical ones- in the
attitudes and behavior of people, yet neither
approach is very central to education the
way it is commonly practiced throughout
the world.
The above statements clearly indicate that
efforts to ‘define’ environmental education continue. At
the same time, it also appears that groundwork has been
laid for dialogue, early agreement, and further inquest.
If you are interested in conducting further
research into the opinions of other practitioners of
environmental education, please refer to resources found
in the Educational Resources Information Center
(ERIC) and Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC)
collections, and search the ERIC or ENC collections on
line or at a local library or university. On line, the
databases can be accessed by typing
http://eelink.umich.edu
Page down to EDUCATION AND INFORMATION
directory, EDUCATION directory, ASKERIC or ENC,
and click on either home page. You will then be able to
search ERIC and ENC databases by following the
appropriate pointers.
Acknowledgment: We are grateful to Dr. John F. Disinger,
Professor Emeritus, School of Natural Resources, The Ohio State
University for sharing his article entitled ‘Environmental Education’s
Definitional Problem’, published by ERIC/SMEAC as Information
Bulletin No. 2, 1983.
For citations in this information sheet, please refer to the article
mentioned above which is available at ERIC Clearinghouse located at
1929, Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1080.
This information sheet was prepared by Joe E. Heimlich, Ph. D., and
Sabiha S. Daudi, GRA, EETAP Resource Library.
EETAP Resource Library is a project of Environmental Education and
Training Partnership effort. The goal of the Resource Library is to increase
educators’ access to and use of databases such as ENC and ERIC. This
information sheet may be freely reproduced for educational purposes.