Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:35:58.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Towards School-level Curriculum Inquiry in Environmental Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

John Fien
John Fien*
Affiliation:
Division of Australian Environmental Education, Griffith University, Queensland
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This paper is an outgrowth of my work for the Bicentennial Australian Studies Schools Project (BASSP) for which I wrote the booklet, Education for the Australian Environment (Fien 1988). This was one of ten booklets on Australian Studies distributed to every primary and secondary school in Australia early in 1988. The purpose of Education for the Australian Environment was to provide guidelines for injecting an Australian Studies perspective into environmental education. In the final chapter of the first draft of the booklet I sought to provide a framework for the development of an environmental education policy through a process of curriculum inquiry at the individual school level.

In part, I was moved to include a framework for school level curriculum work in environmental education by concerns expressed by Gough (1987) and Robottom (1987a) about the value of centrally-developed policy statements on environmental education. While the 1977 Tbilisi Declaration urged UN member states to prepare policies “to introduce environmental concerns, activities and content into their education systems”, Gough and Robottom urged caution over the use of centralised policies as instruments for educational change. In summary, the reasons for their concern stemmed from the potential danger that centrally developed policies might foreclose debate over the nature, goals and practices of environmental education and, thus, supplant local innovations and variations in environmental education with uniform prescriptions. They also expressed concern that the hierarchical pattern of authority embedded in centralised curriculum decision making was inappropriate to environmental education and that it could easily lead to the deskilling and disempowerment of environmental educators at the grassroot levels.

Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 7 , January 1991 , pp. 17 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

References

Directorate of Studies Environmental Education: Curriculum Statement K-12, New South Wales Department of Education, Sydney, 1989.Google Scholar
Education Department of South Australia, Environmental Education, Government Printer, Adelaide, 1987.Google Scholar
Fien, J.Education for the Australian Environment, Bulletin 6, Bicentennial Australian Studies Schools Project, Curriculum Development Centre, Canberra, 1988.Google Scholar
Gough, N. “A curriculum comment”, Eingana, 2(2), 06, 1987.Google Scholar
Greenall, A.Environmental Education in Australia: Phenomenon of the Seventies. A Case Study in National Curriculum Action, Curriculum Occasional Paper No. 7, Curriculum Development Centre, Canberra, 1981.Google Scholar
Greenall, A. “A political history of environmental education in Australia: Snakes and ladders”, in Robottom, I., ed., Environmental Education: Practice and Possibility, Deakin University Press, Geelong, 1987, pp. 3–21.Google Scholar
Huckle, J.What We Consume: Teacher's Handbook, Global Environmental Education Programme, Richmond Publications, Richmond, 1988.Google Scholar
Maher, M.Obstacles to Environmental Education: An Hegemonic Hypothesis. Unpublished Paper to the 2nd National conference of the Australian Association of Environmental Education, Brisbane, 1982.Google Scholar
Maher, M. “Political literacy and educating for the environment”, Curriculum Concerns, 2(2), 1985, 15–18.Google Scholar
Porter, P. “Educational research in Australia: Indigenous or exotic? The case for the indigenous”, Australian Educational Researcher, 16(3), 1989, pp. 14–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Queensland Department of Education Environmental Education in Queensland Schools, Government Printer, Brisbane, 1989.Google Scholar
Robottom, I. “Contestation and curriculum in environmental education”, Curriculum Perspectives, 7(1), 1987a, pp. 23–28.Google Scholar
Robottom, I. “Towards inquiry-based professional development in environmental education”, in Robottom, I., (ed.), Environmental Education: Practice and Possibility, Deakin University Press, Geelong, 1987b, pp. 83–119.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R. B. “Schooling and environmental education: Contradictions in purpose and practice”, in Robottom, I., (ed.), Environmental Education: Practice and Possibility, Deakin University Press, Geelong, 1987, pp. 69–82.Google Scholar
UNESCO Trends in Environmental Education, UNESCO, Paris, 1977.Google Scholar