How to Make the Case for Environmental Education to Your School Administration
Integrating environmental education into a traditional curriculum requires hard work and an administrator that is willing to support and empower staff to challenge themselves and their students. You can make the case for environmental education to the administrators in your school by demonstrating the importance of environmental literacy and the academic benefits of an environmentally-oriented curriculum.
The Importance of Environmental Literacy
Environmental literacy in students goes beyond simple classroom discussions on global climate change or limited recycling efforts. Today’s students will face many environment-related challenges as they grow into tomorrow’s leaders. Waste disposal, water allocation and quality, adapting to climate change, genetic engineering of food, energy consumption, and species preservation and diversity are just a few of the issues that will define our future. Citizens will need environmental literacy to make informed decisions based on analysis of available science and the impacts of viable alternatives.
Academic Success through Environmental Education
Providing opportunities for students to explore topics of interest to them across disciplines through environmental education produces exciting results. With an effective environmental education program, students benefit from:
- Topics that engage them and foster enthusiasm for learning;
- Fewer discipline and classroom management problems;
- Better performance on standardized tests;
- Real-world application of classroom learning;
- Higher retention of knowledge and skills; and
- Increased teacher morale and enthusiasm.
Components of a Successful Environmental Education Program
A successful environmental education program combines environmental literacy goals with best practices in education, including:
- Instructionally valid learning such as smaller learning communities with personal instruction, appropriate use of technology, varied and engaging instruction, in-depth topic study, and ongoing evaluation;
- Real-world application of learning through field work;
- Exploration of issues and opportunities for students to make choices based on their findings;
- Place-based learning;
- Integration of disciplines rather than a pure science-content approach;
- Professional training for educators; and
- Meeting curricular goals and benchmarks through the instruction.
"Day by day, and activity by activity, students and staff have grown in their knowledge and appreciation of the role each of us plays in making the world greener. With each flower planted and water runoff recaptured, each bird feeder built and placed outside, each rain garden and butterfly garden dug and planted, our students have become better stewards of the earth--and, not surprisingly, better students."
Kathleen M. Kelly, acting principal, Catonsville Educational Center at RICA-Baltimore
