The article provides information about the need for environmental education for the development of a harmonious personality of students. With the optimal organization of environmental education, which is carried out by competent teachers with their own eco-culture, it is systematically capable of influencing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of students. Environmental education should be a unified learning process, which includes the assimilation, systematization of knowledge about the environment, the acquisition of skills and knowledge of nature conservation and the formation of a whole eco-culture. We believe that the goal of environmental education should be to develop a critical attitude towards nature. In the process of environmental education, there are three of its components: environmental education; environmental education; environmental education. Environmental education, according to the Federal State Educational Standard, must be implemented in the form of an eco-block of basic educational disciplines, as well as in the form of variable and optional components. Environmental education should be understood as the process of developing an understanding of the environment in a person, understanding the appropriate use of it. In the information age, the timely process of forming a system of society’s worldview, which leads to the harmonization of relations between man and nature, is relevant. In this case, there should be an optimization of the further stability of the ecological situation on Earth. At the heart of eco-upbringing, a number of primary tasks can be noted that form a set of training, upbringing and development. The condition for the completion of the formation of a conscientious attitude towards the natural environment is considered to be moral concern for future generations. The principles of environmental education should guarantee the implementation of uniform requirements for the level of professional competence of future specialists, which are prescribed for each area of training for a bachelor’s, specialist’s or master’s degree. Today, environmental education is the basis for the reform and modernization of higher education.