Introducing Environmental Literacy in the Tertiary Curriculum

Abstract

There are many examples of environmental courses in tertiary institutions, but the integration of environmental education across the range of courses has generally not occurred. The paper describes a process and strategy to establish environmental literacy in tertiary courses. This strategy was developed from a project to introduce waste minimisation education into four disciplinary based courses. Since waste minimisation was introduced in the context of ecological sustainability, the project provided a framework for the broad principles of environmental literacy. The project began with the assumption that adequate materials were already available, but what was needed was a process that would guide academics in the revision of their course content, and would support them in making changes. The paper reports on the conduct of the project and, based on our experiences, presents a strategy for developing curriculum change. This strategy has been developed to recognise the contexts associated with environmental understanding and tertiary institutions, and the processes needed to facilitate the change.

Sustainability in tertiary curricula: what is stopping it happening?

“…There has been much discussion about the meaning of sustainability education: this issue is covered in Leal Filho (2000) and Thomas et al (1999Thomas et al ( , 2000. For the purposes of this paper I will be taking the terms sustainability education, education for sustainability, environmental literacy (even triple bottom line literacy) to all embody Orr's (1992) points.…”

“…The above key elements are also the basis of environmental education expressed in its broad sense, and of environmental literacy (Thomas et al, 2000). Importantly, specifically related to the element of "heart", recent discussion relating to education "for sustainability" indicates the need for a focus on values and environmentally ethical activity to be an integrated component of the curricula (Sterling, 1996).…”