NAEE’s two recent curriculum guides can now both be found in the ASE’s best practice advice to schools. Getting access to them is tricky as ASE has made it complicated. It’s best just to click on this: best practice environment & sustainability.
This is how the guide begins:
Since the 1970s public awareness of, and concern for, the environment has grown and deepened. Substantial steps have been taken to address problems such as air and water pollution, the thinning of the ozone layer and acid rain. However, we still have a long way to go and we find ourselves faced with a series of ‘wicked’ problems such as biodiversity loss and climate change. These problems will never be solved as such but their impact will be mitigated through interdisciplinary approaches. Science plays a key role in addressing environmental challenges and contributing to the development of a world that is more sustainable than it is at present.
ASE says:
- All students should be supported to develop their environmental literacy throughout their time in school.
- Science education has a key role in promoting better understanding of environmental issues and in empowering students to develop the skills and competences required to contribute to protecting and improving the environment for humans and other animals.
- Science teacher education should address issues of environmental literacy and sustainability.
- Science education in out-of-school settings provides unique opportunities to develop environmental literacy and to promote sustainable lifestyles.
- Best practice should seek to include an acknowledgement that environmental issues can only be effectively addressed using interdisciplinary whole school approaches.
- Sustainability should be practised in schools as well as simply taught. Guidance on developing sustainable practices abounds (see, for example, this).