History of Environmental Education
For quick reference, this section is divided into three parts:
Part 1: Tracing the Roots of Environmental Education
Part 2: History of Environmental Education in Canada
Part 3: History of Environmental Education in Ontario
Part 1: Tracing the Roots of Environmental Education
Part 2: History of Environmental Education in Canada
Part 3: History of Environmental Education in Ontario
Tracing the Roots of Environmental Education
While some identify environmental education’s beginnings as being grounded in the cultural and environmental movements of the 1960s, its roots extend further back. The ancestral branches of what we now recognize as environmental education have come under many names and have been informed by wider social, cultural, political, and economic influences; this has been documented in detail by many scholars (Carter & Simmons, 2010; Hart, 2003; Palmer, 1998; Sauvé, 2005; Stevenson, 2007; Stevenson, Brody, Dillon & Wals, 2012). Here we offer an introduction to its history to recognize this richness and to help contextualize environmental education in relation to initial teacher education in Canada generally and in Ontario more specifically.
In the early 19th century, Wilbur Jackman’s (1891) Nature Study for Common Schools and Anna Botsford Comstock’s (1911) Handbook of Nature Study encouraged taking students outdoors for first hand learning experiences across the disciplines. Nature study was prevalent in education until the 1920s and was eventually overshadowed by the rise of science education in the post-World War II period. The conservation education movement of the early 1900s centred on the conservation of resources for human consumption and was encouraged by governments in the US, United Kingdom, and Canada. Developed in the 1920s, outdoor education stemmed from nature study and used the outdoors as both the content and context for learning, bringing together all areas of the curriculum.
Other educational movements prior to the 1960s informed the development of environmental education, as described by Disinger (1998/2001): resource-use education (similar to conservation education but focused on geography and economics); progressive education (a more holistic approach to curriculum and instruction informed by Dewey, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel); resource management education (highlighted a professional relationship between humans and the environment through teaching soil conservation, water management, landscape design, etc.); population education (related environmental impact to population issues); and general education (worked against compartmentalization of disciplines by integrating curricula).
While some identify environmental education’s beginnings as being grounded in the cultural and environmental movements of the 1960s, its roots extend further back. The ancestral branches of what we now recognize as environmental education have come under many names and have been informed by wider social, cultural, political, and economic influences; this has been documented in detail by many scholars (Carter & Simmons, 2010; Hart, 2003; Palmer, 1998; Sauvé, 2005; Stevenson, 2007; Stevenson, Brody, Dillon & Wals, 2012). Here we offer an introduction to its history to recognize this richness and to help contextualize environmental education in relation to initial teacher education in Canada generally and in Ontario more specifically.
In the early 19th century, Wilbur Jackman’s (1891) Nature Study for Common Schools and Anna Botsford Comstock’s (1911) Handbook of Nature Study encouraged taking students outdoors for first hand learning experiences across the disciplines. Nature study was prevalent in education until the 1920s and was eventually overshadowed by the rise of science education in the post-World War II period. The conservation education movement of the early 1900s centred on the conservation of resources for human consumption and was encouraged by governments in the US, United Kingdom, and Canada. Developed in the 1920s, outdoor education stemmed from nature study and used the outdoors as both the content and context for learning, bringing together all areas of the curriculum.
Other educational movements prior to the 1960s informed the development of environmental education, as described by Disinger (1998/2001): resource-use education (similar to conservation education but focused on geography and economics); progressive education (a more holistic approach to curriculum and instruction informed by Dewey, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel); resource management education (highlighted a professional relationship between humans and the environment through teaching soil conservation, water management, landscape design, etc.); population education (related environmental impact to population issues); and general education (worked against compartmentalization of disciplines by integrating curricula).
Following World War II, governments began to standardize school curricula, and emphasize science and mathematics education. By the 1960s, these changes, along with shifting social and political climates, motivated a renewed focus on environmental awareness and advocacy. Rachel Carson’s (1962) ground breaking book Silent Spring raised awareness not only of the devastating environmental effects of pesticides but also of the broader issue of human impact on the natural world. In academia, the environmental movement resulted in the publication of early papers in environmental education (for example, Swan, 1969), the founding of the Journal of Environmental Education in 1969, and Stapp’s (1969/2001) early definition of environmental education as a discipline “aimed at producing a citizenry that is knowledgeable concerning the biophysical environment and its associated problems, aware of how to help solve these problems, and motivated to work toward their solution” (p. 34). Stapp emphasized the interconnectedness of all life on Earth, noting that “man is an inseparable part of a system, consisting of man, culture, and the biophysical environment, and that man has the ability to alter [those] interrelationships” (1969/2001, p. 34).
National and international organizations soon echoed Carson’s (1962) and Stapp’s (1969/2001) calls for change. In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (commonly known as the Stockholm Declaration) called for children and adults to be educated in environmental matters and led to the creation of the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) and, with UNESCO, the UNESCO/UNEP International Education Programme. As a result of this, the Belgrade Charter outlined the UNEP’s goal for environmental education:
To develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about the environment and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions to current problems, and the prevention of new ones. (UENP, 1975, p. 3)
This was followed in 1977 by the Tbilisi Report, a result of UNESCO’s First Inter-governmental Conference on Environmental Education, which presented a detailed list of guiding principles for environmental education that emphasized, among other objectives, a systemic, interdisciplinary, and participatory approach to environmental education, as well as define the key categories of environmental education (awareness, knowledge, attitudes, skills and participation) (UNESCO/ UNEP, 1977). It called for an environmental education:
1) to foster clear awareness of and concern about economic, social, political, and ecological inter-dependence in urban and rural areas;
2) to provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment, and skills
needed to protect and improve the environment;
3) to create new patterns of behaviour of individuals, groups, and society as a whole towards the environment
(UNESCO/UNEP, 1977, p. 26).
Ten years after the Tbilisi Report, Our Common Future (commonly referred to as the Brundtland Report) (United Nations, 1987) set out a global agenda that positioned discussions of the environment alongside sustainable development – “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (p. 16) – laying the roots of education for sustainable development (ESD). This was followed by Agenda 21 (United Nations Sustainable Development, 1992), created at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (formally known as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development). Agenda 21 identified urgent environmental issues, including the loss of biological diversity, population growth, poverty, and inequality. It offered an action plan for sustainable development, calling for action at national and local levels and listening to the voices of those previously silenced, such as women, youth, indigenous peoples, farmers, local authorities). Of particular relevance to environmental education were the chapters on education, training and public awareness; in these, national responsibilities for the improvement of environment and development education for learners of all ages were outlined, and recommendations for infusing environmental education into all educational programs were made.
National and international organizations soon echoed Carson’s (1962) and Stapp’s (1969/2001) calls for change. In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (commonly known as the Stockholm Declaration) called for children and adults to be educated in environmental matters and led to the creation of the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) and, with UNESCO, the UNESCO/UNEP International Education Programme. As a result of this, the Belgrade Charter outlined the UNEP’s goal for environmental education:
To develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about the environment and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions to current problems, and the prevention of new ones. (UENP, 1975, p. 3)
This was followed in 1977 by the Tbilisi Report, a result of UNESCO’s First Inter-governmental Conference on Environmental Education, which presented a detailed list of guiding principles for environmental education that emphasized, among other objectives, a systemic, interdisciplinary, and participatory approach to environmental education, as well as define the key categories of environmental education (awareness, knowledge, attitudes, skills and participation) (UNESCO/ UNEP, 1977). It called for an environmental education:
1) to foster clear awareness of and concern about economic, social, political, and ecological inter-dependence in urban and rural areas;
2) to provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment, and skills
needed to protect and improve the environment;
3) to create new patterns of behaviour of individuals, groups, and society as a whole towards the environment
(UNESCO/UNEP, 1977, p. 26).
Ten years after the Tbilisi Report, Our Common Future (commonly referred to as the Brundtland Report) (United Nations, 1987) set out a global agenda that positioned discussions of the environment alongside sustainable development – “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (p. 16) – laying the roots of education for sustainable development (ESD). This was followed by Agenda 21 (United Nations Sustainable Development, 1992), created at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (formally known as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development). Agenda 21 identified urgent environmental issues, including the loss of biological diversity, population growth, poverty, and inequality. It offered an action plan for sustainable development, calling for action at national and local levels and listening to the voices of those previously silenced, such as women, youth, indigenous peoples, farmers, local authorities). Of particular relevance to environmental education were the chapters on education, training and public awareness; in these, national responsibilities for the improvement of environment and development education for learners of all ages were outlined, and recommendations for infusing environmental education into all educational programs were made.
Sustainability was a key element in many chapters of Agenda 21, and education for sustainable development has been widely acknowledged as a valuable approach to environmental education. While definitions vary, ESD currently encompasses a range of interdisciplinary curricular and pedagogical approaches that aim to support the sustainability of environments, societies, cultures, and economies. However, like other approaches to environmental education, ESD is not without critics. Jickling (1992) poignantly argues that ESD is often embraced without a conceptual and philosophical analysis of what is meant by education and sustainable development and that by educating for something, educators are inferring a predetermined way of thinking. Instead, he calls for an education that “enable[s] students to debate, evaluate, and judge for themselves the relative merits of contesting positions” (Jickling, 1992, p. 8). Despite critiques of ESD, the United Nations declared the years 2005-2014 to be the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, identifying the critical importance of education in achieving a sustainable future, and aiming to activate the world’s resources on environmental learning in an effort to progress in this area.
The reports discussed above and other related publications, including the Principles of Environmental Justice (People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991) and the Earth Charter (UNESCO, 1992), have helped inform a range of theoretical stances and practical approaches to environmental education in countries around the world. Sauvé’s (2005) mapping of the last thirty years of environmental education is an excellent introduction to the many traditions in this field. Her identification of fifteen “currents” allows the philosophical and pedagogical landscape of environmental education to be mapped. These currents have manifested in a variety of new approaches. For example, the importance of local environmental understandings is reflected in place-based education (see, for example, Gruenewald & Smith, 2007; Sobel, 2004). Place-based education brings together experiential, environmental and inquiry-based learning with a community-based approach to education, grounding it in the local environment and students’ own experiences of place. Outdoor education continues to advocate for the importance of learning in, about and through natural and built environments, drawing on the strengths of experiential and nature-based learning (see, for example, Foster & Linney, 2007; Linney, 2013; Louv, 2005). Eco-justice education (see, for example, Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacii, 2011; Tippins, Mueller, van Eijck & Adams, 2010) is a more recent approach, aligning the traditional tenets of environmental education with equity and social justice education through its recognition of the complex roles that inequity, exploitation, eco-racism and colonization play in the environmental crisis, and the need for environmental learning to address all of these areas. And sustainability education (Jones, Selby, & Sterling, 2010) aims for a better balance in learning about the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of environmental issues and their solutions.
Other relevant movements related to environmental education include global education, citizenship education, earth education, humane education, holistic education, and futures education. All of these approaches make unique and valuable contributions to the broader field of environmental education, and work to recognize the inherent interconnectedness of social, cultural, political, built, and natural systems as they address local and global issues and environmental concerns. It is important that these approaches not be viewed in isolation but rather as flowing into, informing, and diversifying the richness and depth of environmental education as a field.
The reports discussed above and other related publications, including the Principles of Environmental Justice (People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991) and the Earth Charter (UNESCO, 1992), have helped inform a range of theoretical stances and practical approaches to environmental education in countries around the world. Sauvé’s (2005) mapping of the last thirty years of environmental education is an excellent introduction to the many traditions in this field. Her identification of fifteen “currents” allows the philosophical and pedagogical landscape of environmental education to be mapped. These currents have manifested in a variety of new approaches. For example, the importance of local environmental understandings is reflected in place-based education (see, for example, Gruenewald & Smith, 2007; Sobel, 2004). Place-based education brings together experiential, environmental and inquiry-based learning with a community-based approach to education, grounding it in the local environment and students’ own experiences of place. Outdoor education continues to advocate for the importance of learning in, about and through natural and built environments, drawing on the strengths of experiential and nature-based learning (see, for example, Foster & Linney, 2007; Linney, 2013; Louv, 2005). Eco-justice education (see, for example, Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacii, 2011; Tippins, Mueller, van Eijck & Adams, 2010) is a more recent approach, aligning the traditional tenets of environmental education with equity and social justice education through its recognition of the complex roles that inequity, exploitation, eco-racism and colonization play in the environmental crisis, and the need for environmental learning to address all of these areas. And sustainability education (Jones, Selby, & Sterling, 2010) aims for a better balance in learning about the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of environmental issues and their solutions.
Other relevant movements related to environmental education include global education, citizenship education, earth education, humane education, holistic education, and futures education. All of these approaches make unique and valuable contributions to the broader field of environmental education, and work to recognize the inherent interconnectedness of social, cultural, political, built, and natural systems as they address local and global issues and environmental concerns. It is important that these approaches not be viewed in isolation but rather as flowing into, informing, and diversifying the richness and depth of environmental education as a field.
Environmental Education in Canada
In Canada, environmental education takes place across a range of contexts and diversity of sites: schools, universities, colleges, parks, community centres, museums, and summer camps all contribute formal and informal programs that focus on teaching and learning related to the environment. Like its international history, environmental education in Canada has been informed by many approaches, articulated well by Russell, Bell, and Fawcett (2000), that not surprisingly overlap with Sauvé’s (2005) “currents.” These approaches have drawn from the areas of critical pedagogy, popular education, feminism and eco-feminism, environmental justice, bioregionalism, holistic education, and indigenous knowledge.
Yet, over the past thirty years, Canada has lacked a shared understanding of environmental education. This has been attributed in part to the provincial responsibility of education in Canada, which has proven to be a stumbling block for developing a unified understanding of environmental education. Within the K-12 public school system in Canada, environmental education’s history spans only a few decades; Hart (1996) notes that it has only been since the mid-1980s that environmental education has become a more common experience in schooling in this country. However, what environmental education entails has varied widely across contexts (schools, districts, provinces, and sites) in response to wider social, political, and cultural pressures. In 1992, the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy met to discuss environmental advocacy roles for post-secondary educators and researchers, outlining eight elements of environmental education to be emphasized: curriculum design and student projects; consulting; research; public involvement; co-management; non-government organizations; municipal government involvement; and media relations. The absence of a national journal of environmental education and federally funded network of environmental educators has also been considered a hindrance. In 1993 the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication (EECOM) was established, and three years later, the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education was founded. While 20 years have passed since this meeting, the work of the round table remains relevant, and its identified elements of emphasis continue to be areas for growth in Canadian education.
The range of uptake of environmental education in the K-12 system varies from province to province and between school boards. Over the past two decades, cycles of curricular revisions have resulted in elements of environmental education being incorporated into provincial curricula at staggered intervals. For example, the Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8: Science and Technology (1998) reflected the inclusion of environmental topics in science curricula through the “Science, Technology, Society and Environment” (STSE) curricular focus. Alberta’s and Saskatchewan’s science curriculum revisions and inclusion of STSE came considerably later (Milford, Jagger, Yore, & Anderson, 2010). Though environmental education is often included within science, social studies, and/or geography learning outcomes, some provinces have created curricular guides and resources to support teachers as they bring environmental education into their teaching across the curriculum. British Columbia’s (1995) Environmental Concepts in the Classroom, its follow-up Environmental Learning and Experience (2007) document, and related curriculum maps aim to help K-12 teachers infuse environmental education into all subject areas. Within disciplinary boundaries, provinces and territories have also approached environmental education in different ways. For example, Alberta’s science curriculum integrates environmental education broadly by using outdoor, experiential, and interdisciplinary systems approaches. Alternatively, in Quebec, environmental awareness and consumer rights and responsibilities have been highlighted, and aim to foster students’ active relationships with the environment and critical appraisals of environmental use, technological development, and consumerism.
Environmental Education in Ontario
In Ontario, environmental education has been integrated unevenly across the curriculum over the past two decades. While courses were available in environmental science in some schools as far back as the 1960s, the Ontario Ministry of Education introduced environmental science courses in 1973 (Houghton et al., 2002). From 1988 to 2000, this was formalized in a secondary level elective course called Environmental Science; however, this was removed from the curriculum in 2000 in favour of infusing ecological concepts and topics across science and geography courses (inspired by the CMEC’s (1997) Common Framework of Science Learning Outcomes). Research has suggested that this infusion model of ecological education has not been successful. For example, Puk and Behm (2003) found that secondary science and geography teachers spent little time on environmental topics and omitted outdoor learning opportunities. These authors contend that the infusion model has diluted rather than strengthened environmental science education and ecological literacy more generally in Ontario. One of their recommendations to counter this decline is to realign teacher education programs to better support ecological literacy.
Puk and Behm (2003) are not alone in criticizing the approach to environmental education in Ontario, as educator groups such as EECOM, Environmental Education Ontario (EEON), the Ontario Society for Environmental Education (OSEE), the Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO), and the Ontario Association of Geography and Environmental Education (OAGEE) have also advocated for a more structured approach (see the Resources section on page 73 for a list of contacts for these organizations). Community-based organizations such as Learning for a Sustainable Future and Evergreen have helped bring environmental education to both community and school sites. Some school boards continued to develop and support environmental education throughout the 1990s and into the first years of the 2000s, despite a political climate and curriculum revisions that were not supportive of its inclusion in curricula. The Toronto District School Board, for example, instituted “Canada’s first dedicated Department of Environmental Education in a public school board in 1999, supported by a board-wide environment policy and an EcoSchools Program” (Houghton et al, 2002, p. 22).
The call for a more focused approach to environmental education in Ontario was heeded in 2007 with the formation of the Working Group on Environmental Education, a panel of experts tasked with making recommendations on it for the OME. Their final report, Shaping our Schools, Shaping our Future, was published in 2007; it examines the environmental education policies and practices in Ontario, across Canada and around the world and presents a comprehensive list of recommendations to improve environmental education in Ontario schools. It highlights the fragmented presence of environmental learning across curricular disciplines, and articulated a new vision for Ontario students:
Ontario’s education system will prepare students with the knowledge, skills, perspectives, and practices they need to be environmentally responsible citizens. Students will understand our fundamental connections to each other and to the world around us through our relationship to food, water, energy, air, and land, and our interaction with all living things. The education system will provide opportunities within the classroom and the community for students to engage in actions that deepen this understanding. (Working Group for Environmental Education, 2007, p. 4)
The report’s 32 recommendations cover three critical domains – leadership and accountability, curriculum, and teaching and resources.
In response to Shaping our Schools, Shaping our Future, the OME took the unprecedented step of quickly accepting all of its recommendations and using them to inform the publication of Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow: A Policy Framework for Environmental Education in Ontario Schools (2009a). This policy describes a framework for environmental learning that: (a) is locally relevant and culturally appropriate; (b) develops understanding of the provincial, national, and global impact of local issues; (c) encourages community-based environmental decision making and stewardship; and (d) supports lifelong learning. Additionally, a set of strategies is identified for the OME, school boards, and schools to implement the framework, as well as a list of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that environmental education should develop in students. Perhaps it’s most radical suggestion, however, comes in its recommendation for environmental education to be embedded “in all grades and in all subjects of the Ontario curriculum” (OME, 2009a, p. 12). This includes the acknowledgement that faculties of education need to include environmental education in their pre-service curricula. In support of this document, the OME produced a series of support documents to help educators implement environmental education in their classrooms.
Article from Deepening Environmental Education in Pre-Service Education Resource
In Canada, environmental education takes place across a range of contexts and diversity of sites: schools, universities, colleges, parks, community centres, museums, and summer camps all contribute formal and informal programs that focus on teaching and learning related to the environment. Like its international history, environmental education in Canada has been informed by many approaches, articulated well by Russell, Bell, and Fawcett (2000), that not surprisingly overlap with Sauvé’s (2005) “currents.” These approaches have drawn from the areas of critical pedagogy, popular education, feminism and eco-feminism, environmental justice, bioregionalism, holistic education, and indigenous knowledge.
Yet, over the past thirty years, Canada has lacked a shared understanding of environmental education. This has been attributed in part to the provincial responsibility of education in Canada, which has proven to be a stumbling block for developing a unified understanding of environmental education. Within the K-12 public school system in Canada, environmental education’s history spans only a few decades; Hart (1996) notes that it has only been since the mid-1980s that environmental education has become a more common experience in schooling in this country. However, what environmental education entails has varied widely across contexts (schools, districts, provinces, and sites) in response to wider social, political, and cultural pressures. In 1992, the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy met to discuss environmental advocacy roles for post-secondary educators and researchers, outlining eight elements of environmental education to be emphasized: curriculum design and student projects; consulting; research; public involvement; co-management; non-government organizations; municipal government involvement; and media relations. The absence of a national journal of environmental education and federally funded network of environmental educators has also been considered a hindrance. In 1993 the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication (EECOM) was established, and three years later, the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education was founded. While 20 years have passed since this meeting, the work of the round table remains relevant, and its identified elements of emphasis continue to be areas for growth in Canadian education.
The range of uptake of environmental education in the K-12 system varies from province to province and between school boards. Over the past two decades, cycles of curricular revisions have resulted in elements of environmental education being incorporated into provincial curricula at staggered intervals. For example, the Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8: Science and Technology (1998) reflected the inclusion of environmental topics in science curricula through the “Science, Technology, Society and Environment” (STSE) curricular focus. Alberta’s and Saskatchewan’s science curriculum revisions and inclusion of STSE came considerably later (Milford, Jagger, Yore, & Anderson, 2010). Though environmental education is often included within science, social studies, and/or geography learning outcomes, some provinces have created curricular guides and resources to support teachers as they bring environmental education into their teaching across the curriculum. British Columbia’s (1995) Environmental Concepts in the Classroom, its follow-up Environmental Learning and Experience (2007) document, and related curriculum maps aim to help K-12 teachers infuse environmental education into all subject areas. Within disciplinary boundaries, provinces and territories have also approached environmental education in different ways. For example, Alberta’s science curriculum integrates environmental education broadly by using outdoor, experiential, and interdisciplinary systems approaches. Alternatively, in Quebec, environmental awareness and consumer rights and responsibilities have been highlighted, and aim to foster students’ active relationships with the environment and critical appraisals of environmental use, technological development, and consumerism.
Environmental Education in Ontario
In Ontario, environmental education has been integrated unevenly across the curriculum over the past two decades. While courses were available in environmental science in some schools as far back as the 1960s, the Ontario Ministry of Education introduced environmental science courses in 1973 (Houghton et al., 2002). From 1988 to 2000, this was formalized in a secondary level elective course called Environmental Science; however, this was removed from the curriculum in 2000 in favour of infusing ecological concepts and topics across science and geography courses (inspired by the CMEC’s (1997) Common Framework of Science Learning Outcomes). Research has suggested that this infusion model of ecological education has not been successful. For example, Puk and Behm (2003) found that secondary science and geography teachers spent little time on environmental topics and omitted outdoor learning opportunities. These authors contend that the infusion model has diluted rather than strengthened environmental science education and ecological literacy more generally in Ontario. One of their recommendations to counter this decline is to realign teacher education programs to better support ecological literacy.
Puk and Behm (2003) are not alone in criticizing the approach to environmental education in Ontario, as educator groups such as EECOM, Environmental Education Ontario (EEON), the Ontario Society for Environmental Education (OSEE), the Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO), and the Ontario Association of Geography and Environmental Education (OAGEE) have also advocated for a more structured approach (see the Resources section on page 73 for a list of contacts for these organizations). Community-based organizations such as Learning for a Sustainable Future and Evergreen have helped bring environmental education to both community and school sites. Some school boards continued to develop and support environmental education throughout the 1990s and into the first years of the 2000s, despite a political climate and curriculum revisions that were not supportive of its inclusion in curricula. The Toronto District School Board, for example, instituted “Canada’s first dedicated Department of Environmental Education in a public school board in 1999, supported by a board-wide environment policy and an EcoSchools Program” (Houghton et al, 2002, p. 22).
The call for a more focused approach to environmental education in Ontario was heeded in 2007 with the formation of the Working Group on Environmental Education, a panel of experts tasked with making recommendations on it for the OME. Their final report, Shaping our Schools, Shaping our Future, was published in 2007; it examines the environmental education policies and practices in Ontario, across Canada and around the world and presents a comprehensive list of recommendations to improve environmental education in Ontario schools. It highlights the fragmented presence of environmental learning across curricular disciplines, and articulated a new vision for Ontario students:
Ontario’s education system will prepare students with the knowledge, skills, perspectives, and practices they need to be environmentally responsible citizens. Students will understand our fundamental connections to each other and to the world around us through our relationship to food, water, energy, air, and land, and our interaction with all living things. The education system will provide opportunities within the classroom and the community for students to engage in actions that deepen this understanding. (Working Group for Environmental Education, 2007, p. 4)
The report’s 32 recommendations cover three critical domains – leadership and accountability, curriculum, and teaching and resources.
In response to Shaping our Schools, Shaping our Future, the OME took the unprecedented step of quickly accepting all of its recommendations and using them to inform the publication of Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow: A Policy Framework for Environmental Education in Ontario Schools (2009a). This policy describes a framework for environmental learning that: (a) is locally relevant and culturally appropriate; (b) develops understanding of the provincial, national, and global impact of local issues; (c) encourages community-based environmental decision making and stewardship; and (d) supports lifelong learning. Additionally, a set of strategies is identified for the OME, school boards, and schools to implement the framework, as well as a list of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that environmental education should develop in students. Perhaps it’s most radical suggestion, however, comes in its recommendation for environmental education to be embedded “in all grades and in all subjects of the Ontario curriculum” (OME, 2009a, p. 12). This includes the acknowledgement that faculties of education need to include environmental education in their pre-service curricula. In support of this document, the OME produced a series of support documents to help educators implement environmental education in their classrooms.
Article from Deepening Environmental Education in Pre-Service Education Resource