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AUTHOR Tapia, Ivan, Ed.; Blochmann, Georg, Ed.TITLE Environmental Education in Germany: Concepts, History,

Projects, Visions.INSTITUTION Inter Nationes, Bonn (Germany).ISSN ISSN-0177-4212PUB DATE 2000-00-00NOTE 33p.; Theme issue. English edition of B&W titled "Education

and Science."AVAILABLE FROM Inter Nationes e.V., Kennedyallee 91-103, D53175 Bonn,

Germany. e-mail: bw ©inter- nationes.de; Web site:http://www.inter-nationes.de.

PUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022)JOURNAL CIT Bildung and Wissenshaft; n4 2000EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Conservation (Environment); Ecology; *Educational Change;

Educational History; Elementary Secondary Education;*Environmental Education; Foreign Countries; OutdoorEducation; Vocational Education

IDENTIFIERS *Germany

ABSTRACTThis document presents the history of environmental

education in Germany and reports on the diversions and solutions in thesearch for sustainable education. Five sections include: (1) "EnvironmentalEducation: Learning with All One's Senses"; (2) "Sustainability as the NewModel: Knowledge of a New Quality"; (3) "Tomorrow's Education in Yesterday'sSchool: Scope and Limits of Environmental Education in Schools"; (4)"Environmental Education Outside Schools When Nature Becomes a Teacher"; and(5) A Silent Revolution? Visions for a Sustainable Education System". (YDS)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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3nviron-men al3th_caion inGermanyConcepts

History

Projects

Visions

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PHOTO: NATUR & KULTUR

CONTENTSEnvironmental Education inGermany

IntroductionRetying the broken threadbetween man and nature 2

Environmental EducationLearning withall one's senses 4

From the timid beginningsto an educational model 8

Sustainability as thenew modelKnowledge of a new quality 15

Tomorrow's educationin yesterday's schoolScope and limits of environ-mental education in schools 18

Environmental educationoutside SchoolsWhen nature becomesa teacher 22

A silent revolution?Visions for a sustainableeducation system 28

Cover picture: Nature & Culture(Institut fur okologischeForschung and Bildung)

Introduction

RETYING THE BROKEN THREADBETWEEN MAN AND NATURE

It may appear to anyone looking at Germany from the out-side that this country is well ahead of the rest of the worldas far as the environment is concerned. Not only that hun-dreds of thousands of people here are involved in environ-mental initiatives, the majority of the population carefullyseparates its waste and Germany is the world's number onewith regard to low-resource environmental technology. No,Germany is also the first country in which a dedicated envi-ronmental protection party has taken on responsibility ingovernment. Is Germany an environmental paradise?

Gesekovon Liipke

Without a doubt, a lot hashappened in this country inthe last 25 years that bene-

fits the environment and for whichfuture generations can be grateful.But even German environmentalprotection is still very much in itsinfancy. The forests are still dying,natural resources are still beingused up more quickly than they arebeing replaced. The waste moun-tains are growing, many thousandsof chemicals are polluting theground, air and water. We are stillproducing poisonous radioactivewaste that will continue to causeproblems for our descendants250,000 years from now. The majorchange that is needed to convertour industrial growth society intoan ecologically sustainable civilisa-tion is far from complete. On thecontrary: we are just starting tointroduce it.

The major change that futuregenerations may speak of whenthey look back to our age willlargely take effect on three levels:there are the active environmental-ists who repeatedly use imagina-tion and civil disobedience to drawattention to the problems; thereare the new laws and environmen-tal guidelines, the energy savingsthat are made possible thanks tonew technologies and recycling. Allof them together perform the func-tion of putting the brakes on theworrying destruction of the naturalfoundations of life and winningtime. But these measures are notenough for a fundamental change.Then, secondly, there are thecountless initiatives and efforts tounderstand the social and econom-

ic structures that have brought usto a situation where we are con-suming the treasures of our planetlike the contents of a fridge thatcan be filled over and over again.Here, the main concern is to regaincontrol over the dynamics of aneconomic system that is well on

the way to gaining victory in theruin instead of gradually develop-ing sustainable alternatives. Butnot even this is enough. Becausethe crux of the change that isneeded in the 21st century to con-serve the human species in thelong term lies in our consciousness:in the way in which we see and usethe world, how we fit into naturalcycles and understand ourselves asan active part of that ecologicalsystem that is in the middle of alife-threatening crisis. All of thechallenges are calling out forknowledge that has to be conveyedstep by step. Because as AlbertEinstein noted around 70 years ago

we cannot solve the problems ofthe present with the same ideasthat gave us the problems, theknowledge that is needed heremust be of a completely new quali-ty. No wonder that ever more edu-

cationalists are saying that theenvironmental crisis is probablythe greatest imaginable challengefor our education system. Thismagazine will describe the history,the approaches, the diversions andsolutions in the search for sustain-able education. But the represen-

tation can only have the characterof an interim report. BecauseGerman environmental educationhas not yet found the philosopher'sstone. But practical experience inthis field can help to prevent errorselsewhere and the experience canbe used there.

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Environmental Education

LEARNING WITH ALL ONE'SSENSESEnvironmental education, eco-education, environmentaltraining, learning from nature even the plethora of termsillustrates the complexity of the subject. This is not aboutknowledge that can be handed on via textbooks and con-veyed according to a familiar pattern. Environmental educa-tion is a versatile experimentation field. It reflects thesearch for educational responses to a crisis, the dimensionsof which have emerged only slowly. Environmental educa-tion is made up like a puzzle comprising many independentcreative ideas.

He has already started a CD player and theneon tube on the table in the classroom isalready starting to flicker, but there are

already pearls of sweat on the forehead of thepupil working the exercise bike that has beenconverted into an electricity generator. When heis supposed to heat a pan of water by one degreeand comes to a halt with his tongue hanging outhe has learnt what energy is and why we shouldnot waste it. The work of teacher WilhelmKirchensteiner, who is already famous in south-ern Germany, and his "energy case", from whichhe constantly conjures up new experiencegames, is an example of what is possible inGerman classrooms and what it means to "learnwith all of one's senses". Anyone who wants tochange the behaviour of people who havebecome rather set in their ways or wants tomake the relationship between one's own con-sumption patterns and the health of the planettangible needs a fair amount of imagination.

"Environmental protection" this term has long been part of oureveryday life. And "environmental awareness" is as highly regarded as"good behaviour" used to be. But the consequences of the apparententhusiasm for nature and the environment are poor. We carry on drivingour cars happily, break new consumption records each year and continueto head for unlimited growth. While all of this is going on, the hole in theozone layer continues to grow above our heads, glaciers and the polar icecaps are melting and species of animals and plants are disappearing.Whenever solutions for the urgent ecological problems were being soughtin recent years, environmental educa-tion was always on the agenda. Whethernew waste concepts, the economic useof energy, healthy eating or an ecologi-cal change in values: schools accord-

For experts there isalready no doubt thatthe future generationwill live in a seriouslydamaged environmentif there are no funda-mental changes.

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ing to the simple formula as thetraining location for future genera-tions are best suited to weaningpeople off those faults with whichwe are destroying the foundationsof our lives. An education policythat wants to prepare the pupils oftoday for the problems of tomor-row already has to create the foun-dations for something that wetoday can only imagine as a sce-nario. Because for the experts evennow there is no doubt that futuregenerations will live in a seriouslydamaged environment if nothingchanges fundamentally.

The proof of the pudding willthen have to be eaten by the gen-eration that is currently trying outits interactions with the world incrèches and nurseries. Ever moreteachers are demanding that wecan and must have to imagine thetasks that will face the children oftoday. "They will have to clean upour polluted rivers and groundwa-ter, they will reafforest our wood-lands, they will reduce the miseryof the Third World. They will, theywill, they will..." says GeroldBecker, Director of the HesseInstitute for Educational Research:"The question is whether what weorganise for them in schools willreally prepare them for the tasksthat they will then have to be upto." And there are reasons fordoubt.

No question: our educationalinstitutions whether primaryschools, general, intermediate orgrammar schools will be facedwith tasks whose extent has onlybecome clear in recent times. Inview of the expected problems, theschools are facing new responsibili-ties. But so far the environmentalissue has conducted a shadowyexistence in the curricula withjust a few exceptions. But educa-tion politicians have been talkingabout ecological education foralmost 30 years. As early as 1972the Conference of EducationMinisters decided on a programmeof action to promote environmentalawareness. But the praiseworthybusyness of the educationalbureaucracy hardly took root ineveryday school life.

Critics say that environmentaleducation was hardly more than afig leaf of educational policy.

Because what was being taught inthe schools did not meet anydemand outside in the world ofwork. Much rather, the educationalsystem was called upon to contin-ue to qualify young people for theperformance society. Ecologyremained in the scholarly ivorytower, if it even reached that far.Because the teachers were mostlyovertaxed, believes Munich teacherKarl Horst Dyckhoff. "If you orderschools to give environmental edu-cation, then society as a whole hasto make it clear somewhere that itrecognises the unusual nature ofthis order and that it will also givethe educational system unusualsupport." But this was not there,complain all concerned. Almostthree decades after its first startenvironmental education will haveto redefine itself. Look back criti-cally, draw conclusions, formulateobjectives. Because it has longbeen clear that it is no longer suffi-cient to paint a few green splodgeson the conventional curriculum.Environmental education has toconvey experiences of nature tochildren in cities in particular andgive them ecological insights and ithas to explain to them how theworld works. "We talk a lot aboutthe fact that species have becomeextinct, but we forget that relation-ships have also died out," saysBeate Seitz-Weinzierl from theeducational section of the BUNDnature conservation association:"Many children from the secondhigh-rise generation no longer havea relationship with nature thethreads have been broken."

Ecological teachers are full ofstories about children who arefrightened of every frog when theyare in the countryside or who seri-ously look for the purple cowcalled `Milka' from the TV commer-cial. The broken thread betweenman and nature has to be retied.The environmental teachers andthe educational planners have notyet reached agreement on how thiscan be done. Can you simply learnenvironmental awareness likevocabulary? Is it enough simplyto bring together as muchknowledge aspossible abouthow the earth,air, water andliving crea-tures arelinked together? We are used tothe fact that knowledge simplytakes effect when we have it. But ifanything has been learnt from 30years of the environmental move-ment, it is this: we know more thanenough about what is good for theenvironment and what harms itonly our behaviour has notchanged very much as a result.Environmental education has hadto learn from this that the conven-tional ways of passing on knowl-edge are obviously not enough tobring about fundamental changesin behaviour. A relationship withnature can only be recreated innature itself.

But how much nature is neededto anchor the knowledge that envi-ronmental awareness results from

The relationshipwith nature canonly be recreated innature.

it? If a person's experience ofnature is limited to the footballfield or the patch of green in frontof the house and ecosystems areseen on TV at best, then his scaleof what is desirable is obviouslymissing. Only so much is certain:the beauty of nature and the plea-sure of experiencing it education-al science talks about primaryexperience here achieves farmore than books, transparenciesand museums. "We need this sen-sory experience of nature, which isthe actual prerequisite for becom-ing sensitive to living things again,"

Man protectswhat hetreastures.

says Beate Seitz-Weinzierl. It is onlythrough contact withnature, games forexperiencing nature,

work in the open air, experiments,water samples, keeping animals orgrowing things themselves thatpeople can experience the environ-ment as something enriching andmaybe as their shared world. Anew motivation to acquire knowl-edge grows out of the feelings.Instead of dry genus and plantnames, all the senses are used toexperience what something smellslike, what it tastes like and what itfeels like. Educational science saysthat knowledge that is experiencedis deeper knowledge and: man pro-tects what he treasures.

And there is something else:Knowledge about the environmentis anything but free of values.Anyone who develops a feeling andknowledge of what is right andwrong with regard to the environ-ment is also called upon to becomeinvolved: in class, at school, in hisown family, municipality or in theregion. Environmental knowledgebrings politics into the school andmakes the school the germ cell ofpolitical action. This is more thanunusual for most teachers whohave always set great store bystrict neutrality. Furthermore,knowledge about the environmentis also charged with "non-objec-tive" emotions in a completely dif-ferent way. Nowadays, most chil-dren know that a catastrophe isthreatening the modern worldunless ecological problems arebrought under control.

In the early days of environmen-tal education the catastrophe sce-narios dominated. Knowledge wasalmost always conveyed in a lectur-ing, moralistic tone. Modern eco-education has left those days longbehind. But, at the same time,teachers and environmental educa-tionalists must not simply pushfear to one side. The essentialrequirement for ecological actionto grow out of environmental edu-cation is for the concerns of theyoung people about a destroyedworld to be recognised. "For exam-ple, if I feel too much fear, I simplyblock the absorption of knowl-edge," says Ulrike Unterbrunner ofthe Institute for School Didacticsat Salzburg University. If the fear istoo great, resignation and with-drawal set in as a self-defencemechanism. This task of givingspace to fears without causingfears to promote suppression islike squaring the circle. Parentsand teachers are called upon here.In view of increasing greenhouseeffects and annual hurricanes, chil-dren would otherwise considernature as a threat from which theyhave to be protected. Only concen-trating on the risks and bearing theentire extent of the ecological cri-sis in lessons is therefore anythingbut sensible. An isolated lessonunit on the hole in the ozone layercan do more damage than help.Because before the destruction isdealt with, healthy nature has to beexperienced.

It is already becoming clear thatenvironmental education occupiesa completely different positionfrom the rest of the curriculum.Here, an acute social problem hasto be solved. Instead of simply

passing on cultural knowledge, aswith reading, writing and arith-metic, people will have to think innew directions towards thefuture. Instead of conveyingrepeatedlyreviewedfacts from asafe position,here theteachershave to admit that they them-selves often do not know thefinal solutions for the problem con-cerned. Instead of conveyingknowledge shut off from the rest ofthe world within the four walls of aclassroom, environmental educa-tion only makes sense when it goesout into the environment that it istalking about. Environmental edu-cation should lead to the learnerstaking up sides and taking action.

Environmentaleducation shouldlead to the learnerstaking up sides andtaking action.

So, what is environmental edu-cation? Do classical geographylessons fit into this category? Canwe talk about environmental edu-cation when the chemistry teacheris explaining water analysis, thephysics teacher is talking aboutregenerative energies or Germanlessons concentrate on the roman-ticism of nature? Or does environ-mental education only start whentrained nature teachers spend daysin the woods with a class? Whatabout the countless adult educa-tion centres that are increasinglyadopting ecological subjects, thelocal authorities who are extremelycommitted to implementingAgenda 21 locally? Is it not alsoenvironmental education whenapprentices are taught about state-

of-the-art environmental technolo-gy, when students concentrate onnew ecological courses or employ-ees are sent on expensive coursesto learn that ecological issues nowhave an impact on all jobs?

Because ecology researches howall forms of life are interconnectedit is interdisciplinary, unlike othersubjects. Precisely because envi-ronmentally sound conduct cannotbe limited just to schools, butshould increasingly go throughsociety as a whole, environmentaleducation can scarcely be restrict-ed. "How do I deal with a messagethat says that 60 per cent of treesare sick? What does this do to me?That, too, is environmental educa-tion!" says Saman Ansari, physicistand teacher at Odenwald-Schule,Hesse. In order to keep tabs on thesheer unlimited variety of subjectsand the range available, environ-mental education has been dividedinto two camps without furtherado: on the one hand there isschool environmental education,which can be dealt with in everyvillage, every municipality andtown at varying intensities in32,000 primary, elementary, inter-mediate, general and grammarschools in all possible subjectsgeography, biology, physics, chem-istry, German, history, social stud-ies, art, ethics, RE, philosophy ormodern languages or it can bemade into interdisciplinary pro-jects. And, on the other hand,there is the broad field of environ-mental education outsideschools, which encompasses every-thing offered by environmental ini-tiatives, youth organisations, adulteducation centres, universities,research institutes, museums,authorities, churches and otherfree sponsors. Because completelydifferent standards apply here towhat is understood by "environ-mental education", statistical sur-veys on the status of German envi-ronmental education are extremelydifficult. Research has reacted tothis situation by declaring withoutfurther ado "Environmental educa-tion is what the people asked thinkit is".

Data and FactsIf we follow this definition by the "Forschungsgruppe

Umweltbildung" (Research Group on Environmental Education) atBerlin Free University, then there are 4,600 institutions in Germanythat offer events for environmental education outside schools. Thefigure has risen steadily in the last 15 years and continues to havehigh growth rates. Around 80,000 people work in these institu-tions, of whom 10 to 12,000 are mainly involved in environmentaleducation. The researchers noted a clear difference between northand south here: in the northern Federal Lander there is on averageone environmental education institution per 10,000 inhabitants, inthe southern Lander, by contrast, only per 30,000 inhabitants. Atleast, they do exist, we could say.

But this purely statistical value is soon put in context when weremember that environmental education at the 32,000 schoolsaccounts for just 1 per cent of school lessons or just about 1.5 percent of the subjects on offer at the countless adult education cen-tres. And of the 80,000 people employed in environmental educa-tion institutions, only around 14 per cent are primarily involved inenvironmental education and almost three quarters of those sur-veyed said that at work they dealt with environmental educationonly some of the time. This broad range makes it clear thatdepending on one's political preference we can equally draw anenthusiastic or a grim picture of the status of German environmen-tal education.

The fact is that environmental and nature conservation centres,mostly with free sponsorship, take on the lion's share of environ-mental education outside schools. They are most readily associatedwith the subject of the environment by the public. Adult educationcentres, environmental initiatives, museums, authorities or privatecompanies that get involved in environmental education are almostunknown among the public. However, the offers of environmentaland nature conservation centres mainly only reach people with highlevels of education and people who are already involved in environ-mental matters at work or interested people who tend to be"green" politically and have a much higher environmental aware-ness than the average in the population. And, according to theresults of the surveys, even among this section of the population,the degree to which institutions offering environmental educationare known is low.

Overall, Gerhard de Haan and his research group come to theconclusion that although German environmental education has animpressive potential in terms of figures, in practice it is hardly per-ceived and reaches only a fraction of the population. In summary itcan be said: a lot has happened, but still far too little. This result isa clear contradiction to the importance attached to the subject inpolitics.

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History of Environmental Education

FROM THE TIMID BEGINNINGSTO AN EDUCATIONAL MODELAt the start of something new there is usually a crisis. Forenvironmental education, it was the sudden finding in theearly 1970s that the carrying capacity of ecological systemsis limited. The report of the Club of Rome published byDonella and Dennis Meadows under the title "The Limits ofGrowth" came as a real bombshell.

Never before had futurologistsshown as clearly as in thisanalysis that the natural

foundations of life had beendestroyed on a grand scale andwarned that the ecological crisiswould threaten the existence ofthe entire modern world and thesurvival of the human race in theforeseeable future. The report wasassociated with many, fundamentaldemands for the redesign of eco-nomic activity, production and therecovery of raw materials.Environmental protection suddenlywent from being an incidental issueand charged up to the top of politi-cal agenda. But unlike most otherpolitical problems, for which there

were strategies and historicalexperience, people were faced withnew territory here. Because therequired innovations were expen-sive, a heated discussion about theextent of the crisis started amongscientists and betweenresearchers, politics and industry.State educational policy was veryslow to react to this debate. Theenvironmental programme of theSPD-FDP coalition in 1971 notedfor the first time that conveyingknowledge related to the environ-ment is necessary in all areas ofeducation and stated that everycitizen would have to "take part inshaping and protecting our envi-ronment by means of environmen-tally friendly behaviour". But howthis was to happen was still in thelap of the gods. This meant thatteachers were given a responsibili-ty that was bound to overtax themto start with: they did not knowhow the subject should be didacti-cally treated, what learning objec-tives were to be pursued, how itshould be integrated in thetimetable, nor were they any text-books on the subject. Schools anduniversities were entering com-pletely new territory. And it was totake decades before research andeducational planners provided syl-labuses and teaching material.

The environmental educational-ist Uli Nagel calls this phase in theearly 1970s the "first generation ofenvironmental education": all overEurope the first European NatureConservation Year in 1970s hadshifted the previously largely pri-vate nature and homeland conser-vation commitment of educatedcitizens all over Europe into aware-ness as a government task. Thefirst United Nations EnvironmentConference in Stockholm in 1972not only made the terms "environ-ment" and "environmental protec-tion" into political buzzwords, butthe delegates also recommendedan international programme onenvironmental education. Thesesignals were taken up by theConference of Education Ministersin Germany and formulated into a"Programme of Action to PromoteEnvironmental Awareness". But lit-tle happened. The first generationof environmental education builtupon the tradition of nature con-servation education that had

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already been developed by dedicat-ed natural history and biologyteachers at the turn of the century.In the new "environmental protec-tion training" the emphasis was onthe classical natural science sub-jects: chemistry, physics and geog-raphy. Although the first textbooksthat appeared on the subject ofenvironmental protection dealtwith the multi-layered structure ofnature with its countless mutualdependencies, they hardly tookaccount of the role of man.Individual teachers started out-side the classical school "hikingdays" and viewed sceptically bytheir head teachers and colleagues

to take their pupils out intonature for field studies. But envi-ronmental knowledge and its scien-tific methodology was at the heartof environmental education; thiswas mostly conveyed in a warningtone and stressed the responsibili-ty of each individual for his ownconduct. This trend was only nat-ural: the people who were to teachthese demands brought intoschools from outside were theteachers with scientific training.Environmental education thereforetried to disseminate the new mate-rial with conventional methods anda good portion of morals.

The "first generation"

The start of environmental education was dry and not very excit-ing. Nature took place mostly within the school walls and mostlycomprised display cases in which stuffed animals or pinned butter-flies replaced the living world clean, unmoving and very, verydead. The wonders of nature were demonstrated in a test tube inbiology lessons, in physics lessons people started to get to gripswith the technical miracle that is a nuclear power station by first ofall only explaining how it worked. German lessons bored on aboutthe enthusiastic romanticism of nature. The risks of the chemicalpollution of drinking water became part of the dry and dusty drilllearning of formulae in chemistry lessons. And even when the glob-al consequences of environmental destruction were discussed insocial studies or history, the world that can be experienced with thesenses remained outside.

For critical teachers, the material and what they had to conveybecame ever more of a contradiction. The Hesse physics and chem-istry teacher Henning Senske pointed out that the scientific reduc-tionism with which environmental awareness was now to be taughtwas actually part of the problem that had to be combated here:"Recording measured results, defining terms exactly what we doin physics lessons is the same in miniature as when we straightenlarge streams, concrete over landscapes or makes the world calcula-ble, constant and similar. The pupils really wanted to learn some-thing that I haven't studied: artistic dealings with constantly uniquenature."

At universities, too, it became 08more and more obvious that eco-logy as the science of the networksin the structure of nature couldhardly be understood with theusual reductionism. The neWsci-ence could not be practised bysplitting the world up into manysmall pieces in order to recognisethem. It called for holistic views.System theory was discovered firstof all in natural sciences and thenalso in educational science; it dealtwith the hidden rules and relation-ship patterns in nature and consid-ered and studied the entire bio-sphere rather as a living organism.In order to do justice to these sys-tems and to calculate the manyinterlinked global effects of localenvironmental sins, people startedto work with computer simulations.Frederic Vester's books on "inter-linked thinking" sold like hot cakesamong the first environmentalteachers who were looking for newapproaches. New words came intoenvironmental education with thiswork. The buzzwords were:"ecosystem", "life cycle and recy-cling" or "ecological sustainability".But it would be many years beforethese terms because the centralbuzzwords in environmental edu-cation. But to date, conveying envi-

knowledge about the processes innature has remained a key focusof environmental education.

During this time, the officialcompilation of directives on envi-ronmental education went its slow,bureaucratic way. In 1980 theConference of Education Ministershad issued a decision to confirmthat environmental educationshould be introduced as an inter-disciplinary principle into both nat-

ural sciences and the arts.However, the practitioners on thespot were already ahead of theeducational bureaucracy. The "sec-ond generation of environmentaleducation" built upon the compre-hensive approaches of schoolreforms that had developed in thesecond half of the 1970s. For thefirst time, many state schools hadintensively dealt with the achieve-ments of reforming educational sci-ence. Whereas the new forms oflearning were only used in schoolsin exceptional cases, the under-standing of learning changed slow-ly. Instead of seeing children as anempty vessel that were to be grad-ually brought up to be culturalindividuals through education,

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reform educational science con-veyed a completely different pic-ture. This was about seeing theyoung people as complete beingswhose hidden potential was to begradually brought to light. Insteadof cultural shaping by means ofspecified packages of knowledge,the focus was on the developmentof the individual. Teachers shouldno longer solely determine whathad to be learned. Much rather, thechildren were to learn what inter-ested them most according to theirown abilities and in a didacticallyprepared environment. The imme-diate environment suddenlybecame the subject of learning.Instead of absorbing knowledge inline with prescribed patterns andreproducing it in line with pre-scribed criteria, self-determinedlearning using the subject becameincreasingly important. Instead ofknowledge being passed on theo-retically, it could be tried out prac-tically in play and in various con-texts. All of this gave completelynew impetus to environmentaleducation even though schoolsdid have initial problems with thisapproach. Environmental teachersfell upon the new methods of "pro-ject teaching" in particular, inwhich the traditional boundaries ofthe subjects were removed for ashort period so that a complexissue could be dealt with from vari-ous points of view. For the firsttime concepts of "holistic learning"were available. Two key termscame to the fore in this secondgeneration of environmental edu-cation. Experience orientation andaction orientation.

Progressive teachers and envi-ronmental teachers met underthese educational buzzwords.Because both were concerned withconnecting self-organised, experi-ence-related learning and a tang-ible result or product, just whatshould be the result of a projectlesson.

But ambitious environmentaleducation outside the school wallsis not continuing on a large scale.

The "second generation, ",

"Measurements are taken and comparisons made in NuremburgZoo. Because small forest detectives and forest reporters are on theroad there and are researching nature. They are seeking animaltracks and removing soil samples, working with microscopes andmagnifying glasses. The young researchers are pupils from class 3 bof Nuremberg Scharrerschule and are going through the project ofthe environmental workshop of the environmental education cen-tre." (Numberger Nachrichten of 5 May 2000). In these interdisci-plinary lessons, independent work is to be promoted and the indi-vidual learning speed considered. With little work cases, in whichthe pupils find problems, information and tools, the young childrenplay in the forest, learn how to use wood, a hammer and a file and,just by the way, experience the wood and the meadow with all oftheir senses.

The pupils of the Municipal Grammar School in Cologne -Porzhave brought their wellingtons and have a lot to carry on the wayto Wahn Heath, where professional water samples are to be takentoday as part of chemistry, geography and social sciences lessons.An entire area of the former military training ground is to be eco-logically mapped in order to document the legacy of the militaryuse. On site samples are taken in a test tube and small groups testthem for different types of residues. One group takes care of map-ping the samples, another the precise documentation. The pupilsare very eager because they know that their documentation isbeing taken seriously. The city's environment department hasalready expressed its interest.

Two examples of many thousands: the aim of action and experi-ence oriented teaching is to move from theory to practice and froma moral appeal to committed action. Anyone who has discoveredthe oily residues in drinking water for themselves has a completelydifferent motivation to make sure that they are elminated. And infuture he is unlikely to be one of those people who illegally changethe oil in their cars somewhere on a woodland path.

Although many teaching projectshave been successfully realisedwith great enthusiasm on the partof the pupils and the results couldeven be monitored in examsaccording to the classical schoolmodel, most educationalists shiedaway from the additional effort.Growing social problems in stateschools and a constantly increasingpressure for performance within anever shorter period of time led tomost teachers turning back to tra-ditional forms of learning.

But this step backwards in envi-ronmental education did not stop aminority from continuing along thepath that had already been started.In addition to work in the open air,teachers started to redesignschoolyards together with theirpupils, to create gardens or toencourage the keeping of pets. Butwhat was always needed was thespecial commitment of individualteachers who were especially closeto the issue and who were pre-pared to give up some of their freetime for environmental education

or to expose themselves to thecontradiction of corning into con-flict with the official curriculumwith more ecological education.For this reason, in state schoolsecological education was increas-ingly offered as an additional sub-ject in the afternoons. The lessschools showed themselves able tointegrate the new demands of suc-.cessful environmental education inschools, the more the market ofsupply and demand shifted to inde-pendent suppliers. Slowly a newprofession as environmentalteacher emerged. Thus, in theearly 1980s a developmditt startedthat has continued to this day:independent environmental teach-ers and ecological educationalistsstarted to offer their skills and

B&W 4-2000 Page 110

knowledge in adult education cen-tres, kindergartens and schools, inaccompanying hiking days andclass trips, taking over and imple-menting planning and carrying outecological project days.Environmental education formallysplit into two camps that continueto this day: environmental educa-tion in schools and outsideschools.

In the latter in particular thereform-oriented path that had beenstarted was blithely followed. Inthe 1980s new methods ofAmerican "outdoor education"reached Europe from the US as aresult of research and the publica-tions of Joseph Cornell and Stevevan Matre. They were much lessconcerned with imparting environ-mental knowledge than with heal-ing the torn relationship betweenman and nature. Instead of gener-ously seeing man's task as repairingnature where it is broken, theseapproaches were concerned withhealing the sick relationshipbetween man and his own adher-ence to nature and to change hisbehaviour as a consequence. So,instead of removing him fromnature, it was about reconnecting

man to nature, perceiving natureAwith all the senses, discovering VOJnatural wilderness and researchingand encouraging one's own "wild"instincts. Completely new learningobjectives that were far removedfrom the concepts and ideas of theEducation Ministries came to thefore. Environmental educationbecame education about the worldaround us.

The separation of man andnature was no longer at the fore,but rather man's identification withnature. This approach had its theo-retical foundation in the new philo-sophical school of "deep ecology".This taught that man is only athread in the complex fabric of lifeand nature has a value not just as aresult of human use but in its ownright. Instead of restricting ecologi-cal conduct to improved environ-mental technology and implement-ing more stringent limit values andenvironmental laws, it had theobjective of working specifically onthe image modern man has of him-self and the world. The basic ideaof this approach is simple: themore that man experiences natureand understands it as part of him-self, the more he will love nature as

71-77C-iimself and will be corn-irm ed to its protection with all ofhis heart.

In order to allow this radicalchange in modern man's image ofhimself, experiments have beenconducted with completely newmethods. Nature meditationsbecame part of the environmentalteachers' skills; attentiveness exer-cises, silent dialogues with trees,rivers and animals were tested.Many environmental teachers andeducationalists now classed astraditional viewed theseapproaches with scepticism. Butthe results of this highly emotionalaccess to nature were sometimesastonishing. People who hadbecome deeply rooted in the earthin their imaginations and swayed inthe wind like trees, adolescentswho had listened to life for severalhours in the darkness of the night-time forest, children who had theconfidence to enter into silent dia-logues with trees, flower or butter-flies were deeply affected by thisform of natural experience.Speaking about nature hadbecome speaking to nature.

If environmental education hadslightly emerged from its ecological

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AUS: ULI NAGEL, UMWELTBILDUNG 5LZ, 6/98, 5.9

4-2000 Page 12

13

Development in Environmental EducationOver the last 25 years

1st line of developmentKnowledge and

understanding of links

Nature conser-vation education

1970s

Environmentalprotection education

Interlinked, systematicthinking

1980s (Meadows, Vester)

Ecologydidactics

(simulation examples)

Waste managementlessons

1990sComputer-(simulation)

learning programs

2nd line of developmentExperiencing and being active

(Reformeducation)

Open-airbiology

"Outdooreducation"

Experienceeducation

Experiencingnature

(Cornell, Van Matre)

School pond,school gardenrediscovered

School campaigns

(Bio-indication):air, water,

soil

(Natural)-learninglocations

School on the farm

3rd line of developmentShaping and

taking responsibility

(Reformeducation)

"Communityeducation"

New forms oflearning

"Innovativelearning"

(Club of Rome)

Exhaust gas-freeschool days

School as anenvironmental model

"localparticipation,"(municipality,

neighbourhood)

"School habitat"(environment, health)

niche philosophically as a result ofthese new approaches, this trendcontinued in the 1990s. If environ-mental education so far had beencharacterised by harmonising thenew subject matter with thedemands of the environmentalorganisations, the start of the"third generation of environmentaleducation" showed that the subjectof ecology could hardly be limitedand really should include all areasof society. The new discipline burstout of the cramped pigeonholewhere it had been placed andincreasingly presented itself as anew fundamental scientific para-digm. Research started to talkabout "general ecology" or "socio-ecology" and meant that the key tothe environmentally sound behav-iour of the individual could actuallybe found in the community, the

rules of society and the economicframework conditions. This meantthat environmental education,which had previously been restrict-ed to the subject of "healthynature", became a task and con-cern for society as a whole andsuddenly also affected subjectsthat had previously been kept sep-arate from environmental educa-tion: consumption patterns, socialissues, development policy, globali-sation and much more. This expan-sion of ecology also took place atthe level of international organisa-tions and their initiatives.

Agenda 21

As early as 1987 the UNESCOConference in Moscow had drawnup an international plan of actionfor environmental education in the1990s and proposed a broad pack-age of measures, which rangedfrom the integration of environ-mental education in existing edu-cational institutions right up topublic relations in the mass media.However, the most importantimpetus for the further develop-ment of environmental educationwas given by the major UnitedNations Conference onEnvironment and Development,held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.Because there the statesmen andenvironment ministers concernedagreed on "Agenda 21", bindingunder international law, which wasnothing less than a catalogue of

PHOTO: NATUR & KULTUR

Ze0 B&W 4-2000 Page 13 )

environment policies and a plan ofaction for the 21st century.Although on the one hand, it wasconcerned with how an equitablebalance between the wealthy, high-ly industrialised north of the worldand the developing countries couldbe achieved, Agenda 21 was alsoan environment policy documentthat took up the subjects of thefinite nature of resources, thedestruction of nature and popula-tion growth. For the first time,these two separate ecological andsocial fields were recognised asfactors that could influence eachother. This also strengthened theenvironmental movement's claim tobe global in the awareness thatenvironmental pollution does notstop at national borders and envi-ronmental protection is not anexclusive concern of the richindustrial nations that can afford it.With the term "sustainable devel-opment" the document marked anew cultural guideline for the cul-tures of the world: in future, eco-nomic development was no longerto be realised against nature, butwith nature. In Chapter 36 of theAgenda adopted in Rio, environ-mental education gained greatly inimportance. The document made itunmistakably clear that the con-cept of sustainable developmentshould be considered as a newbasis for education that is viablefor the future and which repre-sents far more than just extendedenvironmental education.According to Agenda 21 educationis "indispensable to changing peo-ple's attitudes" and is "critical forachieving environmental and ethi-cal awareness, values and atti-tudes, skills and behaviour consis-tent with sustainable development"as well as for "effective public par-ticipation in decision-making".Formally, as a result of Agenda 21signed by all the heads of govern-ment present, the central funda-mental motive of environmentaleducation i.e. bringing about a

fundamental ecological shift inawareness had suddenly beendeclared the guideline of interna-tional educational planning insteadof a minority issue. Environmentaleducation had become a govern-ment objective that was bindingunder international law, or evenmore: from now on all educationwas really supposed to be environ-mental education.

The new appreciation of envi-ronmental education as a centraltask for the future was thenincreasingly reflected in officialpositions and reports in the 1990s.In 1994 a report of the Council ofExperts for Environmental Affairssaid: "All political structural mea-sures have no effect in the longterm if they do not also meet thesubjective willingness of people toimplement and help shape theobjectives set". In 1997 the CDU-FDP Federal Government declaredthat environmental education is anindispensable element of a precau-tionary policy to protect natureand the environment. In November1998 the Bund-Lander-Kommis-sion far Bildungsplanung andForschungsforderung [FederalGovernment-Lander Commissionfor Education Planning andResearch Promotion] published asurprise "Orientation FrameworkEducation for SustainableDevelopment", which is currentlybeing further developed at BerlinFree University under the auspicesof Gerhard de Haan. At the end of1999 the Chairman of theConference of EnvironmentMinisters confirmed that environ-mental education has the higheststanding if society is to move fromremedial environmental repairs to

ptiri environmentalism. Evenho h hie new SPD-Green

Federal Government has not yetbecome a talking point with its ownmeasures for environmental educa-tion, the subject still remains onthe political agenda.

The "third generation of envi-ronmental education" is still in itsinfancy and no one quite knowshow far this most recent product ofenvironmental education willreach. Because "education for sus-tainability" has countless facetsand not all of them have yet beenidentified. The wider the field thatis subsumed under this sloganbecomes, the greater the risk thatthe approach will become soblurred in its vagueness that noone will know what it actuallyinvolves. Sustainable educationshould take place inside and out-side schools, not only in the centreof environmental sciences, butshould be a component of almostall academic courses of study thatconcern further vocational train-ing, characterise information tomass media and reach the majorityof the population via the adult edu-cation centres. This means that theeducational planners are thusassigned a completely new taskthat will keep the education min-istries busy for decades to comebefore it is reflected in universitiesand schools, not only in curriculabut also in everyday life.

Instead of taking school out ofsociety and explaining things sepa-rately for each subject, school itselfbecomes a model for society as aresult of such initiatives. In themicrocosm of school pupils learnon the spot to successfully changethe world and broadcast their find-

154111!13&W 4-2000 Page 14

The "third generation"

"Think globally, act locally" are the key words inthe Ohm Gymnasium, Erlangen. Anyone whowants to actively support environmental protectionhas to start with himself, thought the teachers atthe grammar school in Franconia and then decidedto be the first German school to be receive "EMAScertification" from the environmental authorities.EMAS? To date, there have only been analyses ofthis kind for large companies that consume enor-mous quantities of raw materials and energy andproduce waste by the skipful. The aim of an EMASinvestigation is to seek out ways of saving energy,unused recycling routes and sustainable forms ofproduction from an environmental point of viewand then to optimise the entire operation so thatthere is increased productivity with much lowerconsumption of natural materials. For a school thismeans that it has to see itself as a company withinthe natural cycle for the first time: how much ener-gy is needed to bring the teachers and the pupilsto the school, what energy is used to create theoptimum learning conditions, how is the heatingenergy used and where is it being wasted? What isthe state of the heat insulation, where is electricitybeing wasted, what happens with the chemicalresidues from chemistry lessons and the darkroom,how is waste separated? In the Erlangen grammarschool, the idea to start with consistent sustain-ability within the four walls of the school met withgreat enthusiasm from teachers of the sciencesand the arts. Pupils swarmed over the entire schoolbuilding like detectives, compiled reports on wasteheat, sealed draughty windows, procured energy-saving light bulbs and planned solar installations.Energy controllers paid attention to economicalelectricity consumption, small groups identifiedweaknesses, in lessons the actual on-site work wasconstantly placed in relation to society as a whole.The results were remarkable: The school's wastecharges fell from DM 30,000 per year to DM7,300, the bills for oil, electricity and water fell justas much. But the EMAS certificate is not just anine-day wonder: in order to keep the certificationa new inspection has to be carried out every threeyears and all weaknesses have to be removedgradually. In March 2000 the Ohm Gymnasiumwas the first European school to receive its EMAScertificate. The idea has caught on: in an EU pro-ject of the Federal Government-LanderCommission with funding from the FederalMinistry for Education, Research and Technology,EMAS is now being established in model schools inpractically every Federal Land.

ings as multipliers, not only in theirown families but also in theirfuture professional lives.

How are rawmaterials used inthe school commu-nity, how much isswapped, cooperatedor repaired?

In this context, theslogan "sustainable edu-cation" still has countlessother aspects that couldprovide enough subjectsfor the project work ofcountless generations of school-children: what is the state of thesoils around the school, whattransport routes do school suppliesneed and where do they comefrom? How does the school and theschool community deal with rawmaterials, how much exchange,cooperation and repair is there?Are there partner schools in theThird World? What initiatives canthe school carry out to the munici-palities?

This overview of the history ofenvironmental education reflectsthe astonishing growth of a disci-pline that started as a tenderyoung plant just 30 years ago andis now in the process of reorganis-ing the entire educational system.But the new tasks that schools willhave to face are also meeting withresistance. It is not only teacherswho are resisting some of the newtasks that throw into question oldhabits. Education ministries arealso having problems orientingtheir entire educational ideal to thenew guiding principle.

083101001904

PHOTO: IN

16B&W 4-2000 Page 111

SUSTAINABILITY AS THENEW MODELKnowledge of a new quality

Hardly any other term is used as often in publicspeeches by the political elites on ecologicalissues as "sustainability". At the same time hardlyany other political term is used as little in every-day speech as this. Hardly anyone can imagineanything concrete under sustainability.

/n Agenda 21 it says that sustain-ability would have to "satisfy theneeds of the present without

risking that future generations willnot be able to satisfy their ownneeds". Not without reason, high-level politics have often been criti-cised for not doing much other

than coining pretty phrases when itcomes to environmental education.Without any question, Germany isfar from being a sustainable soci-ety. However, the value of officialrecognition lies in the fact that"sustainability" has become amodel upon which future econom-ic, legislative and environmentalpolicy will have to be based andagainst which it can be measured.

"Sustainability is first of all aneconomic category, because itdescribes the model of managingnatural systems. Secondly, it is acomprehensive, environmental pol-icy category because it has becomea model of environmental policy asa whole. Thirdly, it is a social cate-gory because sustainable develop-ment should also take account ofsocial concerns. Thus, differentdisciplinary means of access,understandings and orientationshave to be harmonised here."(Politische Okologie, 12/99). Alook at Agenda 21 is enough torecognise the variety of subjects ineducational work that should dedi-cate themselves to this task: pover-ty and social justice, consumption;health; building and living; climateand environmental toxins; soildegradation; desertification; agri-culture; biotechnology; water and

oceans; waste; substance streammanagement; gender roles; politi-cal participation; environmentallysound technologies; internationalcooperation and much more.

Sustainable environmental edu-cation has to fulfil several tasksbecause ecological consciousness-raising is to allow and encouragemore public opinion-formation,political will-formation and socialconfidence-building in addition tojust passing on knowledge. This iscalling for no less than enabling thepublic to participate competentlyin the social changes needed inenvironmental policy and the asso-ciated public discussion. In a paperpublished by the FederalEnvironmental Agency this newtask is also linked to clear targetsfor environmental education. "Achange in paradigms is neededhere because this is a new problemthat cannot be mastered with theold models.

As far as environmental educa-tion is concerned, this broadapproach runs the risk of trying tocatch up with the very generalpolitical targets and being con-demned to permanent failure inview of the enormous breadth ofthe subject: never being able to doenough because the problems areoverpowering. So, no matter howpleased environmental educationalists were that their subject hadmoved to the focus of attention, itwas also very important not to beinstrumentalised by the newlyaroused interest of politicians oreven allow itself to be misused asan ecological fig leaf that couldsubsequently be assigned theresponsibility for a lack of success.Anyone who understands' educa-tion to be an instrument alsoexpects it to work as one.Gradually, the recognition tookhold that environmental educationcan only be one factor amongmany, that it is slow to take effectand, above all, needs a supportingatmosphere in society as a whole inorder to be able to develop effec-tively. Environmental educationcannot be manufactured like aproduct; it only works when thepeople addressed actively seize the

environ-

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4

TIP -41'vt 4-2

I

-*

,_

PHOTO: NATUR & KULTUR

range offered under their ownresponsibility and implement themin their daily lives.

Environmental education there-fore needs great substantial scopeand an identity of its own that isindependent of the expectations ofthe international organisations,NGOs (non-governmental organisa-tions) and education ministries. In1998 the "ArbeitsgemeinschaftNatur and Umweltbildung"(Working Party on Nature andEnvironmental Education ANU),a merger of the German environ-ment centres, together with the"Deutsche Gesellschaft furUmwelterziehung" (GermanSociety for EnvironmentalEducation DGU) and the"Gesellschaft fur beruflicheUmweltbildung" (Society forVocational Further Training GbU)published a paper containing thefirst reactions to the new chal-lenges. This "EducationalProgramme for SustainableDevelopment in the FederalRepublic of Germany" proposed,on the one hand, to confidently

Environmentaleducation worksonly if the people

addressed activelyand responsibly

take up the coursesoffered and imple-

ment them in theirown environ-ments.

continue with whatis already in place,to carry on fromprevious environ-mental education,further profession-alise it and anchor itstructurally. On theother hand, theysaid they were pre-

pared to start the further develop-ment of the still young disciplineunder the new focus of sustainabledevelopment. It had become clearto the activists, ecological educa-tionalist and operators of environ-mental centres that the new modelrequired a completely new learningculture. But people started to fightagainst suddenly overloading thecontent of environmental educationafter years of not recognising it.

From this perspective, environ-mental education only makes senseif it is understood as one contribu-tion to general education in orderto reinforce people in their skillsfor coping with the future. The the-oreticians of educational planningand the local practitioners agreedabove all that the pure imparting ofknowledge in the first generationof environmental education wasnot in keeping with the times.Education for sustainable develop-ment could not be limited toschools and universities; everyonewould have to understand it as a"lifelong learning process". That iswhy it cannot be seen as clearlydefined packages of knowledge,but as education that understandsitself as a foundation upon which anew world that is viable for thefuture can be built on its ownresponsibility. The new learningculture that is to be created forthis calls for what the educational-ists call "new key skills": communi-cations, planning, networking andproblem-solving skills. But thesekey skills with which a person'sown world can be changed, includethe skill to critically and vigilantlyrecognise one's own living condi-tions and their sustainability and todevelop alternatives. At the core,therefore, there must be a newform of perception: instead of fatal-istically accepting the world as weperceive it, environmental educa-tion must make it clear that wehave shaped our world in the way

17

we are accustomed to thinking. Afundamental change in dealingswith the natural world around ustherefore needs no less than a newculture of perception and newmodels for thinking.

The more the acceptance of eco-logical responsibility for the globalenvironment and one's own per-sonal living environment moves tothe fore, the more important arelearning objectives and methodsthat go far beyond the first glanceand the narrower definition ofenvironmental education.

Anyone who wants to reachwide sectors of the population will,for example, have to consider thediversity of lifestyles and theirsocio-cultural backgrounds inorder to develop appropriate edu-cation concepts. Since the modelof sustainable development empha-sises the unity of ecological, eco-nomic and social aspects in socialdevelopment, a comprehensiveeducational order of this kindtouches upon a large number ofdifferent value ideas and culturalpatterns. Anyone who wants topermanently influence these pat-terns and value ideas has to offerextremely differentiated measures.This also includes recognising thatthere are now a large number ofdifferent and sometimes contradic-tory risk perceptions and evalua-

B&W 4-2000 Page 17

31U10019U5

tions to such controversial subjectsas nuclear technology or biotech-nology. Environmental educationcannot simply remove this polarisa-tion but it can contribute to thediscussion in society being con-ducted objectively and at a highlevel.

Gerhard de Haan has introducedthe concept of 'design skills' as anobjective of environmental educa-tion. The most important part ofthis is its interdisciplinarynature. The multi-faceted charac-ter of the subject calls for interdis-ciplinary approaches and variedmodels of thinking that can bemanaged only by the cooperationof many scientific disciplines, dif-ferent cultural traditions and formsof perception. A large part ofdesign skills is participation, i.e.enabling people to actively partici-pate in the processes of society. Ifit does come to action, this doesnot work without the educationalinstitutions cooperating with them-selves and with the authorities anddismantling previous reservationsand competition. It is about build-ing up cooperative structures.

Since no form of environmentaleducation can approach the fulldiversity of the subjects at thesame time, it needs criteria thatfacilitate a selection. The issuesshould have a longer term signifi-cance for the social communityconcerned and, at the same time,typically reflect global problems.So that they do not remain stuck inan ivory tower, they should also becombined with commitment andsolidarity and lead to projects inthe local Agenda 21 process.According to de Haan design skillstherefore comprises the followingdimensions: anticipatory thinking,interdisciplinary approaches, net-worked thinking and the ability forsolidarity. Added to this is the skillto think up visionary and utopianconcepts. The future always has tobe thought up before it can beshaped. The willingness and the

courage to promote creativity andimagination is therefore an impor-tant task of environmental educa-tion. In order to be successful ittherefore needs objective ecologi-cal knowledge, action skills and thereflection of its own and culturalvalues. In the interests of sustain-ability, they should be gearedtowards the needs of all involved,the conservation and protection ofthe environment for current andfuture generations while recognis-ing the economic and social condi-tions of human life.

Although all of this sounds likesquaring the circle, environmentaleducationalists have declared theirwillingness to accept the chal-lenges of Agenda 21. In the springof 2000, 14 German nature andenvironmental educational institu-tions came together to form the"Bundesweiter Arbeitskreis derstaatlich getragenen Umwelt-bildungsstatten" (NationwideWorking Party of State-FundedEnvironmental EducationalInstitutions BANU) and drew upsix "guidelines for nature and envi-ronmental education". The newumbrella organisation defines envi-ronmental education as "conveyinginformation, methods and valuesthat enable active and responsiblepeople to come to terms with theimpact of their actions in the nat-ural, built and social environmentand to environmentally soundaction as a contribution towardssustainable development". The firstof the six guidelines defines envi-ronmental education as a "lifelong

learning process" through whichchildren, adolescents and adultsare to be made capable of partici-pating in all building, planning,nature conservation and environ-mental protection projects. In theguideline "Environmental educa-tion offers visions for sustainabledevelopment" the institutions offertheir experience and expertise forlong-term sustainable develop-ment. The fifth guideline, entitled"Environmental education needspartners" calls for a broad networkwith all groups in society. In thesixth guideline the members ofBANU confidently declare"Environmental education offersexemplary environmental educa-tional institutions" and thus refersto 30 years of experience of eco-logical education that should notbe lightly dismissed. Instead of pre-senting themselves as alternativeadult education centres, in futurethe environmental education cen-tres want to show that they are"professional service companies"that not only provide good publicrelations, but also skilled work. Sothere is still quite a lot to do inview of the low recognition factorfor the institutions. But BUNAdoes not shy away from presentingthe bill for the new social task ofenvironmental education."Professionalisation with new tar-gets, contents and tasks" the paperunmistakably says, "can ultimatelyonly be achieved with additionalfunding." In other words: actionmust follow the words.

With the "ANU 2000" project, in June 2000 the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Natur-und Umweltbildung e.V. (Working Party on Nature and Environmental Education)started to advise environmental educational institutions all over Germany withregard to education for sustainability and to qualify them for the new tasks. Thecentral task will be to inform and advise the environmental centres on the spot.This includes researching and publicising exemplary projects from the fields offood and health, fair trade, regenerative energy use and environmentally soundtechnologies, waste avoidance, codetermination for children and lifestyles thatcan be adopted by the regional environment centres. With the help of the inter-net platform www.anu2000.de the environment centres are constantly offeredup-to-date information. The exchange and the cooperation between the envi-ronment centres is made possible through regional and nationwide conferences.At the project's first annual conference in Nettersheim in October 2000 the focuswas on the subject of "The experience of nature as an element of education forsustainability". The work also got off to a good start in financial terms: theFederal Environmental Agency will fund the programme for the next three years.

0

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019

Environmental education in schools

TOMORROW'SEDUCATION IN YESTERDAY'S SCHOOLS?Scope and limits of environmental education in schools

The schools that were the central target group for the newdiscipline in the early days of environmental education30 years ago are largely divorced from the most recentdevelopments. The dynamic growth of environmental edu-cation primarily took place outside schools. This is hardlysurprising: because the new models and educational objec-tives are frequently a direct contradiction of the institution-al targets in the form of syllabuses, the separation of sub-jects, exam pressure and a lack of time to which stateschools are subject. Environmental education at schoolscontinues to be the exception. The exemplary projects thatare being realised by committed teachers or at speciallydesignated model schools must not hide the fact that thevast majority of schools are far removed from education forsustainability.

The long crocodile wends itsway through the wood. 25blindfold pupils at Berlin's

Bertolt Brecht School giggle andstumble over the roots on the path.Always with one hand on theshoulder of the person in frontthey are forced to put all of theirsenses in reception mode: feelingthe uneven ground with their feet,keeping balance, orienting them-selves with their ears and noses.They notice the resinous smell ofthe pine trees, the wind rufflestheir hair, the individual rays of thesun light up their faces for sec-onds. Somewhere a woodpecker isknocking, a motorised saw can be

heard in the distance. In the mean-time the crocodile of schoolchild-ren comes to a halt and the handsfeel the bony bark of an oak tree,inquisitively stroke an ivy leaf,smell wild mint and roll on softmoss. When the teacher arrives atthe destination of the short tripand asks the children to removetheir blindfolds the class is stand-ing in front of a little woodland lakewhose water is shining silver in the

oblique sunlight. But the thirteento fourteen year-olds do not wantto look at the beauty of the site,and they do not want to hear any-thing about the woodland ecosys-tem. It is time to run wild. Theteacher has no choice other than toforget his plans and let the chil-dren do as they want. And look:some start to investigate the bankthemselves, they discover tadpoles,water lilies, fish, a nest in a tree.Others are at a complete loss in thestrange world. And the two boys,who the teacher knows to be livingin difficult circumstances, havefound stones and start to aim themat waterbirds.

"The central reason for the eco-logical crisis seems to me to be theincreasing distance between manand nature," wrote the formerLower Saxony Minister ofEducation Horrmann in his"Recommendations forEnvironmental Education": "Ibelieve that school is primarilyconcerned with imparting valuesthat have to bring back harmony tothe disrupted relationship betweenman and nature." But when citychildren from Wedding in Berlinexperience the forest, an image of

the world does notchange overnight.Someone who does notreceive any attention orlove at home, will not giveattention and love tobirds. Someone who hasexperienced school as aconcrete education facto-

Someone who expe-riences everyday lifewhere the miserable

bits of greenery in thecities are overflowing

with cigarette ends andempty cans has no rolemodels, in spite of thebest educationalintentions.

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7

0S

Das menschliche Skelett

wir'="Beckon

knochen.

Etrustnirtel

IEre

-Cigemdw,"

Adjea.;

20

01"ry, loses all control in the woods.Someone who lives in difficultsocial conditions can be initiallyintimidated by the wild diversity ofthe strange natural world.Someone who is shown healthynatural cycles and then experi-ences everyday life where the mis-erable bits of greenery in the citiesare overflowing with cigarette endsand empty cans has no role mod-els, in spite of the best educationalintentions.

Even the highly praised experi-ence education in the fields, woodsand meadows cannot make up forwhat is wrong in society.Environmental education cannotbe cut out of the everyday world ofchildren and adolescents, just aslittle as the ecological issues can beseparated from economic andsocial problems. And, understand-ably, schools have problems man-aging all of this while still fulfillingan educational commission thatruns counter to the prevailing val-ues of society. "Just becauseschools are being given a new edu-cational commission it does notmean that the teachers at theseschools are ecological pioneers,"says the Munich educationalistKarl-Horst Dyckhoff.

Critical educationalists point outthat not only are schools overtaxedwith the ecological crisis, but theecological crisis itself indicates aneducational crisis: if the way inwhich we explain the world to thenext generation leads to usdestroying it more and more, theremust be something wrong witheducation, its contents and values.When environmental educationcauses friction with the existingconditions, criticism of the ecologi-cal crisis quickly becomes well-founded criticism of society. Whenthere are complaints about the dis-turbed balance of the relationshipbetween man and nature, the mod-ern scientific rationality is also inthe dock because it makes an emo-tional and sensory access to naturedifficult. When new values becomea learning objective, school itselfmust not continue to hold on to theold values. But the structure andthe content of schools reflect the

state of society. What is being 0831asked of them today means makingthem the vanguard of society. Notwithout reason, says the Hanovereducationalist Albert Ilien: "If theschool system wanted to reactappropriately to the key socialproblem of the environmental cri-sis, it has to change structurally."Until then the schools had nochoice other than to use the scopeavailable.

Environmental education inschools thus largely follows threeroutes that have proved to beeffective: on the one hand asdescribed above an attempt ismade to recreate broken relation-ships by means of contact withnature. Other educationalists try tohave a direct effect on individuallifestyles and on the environmen-tally friendly design of schools andthe local environment by means ofenvironmental education. A thirdgroup understands environmentaleducation as political educationand tries to investigate currentregional environmental problems,to bring them to the public atten-tion, to work out alternatives andto actively bring the issues into themunicipality of town council. All ofthese approaches that have alreadybeen tried many times over aremore or less alien beings in nor-mal school life. The experience ofnature emphasises the sensory,experience-oriented, qualitative,exemplary and self-organisedlearning on the subject, whereas inthe rest of the syllabus learning fol-lows a rational, theoretical anddemonstrable pattern and is quan-titative according to the motto"more is better". The ecologicaldesign of schools and the localenvironment needs interdiscipli-nary cooperation and the willing-ness of all teachers, new specialistknowledge and often new funding,whereas everyday life in school ismostly characterised by division,classical teaching contents andscarce resources and interdiscipli-nary cooperation usually falls downat the hurdle of the tight schedulefor overloaded curricula. And polit-ical environmental education,which attacks the existing condi-tions, adopts a critical position andthrows traditional values into ques-tion, quickly infringes the principle

OnAnlity, arouses resistanceamong the authorities and officialauthorities or is branded as politi-cal manipulation. Nevertheless,environmental education in schoolsconstantly experiments with thesethree educational columns in orderto do justice to the task demandedof it. But the framework for actionis and remains limited, even ifinnovative projects at modelschools convey a different impres-sion.

In recent years it has emergedthat it is precisely the ecologicaldesign of schools and the localenvironment that is easiest to inte-grate in the structure of traditionaleducational institutions. The mottoof the approach is: "Designingschool as a microcosm of society".Instead of making an issue of theecological immorality of society

from a safe position and hiddenbehind school walls, school itselfbecomes a biotope in which manand nature should meet each other,reflects the ecological diversity inthe cultural diversity of the schooland the cooperative interaction ofnature can become a model of

4.-- s

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e3&W 4-2000 Page 20 21

teamwork and cooperation inschools. In the model world ofschools, children and young peopleare supposed to try out how theworld can be made sustainablethrough initiative and commitment.And there really are a large num-ber of possibilities when the schoolhead and the school administrationplay along.

This can include establishing aschool garden that can take manyyears and bring biology lessonsalive and make them easier toexperience. Practical skills areencouraged, the assumption ofresponsibilities trained, naturaltime cycles experienced, the plantsthat belong together are learnedand it is often understood for thefirst time that a cucumber comesfrom the ground and not the super-market. Tree planting campaignscan serve as an example for inter-generational responsibility, thesensitive interaction of ecologicalcycles becomes clear in smallbiotopes. Unsealing tarmac school-yards can make it clear how manyanimal and plant species returnwhen people are prepared to con-serve a habitat for them.

Using the example of schoolcatering, the complex food chainscan be understood or the problemof recycling and disposable goodscan become just as clear as the

advantages and problems oforganic cultivation.However, things becomeinteresting for most pupilsonly when they are giventhe opportunity to ventureonto new territory and real-ly reshape the school cre-atively. Dealing with theschool's own water and thedevelopment of innovativeforms of waste separationare therefore popularissues. Studying the energyneeded for transport fromhome to school and backcan make it clear whatenergy balance the institu-

tion leaves behind outside theschool walls. In this context, manyschools are experimenting withreducing the energy balance of theschool building with the active par-ticipation of the pupils. This rangesfrom analysing the thermal weak-nesses and sealing draughty win-dows right up to installing dimmersand timer switches or energy-sav-ing light bulbs. It can continue inthe installation of rainwater utilisa-tion plants or photovoltaic systemson the roof. Exemplary exceptionalprojects, such as a the vocationalschool centre in Limburg-Weilburg,Hesse, have even managed, incooperation with the school spon-sors and the Weilburg public utili-ties, to build its own block-typepower station together with thepupils from the disciplines automo-tive technology, mechanical engi-neering, heating engineering, gasengineering, electrical engineeringand control technology, thusadvancing from an energy con-sumer to a power station operator.But even when the first photovolta-ic cells in the municipality areinstalled on the school roof and theyoung people adeptly and enthusi-astically report their new knowl-edge at home, something can hap-pen that is otherwise so difficult:the school really can be made thevanguard of society as an ecologi-cal model project.

If environmental education werelimited just to green-ing school itself, thisapproach would berelatively successful.In almost half of

If environmentaleducation werelimited just togreening schoolitself, this approachwould be relativelysuccessful.

schools individual classes are notinvolved in tidying up and cleaningup work in nature, planting cam-paigns or stream sponsorships. Butit can frequently also be heard thatmodel projects of this kind diedown again after the initial eupho-ria, do not receive any didacticencouragement from the compe-tent ministries or are not furtherdeveloped due to the lack of spe-cialist time for project work.Research into the impact is not yetclear about how much these inter-nal projects really bring aboutamong the young people orwhether they are just consumed ina friendly way as bright spots ingrey school life. But most environ-mental educationalists agree thatecological learning has a greatereffect the more the lessons breakout of the close confines of classi-cal learning factories and becomepart of political action. "At themoment where a water investiga-tion is conducted not only as asandpit game in class, but theresults are passed onto the press,for example, there is a new situa-tion," says the Bavarian education-alist Karl-Horst Dyckhoff, whoencourages and rewards modelprojects in schools with hisTutzinger Umweltstiftung(Tutzing EnvironmentFoundation). "Where an interest isgenerated locally, there is acounter power. A teacher who issupported by the public cannotjust be called back. He or she hasacquired more scope through thequality of his/her action." Thismeans that the third level of politi-cal environmental educationunquestionably the most attractivelevel for schools is a constantchange in direction between activedemocracy science and politicalagitation and is certainly exposedto most criticism.

Modern educational science hasalso coined the term "communityeducation" for this approach. Itdescribes the concept of steppingover the limits of the school terri-

083101001907

tB &W 4-2000, Page 21

tory and becoming activelyinvolved in the concerns of themunicipality or region. Here asalready mentioned it can beabout mapping a desired natureconservation area and submittingthe documents with applications tothe authorities. But local compa-nies can be found guilty of environ-mental sins as a result of thepupils' ecological detective workand then they can experience forthemselves the power and finessewith which the economicallypotent polluters defend themselvesor get themselves out of a situa-tion. To date, only a few teachershave been prepared to place them-selves in the firing line.

Ecological education at schoolthis much has become clear

needs new contents and forms ofbeing conveyed. "Although knowl-edge is important," says UlrikeUnterbrunner of the Institute forthe Didactics of the NaturalSciences at Salzburg University"for there to be environmentallyaware behaviour and action, fur-

ther dimensions such as feelings,ability to act and values have to begiven their place." Because this isnot so much knowledge that can bemarked, but about perception,establishing contact, empathy oreven love, schools have to face upto their limits. "The example ofenvironmental education convinc-ingly shows that school as a pureteaching establishment that con-veys knowledge that can be learntby rote has served its purpose,"says the chairman of the BavarianAssociation of School Masters andMistresses Albin Dannhauser:"Schools have to get away from anarrow understanding of educationand really reinforce the philosophyof education."

Program 21 of the FederalGovernment-Lander

Commission

In order to implement thepast findings and experience

on

environmentaleducation in

schools in a nationvvideschool

curriculum, the FederalGovernment-Lander

Commission

for EducationalPlanning and the Promotion

of Research

commissioned BerlinFree University,

in cooperation with

around 200schools in fourteen

Federal L'ander, to compilea

concept that has beentried out in practice. The

ecological

model schools arenetworked in each Fenetwork

eral Land and, in

groups, areincorporated in nationwide

s.

The programmeis based on

Agenda 21 0 the 1992Rio de

Janeiro EnvironmentConference.

The goal 0 sustainable

developmentwith the interaction 0

environment, industry

and social concernsneeds school

education to be expanded

by cooperationwith local authorities,

business and associa

, tons. Educationally, theconcept initially

aims at integrating

the contentsof working for interdisciplinary

knowledge in the syllabusesin order to practise

interlinked

thinking and to developthe skill of solving complex

prob-

kerns. In the process,participatory

learning is at the fore in

which all groups in society areto be involved in the

process

of sustainable development.Because schools are

supposed

to participate in localAgenda 21 processes to

shape lO

communitiesand regions

sustainably, thisprinciple calls for

an expansion of themethods and forms of

learning in

schools.The sustain

abilitydebate

is to beintegrated

into

schoollife

With a thirdprinciple

underthe buzzWord

of

innovative is

Usingenergy-saving

models,life cycle

assessments

or by establishingsustainable

pupils'compa-

nies,ecological

structuresare to be

experiencedpractically.

The prograrnrneexpressly

emphasisesthe approach

of corn

munityeducation:

municipalities,

citiesand regions

the schoollearning

field forsustainable

developentThis

is not onlythinking

aboutopening

schoolsup to soc:iety,

but it is alsoa call for

the willingness

of theauthorities

and

companiesto open

themselves

up to schoolchildren.

Childrenand adolescents

shouldhelp to identify

and mea-

surethe local

indicatorsof sustainable

development

and

alsopublicW

discusstheir

visionsof the

future.For stage

II

of secondaryeducation

the intentionis to systernaticaN

relatesubjects

such aspolitics,

socialsciences,

geography

and thenatural

sciencesto each

otherand to give

pupils

the possibilityfor the

interdisoplinary

analysisand develop

mentof complex

alternatWes.

"Theaim is,"

accordingto

projectManager

Gerhardde Haan,

"to givechildren

and

teenagers

skills toshape

sustainablelearning

and economic

activityin the

21s, cente]."By the

year2004

the Federal

Government

and theLander

Will spendDM 25

Millionon

table

iggestproject

of its kind.Further

informationis avail

in the internetunder

wWwb1k21.de.

So what is the position of envi-ronmental education in schoolstoday?: new objectives and con-tents have been brought intoschools (e.g. the experience ofnature, ecological merchandisetechnology, knowledge about eco-logical energy systems, etc.). As aresult of the orientation of environ-mental education towards action,schools have started to open them-selves up and cooperate with insti-tutions outside schools. People

have started to gear the syllabusesto the new model on a broad basisand to develop new organisationalstructures. However these positiveconsequences that affect allschools (and not just model pro-jects) are faced with a large num-ber of inhibiting factors: the domi-nance of subject-related learningconcepts, the inability to loosenrigid structures and well-wornlearning methods, the lack offunds, the inadequate training atuniversities, the insufficient furthertraining and the continued exoticflair of environmental education.

Because it is so difficult toovercome the limits of an institu-tion like a school and, at the sametime, be a part of it, in recent yearsenvironmental teachers in schoolshave increasingly sought supportfrom environmental education out-side schools, whether through thepersonal help of trained environ-mental educationalists on the openmarket or through conceptualassistance developed for schools byenvironmental centres, researchinstitutes or individuals We willhear more about them later.

t /YO'VN'

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e&W 4-2000 Page 22 ;. 63

Environmental education outside schools

WHEN NATURE BECOMES ATEACHERThe Boom in Environmental Education Outside Schools

Along with the social significance that the environmentalmovement has gained since the 1970s, not only have manytraditional institutions undergone an ecological realignment,but increasing numbers of new initiatives for environmentaleducation have been created. To date this has meant that inGermany there is a confusing array of individuals, campaigngroups, youth welfare and social work facilities, charitableorganisations, consumer groups, companies, research facili-ties, church groups, museums, authorities, kindergartens,private schools and state environmental centres that all feelobliged to environmental education to a greater or lesserextent. But this very colourful mix of various approacheshas proved itself to be fertile ground for new methods andcreative ideas, from which environmental education inschools will also benefit in the years to come.

In the first nationwide study onthe status of environmentaleducation outside schools the

Berlin research group was facedwith an almost insoluble problem.Because the term "environmentaleducation" is neither clearlydefined, nor protected. Ultimately,it encompasses all efforts that havebeen made in society to raise gen-eral ecological knowledge and togradually contribute to a change inconsciousness. This can includethe children's scout group inEastern Friesland as much as thescientific analysis by the renownedWuppertal Institute forEnvironment and Development, acourse at the adult education cen-tres given by a dedicated biologistand ornithologist from Starnberg,the packed programme of theCologne environmental educationcentre or one of the many stateenvironmental centres throughoutGermany. The sheer number of ini-tiatives may give the impressionthat Germany is undergoing aheady revolution with regard toenvironmental education. But thefact that these initiatives oftencomprise a few dedic