Are environmentalists missing the fuller picture when it comes to their understanding of what environmental education is?

Environmental education is a far richer practice than it is commonly understood to be. Is it time we helped our environmentalist colleagues to see, and communicate, this?

Last week the RGS released an open access dialogue paper titled: 'What is the role of universities at a time of climate and ecological crisis?' It is fascinating paper, well worth a read - and a very refreshing format.

The paper is a write up and reflection on a conversation between James Dyke and George Monbiot held at University of Exeter last year.

Unintentionally, I think, it flagged up what seems to be a blind spot many environmentalists have when it comes to environmental education - they're possibly not seeing the fuller picture (or if they are, they are struggling to share or articulate it)*.

A lot of what is discussed in the paper will resonate with those working in the university sector, but it has relevance to those working in, or with, secondary schools on sustainability too - especially in relation to the societal purpose of education .

What I found most interesting was George's answer to James' first question. He was asked this:

"...given the scale of the challenge that we've got, what do young people need to know about this thing that we call the climate and ecological crisis? What kind of things should they be learning at university?"

You can read the answer in full in section two of the paper, but in summary, George said things like 'The Earth system is under assault' and 'this is the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced'; the implication being that students should know about these things. It's hard to disagree, though there are many ways and means of helping students to grasp these - some better than others (for the record, James and George are both experts in communicating on the causes and extent of the climate and nature crisis - George's most recent book , on neoliberalism, is a great resource for any environmental educator).

George then said this:

We need the collective genius of humanity deployed against it and that doesn't mean just one kind of person like activists who sit in the road, essential as those people are and that is a really crucial role. For every activist who sits in the road you need 100 people behind them doing the legal work, doing the accountancy, doing the media work, doing the administrative work, all the other functions that you tend not to see. And to make sense of it you need the scientists explaining what we're seeing, explaining what is happening, and then you need the journalists turning what the scientists are saying into a recognisable language.

Nothing controversial here, but a point often missed by those who like to put 'environmentalists' and 'green skills' into a neat little box - 'solar panel installer' is not the only 'green' job.

A little while back, however, George did stir up some controversy in relation to this - it comes when extending his logic about the need for 'collective genius' to the education system and schools. In January 2023, he argued via Twitter against the centralised imposition of a National Curriculum. Ben Ballin picked up on this at the time in an excellent piece for the National Association for Environmental Education UK .

As Ben summarised, George's thread 'asserted that any attempt at providing an ‘omniscient’ national curriculum risks leading to “a lack of diversity in our thinking”, which in turn makes us less capable at addressing humanity’s many, varied and interconnected crises.'

The point being made here is that just as biodiversity breeds resilience in the natural world, diversity in education breeds societal resilience because society as a whole then has a wider range of specialists to call on to solve problems and drive progress (however defined).

All of which I agree with, hence the case we made at Global Action Plan in our 'Environmentalism in a time between education worlds' essay collection for a 'Three thirds curriculum' which would create greater diversity by devolving power over the curriculum to the local and hyper-local level (as complements to a core national curriculum).

What such a system wouldn't do, however, is entitle young people to the opportunity to gain a universally guaranteed body of knowledge, or set of skills. Hence the controversy that arises around arguments against and in favour of the decentralising of control over the education system - and the national curriculum (very topical right now ).

Going back to the conversation between James and George. Being asked 'what kinds of things [students] should be learning at university?' is the sort of question I dream of being asked. It is a chance to champion the merits/potential of environmental education (defined in a fuller sense). I.e. the way it does far more (when done well) than simply transfer knowledge from expert to learner, or train people up in 'green skills'.

Environmental education can be truly transformative, it can bring about deep change in individuals - changing the way they see the world, themselves, other people, and other species. It has an impact on our values, worldviews, perceptions, ideologies, life goals, and our sense of who we are and what we're capable of and responsible for. Environmental education has huge potential as tool for driving societal change.

In the words of Prof. Stephen Sterling , it is:

• reflexive
• experiential
• inquiring
• experimental
• participative
• iterative
• experimental
• participative
• iterative
• real-world
• action-orientated

It develops competences and dispositions like these (listed by Sir Ken Robinson is in posthumous book 'Imagine if...' ):

• Curiosity
• Creativity
• Criticism
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Compassion
• Composure
• Citizenship

This is why, at Global Action Plan , we have adopted Peter Sutoris ' 'Grasp, Care, Imagine, Communicate, Act' cycle - we want all young people who we interact with to improve in all these areas as a result of their time with us, we don't just want to teach them about environmental issues [see our Generation Action strategy for more].

The key thing to recognise here is that not all education FOR sustainability, needs to be ABOUT sustainability - which means many many different educators can contribute to it (and some already are, without probably realising that they are). Ultimately all education is education that is either for, or against, sustainability; more of it needs to be in the 'for' category (there's nuance to this though too, see Bob Jickling , who I wrote about here in GAP's recent essay collection).

These broader definitions of what environmental education is, need to be communicated by environmental educators to our fellow environmentalists a lot more. James and George's paper does respond to this need. In the reflective part of the paper, they say this:

The reason individuals and wider societies have not effectively responded to climate change is not because of a lack of knowledge about climate change. It is now widely recognised that information deficit model approaches can be of limited utility when attempting to produce behaviour change (Suldovsky,?2017 ). This can also include vital adaptation responses that could reduce vulnerability to current and future environmental change (van Valkengoed & Steg,?2019 ). Given how profoundly embedded fossil fuels are within industrialised nations, it should come as no surprise that merely producing more scientific knowledge about the dangers of (anthropogenic) climate change has little impact on human behaviour. If universities are to fully realise their role as key institutions of societal change for sustainability transformations, then they must consider the full spectrum of human knowledge, including a deep understanding of human value systems and how cultural and societal norms can be shifted.

What they're saying here is that embedding climate and sustainability education into the curricula at university level (and the same applies at school level) isn't a case of simply including content about climate and nature in courses about other things. It is not that this isn't worth doing and not valuable, when done well. It is just that it is insufficient. At least two more things need to happen at our universities:

1. An interrogation and reset of the sorts of values, ideologies, and worldviews that are being activated and reinforced by universities and university educators. This is picked up on throughout the paper as James and George discuss how wedded academia has become to the corporate world as a result of how it is funded and financed. The values, ideologies, and worldviews of the corporate world are being actively promoted at many of our universities. This reinforces them strongly, and locks them in in the hearts and minds of young adults. This is a huge barrier to progress on the Earth crisis, because these values, ideologies, worldviews, differ - and often oppose - those that are needed if it is a climate resilient, sustainable world we want.
2. The promotion of educations that develop a student's sense that they are able to (and have permission to) shape the world, rather than be shaped by it. To use Noah Sobe's language , this is to say that rather than learning about the climate crisis and developing 'adaptive reactivity' in the face of uncertainty - a quite passive position, students can develop 'agentic world-making' powers through environmental education so that they deal with uncertainty in a more active way.

So, when asked 'what kind of things should students learn at university?' the answer isn't simply: what the climate emergency is, what greenhouse gases are and how wind turbines work, etc, etc. That's too narrow, and arguably dangerous because, when this environmental knowledge is grounded in a set of consumer capitalist corporate values, ideologies and worldviews, it steers society down 'green capitalist' or 'green growth' pathways (which are - to say the least - highly precarious paths to choose).

Students should be learning how the values, ideologies and worldviews that dominate in today's societies came to dominate, how they are linked to the climate and nature crisis, and how they are not necessarily fixed (this is maybe not 'the end of history' ). They should also be learning (and experiencing) alternative values, ideologies, and worldviews, and exploring how the embrace of some alternatives might help society to find a more realisable pathway to a climate resilient, nature restorative, and sustainable future. I.e. grounding their education about the climate and nature crisis in a different cultural soup.

Yes, this would be a huge paradigm shift. Yes, it butts up against the way universities and academia are funded. But, if we remain trapped in narrow definitions of environmental and sustainability education, we are never going to deliver the rich versions of environmental education that we need our future activists, accountants, economists, politicians, engineers, scientists, health professionals, entrepreneurs, journalists, etc, etc, to experience.

What's my call to action?

1. Challenge narrow definitions of environmental education,
2. Spread the word about what environmental education - in its fullest sense,

Doing the above will help more people (environmentalists or not) to see the full value and potential of environmental education as a tool for change.

Footnote: Posted with upmost respect to James Dyke and George Monbiot who are both fantastic educators, and have both taught me and inspired me to act in a multitude of ways.

*I've updated the title of this article to use the word 'fuller' rather than 'fullest' and made similar changes to the main text. Thanks go to Charlotte Hankin for her feedback, she made the excellent point that a "full" picture doesn't exist, and that all education should be environmental education. I agree wholeheartedly. You can read more of her excellent thoughts in the comments below.