Environmental and Sustainability Education

Introduction

Learning about the environment by spending time in nature predates any contemporary concept of outdoor education. Indeed, much of education in general, particularly in indigenous cultures and in agricultural communities would have taken place outdoors in the natural world long before education was formalized through schools and schooling. The purpose of such environmental learning would mainly have been (and continues to be in some contexts) to understand how to “exploit” the natural world opportunistically for food and other resources, to “work with” the seasons and weather, and to support agriculture. Necessity was (and for some still is) the driver, and a predominantly experiential learning approach, the process.

Learning “about” the environment as an academic purpose is a much more recent endeavor, initially resulting from increasing interest in natural history as an informal pursuit, through to the formalization of the core disciplines within the earth and ecological...