The Need for Environment Literacy

Ian Lowe argues that our serious environmental problems are the result of the collective impacts of our lifestyle choices. Since everyone now makes decisions that have environmental effects, we should try to ensure that everyone understands those effects.

A goal of universal environmental literacy will have significant implications for both the content and process of formal education. In terms of content, basic knowledge needs to be supplemented by an understanding of complex natural systems and a respect for other knowings. In terms of process, we should be moving away from the model of education which transmits a body of knowledge, toward an approach which sees formal education as the first step in life-long learning. That implies an explicit commitment to an inter-disciplinary problem-oriented approach which recognises the imperfections and embedded values of current knowledge. Aiming at environmental literacy is a desirable goal in itself, but it is also part of the change necessary to provide and appropriate educational preparation for the twenty-first century.