Objectives of 
environmental education

          The objectives of environmental education are part of the general objectives of education which have been defined variously by different thinkers, classificts, humanists and scientists. Still most of them seem to agree with Herbert Spencer that education should prepare for complete living, which does not mean living in the material sense merely but in the widest sense. That is, an educated person should know how to lead a healthful life, how to prevent oneself from sickness, general debility, premature descrpitude, and in short, how to treat the body; in what way to develop the intellect and to treat the mind; how to prepare for earning a living and to secure the necessaries and comforts of life; how to rear and discipline offsprings; how to maintain proper social and political relations; how to spend leisure time so as to gratify tastes and feelings; and in what way to use talent for the greatest advantage of the self as well as of others. For the accomplishment of most of these objectives, environmental education is an important medium. This is the reason why Zakir Husain wanted environment and productive work to be used as centre of learning. He said that there are three centres of correlation in Gandhiji's 3 - basic education: natural environment, social environment and craft work. These centres should be used to draw out the best in child and man.

          Environmental education is indeed very important of child and adult for self-fulfilment and social development. It helps in the maintenance of life and health, in selfpreservation and in the preservation of human race. It helps understand differentfood chainsand the ecologicalbalance in nature. It helps understand and appreciate how environment is used for makinga living and forpromoting material culture. It helps appreciate different social institutions and regulate relationship, in primary groups like family and secondary and tertiary groups like place of work, political institutions, etc. It helps in appreciating and enjoying nature and society. It stimulates concern for changing environment in a systematic manner for the maximum long-run as well as the immediate welfare of mankind. It directs attention towards the problem of population explosion, exhaustion of natural resources and the pollution of environment and sheds light on the methods of solvingthese problems. Many other benefits of teaching environmental education can also be listed, as for example, the contentment and happiness one gets by looking at different gifts of nature or some other objects of environment, for instance, some persons may become very happy on seeing flowers. Some others may derive immense pleasure in reading about these things and in picturing mentally their images. This applies equally to social environment. A visit to a riot-torn area, or to one hit by a cyclone, or to one inhabited by unskilled workers increase, our sensibilities and susceptibilities towards unfortunate and less-privileged class of homosapiens.

          These objectives of environmental education can be subsumed in three domains discussed by Bloom in his book. "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives"; cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The cognitive domain includes those objectives which deal with the recall or recognition of knowledge and development of intellectual skills and bailities, which means, it includes the following behaviours: remembering; problem-solving; concept formation and to a limited extent, creative thinking. In other words, this area includes all conscious mental processes from ordinary recall orrecognitionto higher ones, like solving a problem which involves abstract thinking or use of notations, or which relates to something so infinitesimal that it cannot be seen through even a very powerful microscope, like the orbitals of carbon atom. The affective domain includes the objectives that describe changes in interest, attitudes and values and the development of appreciations and adjustment. This area coverstheentire continum from ordinary attention to an object to deep own existence, involvement such as that of Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar or Subhash Chandra Bose in the Indian freedom struggle, involvement in the service of the suffering masses, involvement which is reflected in the indomitable spirit of those who conquer mountains tame rivers who scud in space or stay at the bottom of the sea for days together. It also includes contrary behaviour, that is, the aversion, antipathy or fear one shows for certain objects. The psychomotor domain covers the manipulative or motor-skill area. This area includes neuromuscular coordinations found in handwriting, speech-making, performing physical exercises, dancing, doing yoga, winding a screw, using a saw and in doing a lot of the things which are required to be done under socially useful productive work and in vocational and technical courses.

          The cognitive domain has been divided by Bloom into the following categories:

1. Knowledge, 

2. Comprehension, 

3. Application, 

4. Analysis, 

5. Synthesis 

6. Evaluation

          Knowledge has further been divided in knowledge of specifics (namely specific terminology and specific facts), knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics (namely, forms and conventions of the major types of work, e.g. verse, plays, scientific papers; forms and usage in speech and writing; structures in English language; style of speech, etc; trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria by which facts, principles and opinions and recreational activities are judged; methods and techniques of conducting inquiry); and knowledge of the intervals and abstractions in a field (i.e. principles and generalisation; theories and structures). Comprehension has been divided into translation (skill and ability to translate material into simple understandable language, and the ability to understand non-literary statements, metaphors, symbolism, irony, exaggeration), interpretation and extrapolation. Application means application of ideas, principles and theories, and the ability to predict the effect of change in a contributing variable on the phenomenon. Analysis means analysis of relationship and analysis of organisational principles. Synthesis means production of unique communication, preparation of plan or derivation of a set of abstract relations. Evaluation means judgements in terms of external criteria.

          Now we can list the objectives of environmental education in all the three domains-cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The objectives in the cognitive domain are:

1. To help acquire knowledge of the immediate environment.

2. To help acquire knowledge of the environment beyond the immediate environment including distant environment.

3. To help understand the biotic and abiotic environment.

4. To help understand the effect of unchecked population growth or unplanned resource utilisation on the world of tomorrow.

5. To examine trends in the growth of population and interpret them for the socio-economic development of the country.

6. To evaluate the utilisation of physical and human resources and suggest remedial measures.

7. To environmental help diagnose pollution the and different to suggest causes remedial of measures.

8. To help diagnose the cause of social tensions and to suggest methods for avoiding them.

          Besides the foregoing objectives, the following skills and abilities also fall in the cognitive domain; 

1. To help develop observational skills and notice details usually not seen by an untrained eye.

2. To help develop skills required for making discriminations in form, shape, sound, touch habits and habitats.

3. To help develop ability to draw unbiased inferences and conclusions.

4.To help develop ability to make meaningful suggestions.

          We can now list the affective objectives of environmental education.

1, To help acquire interest in the flora and fauna of the near and also distant environment.

2, To help evince interest in the people and problems of the community and society.

3, To religions show and tolerance cultures towards different castes, races,

4, To appreciate the gifts of nature.

5, To whole love the neighbours and value mankind as a whole.

6, To value equality, liberty, fraternity, truth and justice.

7. To respect the national boundaries of all countries.

8. To value the cleanliness and purity of our environment.

          Environmental education also fulfils some objectives of the psychomotor domain as are achieved through participation in environmental activities, excursions and camping programmes. Some of these objectives are listed below: 

1, To participate in afforestation programmes.

2, To participate in programmes aimed at minimising air, water and noise pollution. 

3, To participate in programmes aimed at preventing soil erosion.

4, To participate in programmes aimed at eliminating food contamination and adulteration.

5, To participate in cleaning neighbourhood.

6, To participate in urban and rural planning and execution programmes, such as, installation of gobar gas plants, solar heaters, etc.

          The aforesaid objectives have been more or less delineated by the UNESCO's Tbilsi Conference also, though in a nutshell are quoted as below:

(a) The goals of environmental education are:

* "to foster a clear awareness of, and concern about, economic, social, political and ecological interdependence in urban and rural areas;

* to provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills a needed to protect and improve the environment:

* to create new patterns of behaviour of individuals, groups and society as a whole towards the environment.

(b) The objectives of environmental education are categorised as follows:

Awareness: to help social groups and individuals acquire an awarenessof andsensitivity to the total environment and its alliedproblems.

Knowledge: to help social groups and individuals gain a variety of experiences and acquire a basic understanding of the environment and its associated problems.

Attitudes: to help social groups and individuals acquire a set of values and feelings of concern for the environment and the motivation for actively participating in environmental improvement and protection.

Skills: to help social groups and individuals acquire the skills for identifying and solving environmental problems.

Participation: to provide social groups and individuals with an opportunity to be actively involved at all levels in working towards the resolution of environmental problems.

          In conclusion, comprehension of the objectives of environmental education is very essential for the successful formulation, implementation and evaluation of its programme.However, these objectives can only be achieved and understood properly, if we know what our environment is, what is contained init.

          The reason why we should choose a curriculum of environmental education is that we are born and brought up in an environment; weekeout oflivingin an environment;andwe breathe out our last, that too in an environment. Thus, from conception to cremation, we live in some or the other environment, and use it for meeting all our needs, comfortsand luxuries. We should,therefore, understand our environment and know how to use it for our individual well being and for the welfare of the society and the future generations. Thus environmental education is more functional than the disciplines we have been studying so far.

          Indeed disciplines such as Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, Botany, Geography, History, Economics, etc. should all be the means to promotetheimmediate and future welfareof mankind but they should not be an end in themselves. But is not actually so, as we teach these subjects in most schools to a very great extent for their own sake. Children learn them, memorise the facts about them, without being able tocomprehend as to how they would use them later in their life. For instance they learn the Mathematical definitions, memorise long structural and molecular formula, learn how complicated compounds are prepared in the laboratory, etc. but they do not know the namesof thetreesoftheir neighbourhood, the trees they should grow in the school to beautify their campus, the trees they should grow for fuel and timber, the trees they should plant along boundary walls, the structure and potential of employment in their neighbourhood, the cottage and small scale and large scale industries that can be started in their locality, the institutions where from and the purposes for which they can take loan, etc.

          Thus discipline approach in science and social sciences is not functional at school and even college level. It merely prepares students for receiving higher education. It is, therefore, meaningless for majority of the students who drop our before or after completing the primary classes, or

discontinue their education in the middle or high school. It doesnot evensharpen their thinking andreasoningability, because most of the books available in the market lay emphasis on rote memory. A man named Wasserkopf addressing the principal of the school where he had studied, said, "As aformer pupil of this schoolI wantyoutorefund the tuition fee which was paid you for my education eighteen years ago." The principal asked him, "Why do you want it back?" He replied, "Because I didn't get my money's worth, that'swhy.This certificatesaysthatIgot an education. Well, I didn't. I didn't learn anything .... You took my money, and you taught me nothing. Now I'm nog ood for anything and I can't do the things I should have learned in school. I was given instruction here in exchange for money so that I might be able to do something, but I can't do anything." Though these lines have been written jokingly and the play is not meant to prove the uselessness of the instruction that is given in schools, yet it does it. It proves that the teachings of in schools is not related to life and environment. This explains the need answers the "Why" of the curriculum of environmental education.

             The next question is about the objectives of environmental education, for it is upon the objectives that the contents of the curriculum would depend. These objectives can obviously be achieved by following either of the two alternatives:

(1) By treating environmental education as an approach and teaching it as a part of Science, Social Studies, Languages, and other subjects; 

                             or 

(2) By treating it as a separate subject.

          Alternative 1 is no doubt very lofty and laudable but it does not provide environmental education that structure

which is required for sequential development of knowledge and for meeting the needs of a spiral curriculum. As against this, Alternative 2 provides fora definite shape and structure to the subject of environmental education but it deprives it of its holistic character which is germane to Alternative 1. Alternative 2 has been assigned the name, Infused Model in the Discussion Guide for UNESCO Training Workshops on Environmental Education published in 1980. This model is also called inter-disciplinary model, for it is intended to draw out units from different discipliners and to put them into one namely environmental education. The other model is based on Alternative 1 and is called infusion model in which environmental education will be taught as a part of various subjects.

Objectives of Environmental Education summary