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Preface

Since 1984 HM Inspectorate has published a number of Curriculum Matters papers designed to stimulate discussion about the curriculum as a whole and its component parts. In some cases readers' responses to these papers have also been published. The details of the series are shown at the end of this publication.

Environmental education from 5 to 16 is the thirteenth in the series. It sets out a framework for schools in formulating their policies and practices in environmental education. The paper is addressed to heads and teachers, school governors, local education authority (LEA) members and officers, parents, employers and the wider community outside the school. It discusses ways of fostering environmental education; it establishes objectives; it identifies criteria for the selection of content; and it considers planning, styles of teaching and learning and the assessment of pupils.

Matters to do with our environment are very much in the air at present. In particular, in May 1988 the Council of Education Ministers of the European Community agreed 'on the need to take concrete steps for the promotion of environmental education ... throughout the Community' and adopted a Resolution on Environmental Education to that end. Consequently this publication seems particularly apposite intended as it is to help LEAs and schools consider how best to organise and carry out environmental education.

Like the earlier publications in the Curriculum Matters series, this paper is intended to stimulate professional discussion and to contribute to the debate about national agreement on the objectives and content of the school curriculum that is taking place as a consequence of the implementation of the National Curriculum set out in the Education Reform Act 1988.

The National Curriculum Council has the task of taking forward the work of individual subject working groups, through consultation with the education service and others. It has also been asked by the Secretary of State to consider and advise him by 31 March 1989 on 'those cross-curricular issues which should be included in the curriculum of maintained schools ... and the extent to which those issues can be included in attainment targets and programmes of study for the core and other foundation subjects'. Environmental education is one such cross-curricular issue.

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This document should be read as a whole, since all sections are interrelated.

If you have any comments on this paper please send them to HM Inspector (Environmental Education), Department of Education and Science, York Road, London SE1 7PH by 31 May 1989.

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Environmental education:
Its scope and purpose

1. From an early age children are curious about the people, places, animals, plants and materials around them. They learn about their environment through their own first-hand experience, from their parents, through the media and from a variety of other sources. Schools have a role in helping their pupils make sense of these experiences and in developing their knowledge and understanding of the physical and human processes which interact to shape the environment. Schools can also help to foster a reasoned and sensitive concern for the quality of the environment and for the management of the earth's resources. These are, of course, matters of increasing social concern.

2. The Curriculum from 5 to 16: Curriculum Matters 2 suggested that environmental education forms one of the essential issues to be addressed in the curriculum of schools. It rarely appears as a subject on the school timetable; nor does this paper argue it necessarily should. But the understanding of processes and issues which it seeks to promote ought not to be left to chance or to individual initiative. This paper tries to identify its distinctive contribution to pupils' learning, to set out objectives and to outline planning and teaching approaches.

3. In exploring and explaining inter-relationships in the environment, environmental education draws on, and contributes to, the concepts, skills and knowledge underpinning a range of subjects or areas of learning and experience. Particularly through fieldwork, it enriches children's understanding by providing contexts in which it can be developed or applied at first hand.

4. Environmental education has four overlapping components:

(a) curiosity and awareness about the environment;

(b) knowledge and understanding;

(c) skills;

(d) informed concern.

Curiosity and awareness

5. Developing awareness of the environment means building on and reinforcing pupils' curiosity about the natural and man-made

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world. Awareness and curiosity take different forms: recognition of beauty in a stretch of countryside; the appreciation of line and proportion in buildings; or the wish to know more about the world's natural resources. An essential element common to all these examples is the desire to understand why things are as they are and what may be needed to maintain or, where necessary, to change them.

Knowledge and understanding

6. As pupils grow older they should come to appreciate how people and other living things, materials and places are inter-related, and to acquire a sense of responsibility for aspects of the environment, especially those close to them. The knowledge and concepts which will help them develop this understanding are present in part in a number of subjects and cross-curricular studies. When pupils study the topic of water, for example, geography can contribute to the understanding of land forms, drainage basins and the nature of water-courses and can help them appreciate how the presence of water has affected patterns of settlement over time. The sciences can deal with water purity and knowledge of how this is affected by activities such as the use of chemicals in agriculture and industry; technology and design can help pupils understand the man-made environment such as buildings, sluices, weirs, bridges and sewage works, and consider how design and implementation draw on natural patterns.

Skills

7. To investigate particular environments and to be able to make informed judgements about them, pupils need to develop a range of skills. Mapping and map-reading, along with observation and description of locations, are needed to interpret the features of a given area; historical evidence helps to establish the background and the changes which have occurred over time; quantification and the interpretation of statistical data are needed as well as skills associated with economics and science; understanding and reconciling conflicting points of view draw on political competence. Linguistic competence is necessary to enable pupils to reflect, to present coherent arguments and to recognise the strength or weakness of others' rhetoric. Non-verbal, graphical and artistic forms of expression offer other means of analysis and communication. It is also possible through environmental education to develop and practise social skills, for example the ability to work in groups and to participate constructively in the

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activities of community groups. Environmental education serves as one of several means of providing a focus for the application of knowledge, skills and understanding drawn from other subject areas.

8. Fieldwork in country and city is an essential part of environmental education. Often, this is enhanced by an element of adventure and may involve some physical challenge in which first-hand knowledge of the environment is essential: for example the stability and fragility of rocks, the behaviour of the sea, or sudden changes in weather.

Informed concern

9. Environmental issues are of genuine personal concern to many pupils and can act as a useful means of exploring moral, social and political values. Pupils should be equipped to bring to the study of controversial issues - environmental and others - a respect for evidence, an understanding of others' concerns, and a growing realisation that choices are rarely clear-cut. The siting of roads, railways or power stations, the closing down of old industry and the opening of new, the supply and treatment of water, all may raise intense debate; issues such as these - which may not always be controversial - require the application of understanding. Pupils may be encouraged to engage in activities in which the ideas for change and improvement can be tested. This may take the form of practical work in the school grounds; conservation work outside school; writing to the local council about a local issue; raising money to alleviate the effects of natural disasters in other parts of the world. Pupils may come to form definite views about such matters as the use of pesticides and fertilisers or nuclear energy and may wish to make these known in some way. If they are led to consider different points of view they are, in the context of the school community, being introduced to the political process and are showing social responsibility. To avoid bias and indoctrination it is necessary for young people to acquire an informed and critical understanding of all the views held about such issues and an appreciation of how actions and decisions now and later affect the environment.

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on how teachers plan experiences to enable pupils to exploit their perceptions and ideas. As children progress through school, their environmental experience should widen and their interpretation of evidence become more coherent as they are helped to make use of knowledge and skills exemplified across the curriculum. Activities such as urban and rural studies related to local and more distant environments, scientific and technological investigations and contact with an increasing number of lay and professional people will all add to their experience.

11. They should also come to realise that people are not simply at the mercy of impersonal forces and that, throughout history, they have often been - and are still - driven and enthused by necessity, belief or the vision of a better life; have crossed seas, drained swamps and cleared wildernesses, built cities and developed the rule of law, irrigated deserts and put man on the moon. While they should be aware of the less desirable consequences of these actions they should be excited by human endeavour and skill as well as have respect for the forces and conditions of the natural world. They should begin to grasp the complexity of the interrelationship between mankind and the environment.

Objectives at age 11

12. However the curriculum is organised the programme of study in the primary school should enable pupils to:

• gain, at first hand, knowledge of their local environment, for example, its weather, surface features and the human influences upon it in the form of buildings, roads, etc;
• know of the use of materials and energy in the environment;
• compare the main features of their local environment with others they have visited, and, as far as possible, with more distant places;
• relate the present to the past environment;
• gain some understanding of the life-cycle of animals and plants and the way these interact with one another and influence the environment;
• begin to understand how decisions are made about environmental issues, including the means through which people express their views and the power they have to influence and make decisions.

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• apply to environmental matters their developing skills as in:
  (a) making careful observations, looking for relationships, developing and testing hypotheses, making inferences and predicting consequences;
  (b) raising questions and designing investigations and enquiries;
  (c) using a variety of sources of information and interpreting the information gained;
  (d) communicating their findings in a variety of ways;
• become aware of how they and other people cause changes in the environment and therefore have some responsibility for it;
• develop clear views about what they value in the local environment and others they have visited and how, where necessary, changes might be brought about;
• begin to appreciate that within any area, particularly the locality of the school, there are people with different beliefs, values and attitudes which influence the way they interact with others and with the environment;
• develop an understanding of the interdependence of people and their environment;
• begin to develop a commitment to the informed care and improvement of their environment and that of others.

13. Between the ages of 11 and 16 pupils' environmental experience should widen and lead to an increase in understanding through the study of a range of core and foundation subjects supported by cross-curricular activity such as fieldwork. Pupils should also become more able to visualise past and present environments and appreciate the ways in which people of different cultures interact with their surroundings.

14. By the age of 16 pupils should be able to:

• appreciate the nature of the world's resource base and its limits;

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• be able to justify their views, attitudes and decisions on the basis of informed, reasoned argument;
• gain a basic knowledge of ecological relationships and principles and of the effects of physical processes on the environment;
• have some understanding of the economic, technological and social factors and of the political processes affecting the planning and use of the environment;
• gain some insight into other people's environments, life-styles, predicaments, values and attitudes;
• appreciate the relationship between economic factors such as costs and prices and environmental decisions;
• refine and apply their general skills in:
  (a) making and ordering accurate observations;
  (b) developing and testing hypotheses, including the proper consideration of variables;
  (c) defining questions for investigation and carrying out such enquiries carefully and self-critically;
  (d) obtaining information from a variety of sources and interpreting such data to arrive at suitably warranted generalisations or conclusions;
  (e) communicating their findings, ideas and feelings about environmental topics in a variety of ways;
• develop a critical appreciation of their surroundings;
• develop a commitment to the care and improvement of their own environment and that of others;
• be aware of the interdependence of communities and nations and some of the environmental consequences of that interdependence;
• be aware that the current state of the environment depends on past decisions and actions and that its future depends significantly on contemporary actions and decisions including, in some measure, their own.

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Criteria for the selection of content

15. The wide range of knowledge which forms the basis of environmental education and the fact that much of it resides in other areas of the curriculum means that the body of content needs careful selection and planning if pupils are to achieve a balanced understanding of the environment. The following criteria are suggested for the choice of content across the curriculum.

(a) By the time they leave school all pupils should have studied, in different ways, environments on local, national and world scales.

(b) Content should be chosen to allow balanced development of understanding about:

• people and their activities;
• places and conditions;
• plants and animals;
• materials and resources, including energy.

• similarities and differences and the reasons for them;
• change and development;
• the human and non-human factors influencing change such as need, community considerations and cost;
• the inter-relationship of the various factors such as ecology, climate, population, beliefs and ideas.

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The planning of environmental education

16. If education for and about the environment is to make a distinctive contribution to the total curriculum that pupils receive, careful planning is essential. As such education is usually mediated through various individual subjects or topics, it is important that teachers review periodically the activities undertaken in different year groups across the primary and secondary curriculum and, where necessary, undertake further consultation and planning to ensure coherent cross-curricular development. Those with responsibility for subjects or areas of the curriculum might be asked to state how far the objectives and content of their schemes of work contribute, or might contribute, to developing pupils' environmental understanding. This could be done, for example, by using a grid which lists environmental issues or topics alongside the contribution of individual subjects. Such reviews may reveal overlaps, gaps or inconsistencies which can be remedied. A range of links between environmental education and other areas of the curriculum is suggested in Appendix 1.

17. Both subject-based and topic-based approaches can contribute to achieving the aims and objectives of environmental education. At the primary stage children should engage in thematic work so that they come to appreciate inter-relationships within the environment; equally they need to learn some of the specific skills, concepts and subject matter associated with areas of study such as history, geography and science. These might sometimes be taught in the context of separate subjects, and applied to broadly based environmental topics. In the first three years of secondary education environmental work may be pursued through the study of separate subjects provided that adequate links are made between these and environmental issues and that the pupils have the chance to study the environment at first hand. Alternatively, subjects may be drawn together in composite or integrated courses which focus on the environment as one of a number of important areas or themes for study. In the fourth and fifth years of secondary education pupils often have very different programmes of study as a result of option schemes. Such variation makes it difficult to ensure that all pupils have adequate experience of environmental education.

18. In the primary school one teacher should take a lead in working with colleagues to arrive at an agreed view of aims and

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objectives and at a scheme of work which gives guidance on attainment targets to be pursued and the topics to be studied and environments to be explored through the different stages of the school. Schemes of work should help to ensure that objectives are achieved, whatever the form of curriculum organisation used. Co-ordination should include the organising of resources, drawing on people outside school with particular experience or expertise to contribute; and deciding on the range of local and distant environments to be included in studies. Co-ordinators should give advice on teaching approaches and on assessment, preferably by working alongside other class teachers from time to time. Advice on detailed planning depends on the particular focus of each study and the specific expertise of the class teacher or the staff group responsible who work with the children away from the school. The planning needs to be modified as work proceeds and as use is made of opportunities as they arise: for example the sudden pollution of a stream near a school may, quite properly, become the focus of the children's enquiries for a time.

19. In planning and organising environmental work all teachers, helped by the co-ordinator, need to consider:

• whether the topic or issue has been tackled before, in some form or other, by their pupils, and how the work builds on what has gone before;
• whether it is relevant, of interest and of value to children;
• the main objectives in studying the topic or issue;
• how its study further develops pupils' understanding, skills and ability to conduct an enquiry and to draw warrantable conclusions from it;
• the balance of direct and indirect experience and of ideas, skills and areas of knowledge;
• the differentiation of activities and experience for particular children;
• the points at which and the degree to which children should be developing their own lines of enquiry or areas of interest;
• at what stages the children should work individually, in groups or as a class;

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• the resources needed;
• how the work each child undertakes is to be recorded and what use should be made of these records;
• how the learning undertaken by the children is to be evaluated.

20. In secondary schools teachers co-ordinating the work need to encourage involvement in environmental education on the part of separate subject departments and individual teachers. Co-ordinators should relate objectives outlined in subject schemes of work based on attainment targets and programmes of study to environmental issues and suggest how these might be complemented by objectives more specifically related to environmental education. They should be responsible for seeing that the school has the necessary resources, including outside expertise, to tackle environmental issues. They should also playa major part in helping formulate policies about the ways in which work outside the school, including residential experience, can be planned and implemented progressively through the secondary years.

2l. In a secondary school timetabling arrangements should be flexible enough to allow pupils, on occasion, to work with a number of teachers on an environmental theme and to enable some of these activities to take place over an extended period of time. Schools might arrange for such themes as energy, resource use or famine to feature in every class in a variety of subjects over a period of time; or, very occasionally, they might suspend a year group's normal timetable for up to a week and devote the time to environmental education, perhaps through fieldwork. Whatever timetable arrangements are employed, it is important that, over a period of terms or years rather than weeks, a balanced programme of activities in environmental education is provided for secondary pupils. It may be that a specific time can be set aside for environmental education in order to co-ordinate the contributions of different subjects; this could occur weekly or less frequently. At its simplest this could take the form of timetabling in such a way that different specialist teachers could, if they felt it necessary, work together with pupils in the same year group. Or there may be other times when a greater range of expertise is required and special arrangements can be made.

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Teaching and learning approaches

22. If their awareness, understanding and skills are to be developed, pupils will benefit from first-hand experience of a range of environments, beginning with the school itself, its grounds and its immediate locality and progressing to work in more distant settings, through, for example, the use of field study centres, exchanges with other schools and visits abroad. Such experience needs to be complemented increasingly by information gained across the curriculum through sources such as films, photographs, audio-tapes, correspondence, books and maps.

23. Teachers should take into account, and seek to build on, children's perceptions and questions. Before starting particular enquiries pupils should be given opportunities to explore aspects of the environment with a view to framing questions which will focus their work. They should be encouraged to make their own observations and to comment on those of others but they will also need their attention drawn to important features which they might otherwise ignore. There may be occasions when individual pupils are able to take a leading role for part of the work because of their particular knowledge or experience. Through discussion pupils should be encouraged not only to develop their intellectual curiosity and the types of work which they might undertake but also to express their feelings as a result of their personal experiences, for example following their first night walk or 'watch' at a field study centre.

24. Above all, teachers should help pupils plan and carry out investigations by providing a structure which avoids over-prescription or insufficient guidance. As part of the structure pupils should:

(a) define clearly their area of study, the relationships to be explored and, where necessary, the hypotheses to be tested;

(b) determine the techniques and resources required for their investigation;

(c) list the sources of data to be drawn upon, e.g. documents, people with particular experience or expertise;

(d) draw up a provisional timetable;

(e) consider the ways in which their findings might be presented.

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Teachers can help direct children's learning in various ways: by acting as discussion leaders, evaluators and, particularly, as more knowledgeable and experienced learners who do not have all the answers but know how best to proceed.

25. Study of the environment should give children opportunities to collect and analyse different kinds of data - biological, historical, geographical, economic, demographic and other. For example, a group of older primary children or young secondary pupils might undertake a village study where they analyse the types of housing, the age-structure of the population, the occupation of inhabitants and other data, including the range of impressions they have formed themselves as visitors. Pupils should also have the chance to synthesise their findings by bringing together the work of different groups within the class, seeking inter-relationships within the issues raised in their study. This may involve presenting the results of their investigations to fellow pupils or to those living in the areas being studied.

26. In the light of their knowledge of children's previous experience and abilities teachers have to make judgements about the scope of the work, the objectives to be pursued and the timescale involved. It may be necessary to limit the complexity of the environment to be studied - a single tree, house or field may be sufficient for some young children, while with more experience they could study a street, a farm or a whole village. The timescale can also be varied from enquiries lasting a few hours to longer-term ones to which a series of mini-investigations and data-gathering activities can contribute. With younger children it may be appropriate to limit objectives at different times, emphasising for example exploration and communication on one occasion and planning and the conduct of investigations in small groups on another. For example, primary children might be asked to explore the locality and to communicate their ideas of what they like and dislike through making posters, displaying them publicly and discussing them with fellow-pupils and passers-by; here, objectives would be limited to observation, communication and personal evaluation of aspects of the environment.

27. Whatever the age group, tasks and teaching approaches have to be differentiated to meet the learning needs of different pupils. At primary level, for example, able children may quickly learn to extract information from books, archives and other sources, while others may need much more help as well as partly-processed

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data which they can handle. At the secondary stage, able pupils may be motivated by complex issues such as the economics of farming or the ecology of urban and rural sites, while others may respond better to work involving practical tasks such as conservation projects. In both primary and secondary schools low-achieving pupils can produce work of quality when helped to follow up their own questions related to a local or more distant environment.

28. In addition to giving children plentiful first-hand experience from which they can acquire knowledge, schools need to communicate environmental ideas and skills in a variety of ways. There are occasions when information is best provided by demonstration. Well-prepared expository teaching on subjects such as world energy supplies for secondary pupils or the local mining industry for primary children can be appropriate as a stimulus to future work. Such teaching can help prepare pupils for exploratory work or help them in following it up. Teachers may need to teach well-tried techniques such as those used for measuring waterflow, analysing slopes or identifying plants. Using photographs, documents and other resources to improve understanding of distant environments is valuable, as are simulated planning meetings, public enquiries and interactions between pressure groups. Information technology can be an important aid to teaching about the environment. Microcomputers can monitor the weather or other natural phenomena such as the flow of streams and present the information graphically on a screen. They can be connected to databases via the telephone network and hence make available to children centrally stored information. In these cases, pupils can manipulate the data on the screen, often comparing information from different sources. This cannot replace practical experience, but it can stimulate pupils because it calls for their active participation and provides them with opportunities to explore situations and the data describing them.

29. People from outside the school, some of whom may be parents of the pupils, should be encouraged to provide opinions and specialised information. Teachers and children need access to experts such as planners, architects, industrialists or wardens and to lay people who live in the places they visit, since it is not possible for a teacher or group of teachers to know every important feature in the area under study.

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30. When tackling controversial issues in environmental education teachers should not preach or condemn; their task is to explore ideas with pupils and help them become better informed. The purpose of discussing controversial issues cannot be to give young people a complete understanding or knowledge of them; no one has this. But misunderstanding and distortion can be lessened through the provision of well-founded information, and ill-informed value judgements can be avoided by giving pupils practice in considering the messages bombarding them from the various groups interested in the matters concerned. In general, if teachers are asked for their own opinions, it seems sensible that they should give them, while at the same time making it clear that other reasonable and serious people, including the pupils' parents and other pupils, may legitimately hold different views.

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skills, understanding and values have been developed. If grids have been used in considering what is being achieved in subjects and in cross-curricular studies, these can also form a basis of record-keeping which can be helpful in recording pupils' attainment and in re-appraising the curriculum. Methods of assessment should be closely matched to objectives. This means using more unusual methods of assessment in addition to well-established ones. Environmental work is particularly suited to 'process' assessment because it is essentially concerned with awareness skills and the formation of attitudes and values. Progress and understanding can be ascertained, at least in part, by dialogue between teachers and pupils in field and classroom. This form of assessment needs to be complemented by carefully designed record-keeping which is neither too detailed nor perfunctory. Many of the skills and much of the understanding achieved are likely to be assessed in subject terms and may include some self-assessment, which can be a useful part of a pupil's record of achievement.

34. External examinations are available in both environmental science and environmental studies. Schools use them to assess either specialised courses taken by a minority of pupils or, less commonly, core courses which are taken by all and in which the threads of environmental education are brought together. The place of external examinations in environmental education is a matter of dispute: some teachers welcome them, whilst others believe that the results of environmental education are best considered in terms of the general development of citizenship and that specific skills, knowledge and understanding are better examined within the framework of separate subjects. The assessment arrangements for the national curriculum offer the opportunity to develop attainment targets having an environmental frame of reference.

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Appendix I

Some links between environmental education and other areas of the curriculum

English
1. Skills of communication, e.g. the ability to discuss
2. Research skills: the ability to find and select information
3. Response to literature: in particular an appreciation of material about the environment

Geography
1. Mapping skills
2. Field study skills
3. Use of aerial and ground photographs and of satellite imaging
4. Investigation of physical and human conditions
5. A grasp of local, national and global scales of activity

History
1. A sense of time and chronology
2. A sense of continuity and change
3. Use and respect for evidence
4. Understanding the historical development of the environment

Religious education
1. The attitudes of different religions to environmental issues
2. Moral considerations - e.g. on the use and sharing of resources

Art and craft, design and technology
1. Awareness and appraisal of the environment, e.g. its aesthetic qualities
2. The concept of design as it affects the environment
3. Identification of the needs of individuals and groups
4. The choice and use of resources
5. Technological concepts, e.g. efficiency
6. The consequences of technology for the environment

Mathematics
1. Statistical techniques: recording, displaying and interpreting data
2. Understanding patterns and shape
3. Operational research

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Science
1. Skills of scientific investigation
2. An understanding of materials, energy, ecology, living things, scientific laws
3. Scientific aspects of the provision and use of energy, the water supply, waste disposal, biotechnology in food production and other industries
4. Conservation and pollution

Music and drama
1. The expression of ideas and responses to the environment

Foreign languages
1. The exploration of other cultures and environments

Physical education
1. First-hand experience of the environment through outdoor activities in various settings

In addition to the links with the subjects outlined above, there is also much overlap with other cross-curricular themes such as political education, health education, education for economic understanding, consumer education and personal and social education.