Teach Our Teachers Well: Strategies To Integrate Environmental Education into Teacher Education Programs.

Overview & Synopsis

Basic environmental education is rarely taught to children due in part to a lack of environmental focus in teacher education programs. This report identifies strategies for influencing colleges and universities to include environmental education (EE) in their teacher education programs as a means to increase the demand for EE at the K-12 level. Section I outlines the research methodology used in the study. Section II contains the research findings and is divided into 3 subsections: status of environmental education programs, barriers to incorporating EE in higher education, and potential impact of stakeholders. Section III contains recommendations for institutions of higher education, stakeholder groups, and funding organizations. Key findings regarding the status of environmental education programs in pre-service teacher education include the following: inadequate teacher training is the primary reason K-12 teachers are not teaching environmental education; higher education is not a player in current EE efforts; the definition and implementation of EE at the K-12 level is too narrow, and state legislation has not had the long term impact EE advocates had anticipated. (JRH)