The Handbook of Environmental Education

The 1990s have seen a tremendous increase in environmental concern in all sections of the population. Young people in particular want to know more about how they can contribute to the conservation of the planet, and formal education is beginning to reflect this. The National Curriculum in England and Wales for instance includes environmental education as a compulsory cross-curricular theme and in Australia and the USA there are similar moves to ensure that all students are given an opportunity to learn in this area. Joy Palmer and Philip Neal, experienced teachers and teacher educators in primary and secondary classrooms here explain what environmental education is and how it can best be implemented at school and classroom level. In this handbook, school heads and curriculum coordinators will find advice on establishing a whole school policy and motivating the staff who need to implement it. Class teachers will find practical ideas for planning and assessing environmental education in the whole curriculum context. Throughout the book, case studies drawn from a variety of settings allow teachers to see how environmental education can work for them, while the final section directs teachers who want to explore certain issues further with annotated lists of organisations in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand which can provide information, class materials and further help Joy Palmer is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Durham and a past chairman of the National Association for Environmental Education. Recent publications include Environmental Education in the Primary School (also with Philip Neal is a former secondary school head, and current General Secretary of the National Association for Environmental Education. He has published widely in the area of environmental education.