Research On The Theoretical System Of Environmental Education And Case Studies On Its Implementation

Since the 1950's, with increasingly pressing problems of global environment, environmental education has witnessed a rapid development. In China, however, this type of education has been delayed, consequently the theoretical and applied research in this area has fallen behind, which results in a lack of original theory as well as applied research on local environments. This research project is comprehensive and conducted in an interdisciplinary method combining the humanities with science. By an approach of theorizing with case studies, this project has developed a systematic research on two basic aspects of the theorization and implementation of environmental education in macro, medium and micro perspectives.From the theoretical aspect, based on the important events in the environmental movement and the historical development of environmental education, this project has divided the development of international environmental education into three periods and six stages while the environmental education in China into three stages. It has established an original theoretical point of environmental pedagogy and a basic formula to outline its development, proving that sustainable development theory is the basis for environmental education at present and in the future. It is pointed out that attention needs to be given to the concept of environmental education focusing on environmental system and to the consistency of teaching and education in the area. This project has developed a three-dimentional system for environmental pedagogical theory, including a detailed analysis of the essential implementation of environmental education in terms of time, space and form.From the practical aspect, this project has explored current environmental education in Jiangsu Province by using questionnaires and has analyzed the environmental attainment and behaviors of the public and their general understanding of environmental education in schools, families and communities. It also expounds environmental education in the new curriculum outline implemented in the current curriculum reform of the basic education and highlights that integrating environmental education into curriculum reform needs to be based on three basic principles. It then outlines the intensions, principles, basic concepts and relevant relations in building "a green university" as well as the functional orientation and objective alternatives of "a green community". It finally recommends that in order to develop an environmental education with Chinese characteristics, the proposition should be advocated that national and local environmental education should be developed with its own colors.Geographical science primarily deals with environmental systems, global environmental problems and the relationships of humans to the earth. Therefore, it involves the important research areas of sustainable development and environmental systems. Geographical scientists should pay attention to both environmental problems and environmental education, and the implementation of environmental education should be the important task and historical responsibility of geographical education.