The Development Of Environmental Education And The Future Of China

One of the main concerns about the rise of China over the last decade has been its possible impact on the global environment. China has the world’s largest population at1.3billion and even though population growth is decreasing, it will still be the second largest country after India for a long time to come. It is also the biggest emitter in the world. China has already surpassed the US in2007as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, although the emissions per capita are still very low as compared to western countries. However, if1.3billion people reach the western level of energy consumption and carbon emissions, the result could be catastrophic. It is not only about the carbon emissions but also of water and air pollution from various different chemicals; resource depletion including fresh water and so on. It is a fact that the GDP of China is increasing and more and more people are getting better off everyday. Considering the increasing population in the future, China is facing a significant issue on how to manage such environmental impacts while reducing costs for the future. It is inevitable that China will require more energy, gas, water and other resources, but the level of Chinese awareness of environmental impacts and solutions can make the difference in the magnitude of environmental damage. Therefore, environmental education from young is significant for individuals to realize their influence on and relations with the environment thus to behave in more responsible manner. This paper examines the status of environmental education in China. Firstly, it covers the historical background of environmental education in China. Then it looks at different approaches of effort China has made in adopting and developing environmental education; government initiatives, academic institutions and teachers, non-profit organizations, international projects, and mass media. While examining each party’s effort on striving for environmental education, a number of academic papers were read and used and further research was done more focused in Hangzhou with personal visit and interviews with an official from environment Protection Bureau in Hangzhou and professor from Zhejiang University who wrote a book on environmental education. Chinese government has created environmental education related policies and pursued projects like Green School and Hand-in-Hand. Academic institutes and teachers also individually have researched and developed the environmental education in terms of teaching styles, tools and etc. International companies, NGOs as well as domestic NGOs have also contributed greatly to China reaching out to large population to promote environmental awareness. Their projects included training sessions for teachers in Chinese schools, developing guidelines for environmental educations, create films, documentaries, publications to cover environmental issues, build foundations for volunteers across the countries to support their environment-related work, and etc. This paper covered the Friends of Nature (FON), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Roots and Shoots, Global Village of Beijing (GVB) as domestic NGOs. As few international projects run in China were the Global Learning Objectives and Benefit the Environmental (GLOBE), which helps schools to foster more interactive and inquiry based teaching styles in school and China Environment Awareness Program (CEAP), which supports the environmental campaigns to promote the environmental awareness in China. Mass media also has worked greatly as a tool for other organizations to advance their work, and Television or radio stations itself creating programs to cover provincial or local environmental problems in China influencing the Chinese audience. Moreover, conventional media channels such as television, radio, or newspapers and magazines were great instrument for the government, NGOs, International organizations to campaign and advertise their work thanks to its unique characteristics; it can reach large and vast audiences and it is easy for audience to approach regardless of their educational background. On top of such functional conventional media, Internet these days is rising as popular medium to transfer the information as well as to communicate interactively with the Chinese public. Studies on China’s efforts on promoting environmental awareness through different parties seem to be promising for the future of China.The paper also looked into status of environmental education in different countries to compare with China:the United States, Germany, England, Japan, and South Korea. The United States seems to be paying much attention on environmental education. The first National Environmental Education Act was legislated in1990and recently EPA also held the first White House Summit on Environmental Education in April2012. This signifies the Unities States’ priority on environmental literacy and gravity of environmental education. Germany and England are two of the European countries, which have contributed to growth of environmental education in various fields. Japan and Korea, the neighboring countries, who has initiated the work on the environmental education before are advancing its environmental education by holding international forums and projects. Korea and Taiwan even had adopted the environmental education related legislation, which boost the effort of promoting environmental awareness.The studies on Chinese environmental education actually showed more surprising result. In spite of its late start of environmental education, Chinese government as well as NGOs and different organizations have worked considerably building foundations for teachers training, volunteers’participation, children’s engagement within and outside of schools. However, there were limitations hindering transparent environmental education. The mass medias in China are monitored by the government, and are not able to cover major environmental problems that are politically sensitive. Such interference can even obstruct the economic development China.Moreover, the current ongoing reform of Chinese education system can play significant role in establishing the effective environmental education. Environmental education requires audience or students to fully apprehend the issues and be capable of making decisions and behave in environmentally responsible manner. This cannot be achieved with current education system, where the exam score is more important than the personal understanding of the issue and the class material being given in single direction:teachers to students. Some NGOs are already working on such reforms by training teachers to lead more inquiry and experiment based classes. Lastly, though it is not necessary, as the United States, Taiwan, and Korea enacted the laws to foster environmental education, China adopting such legislation can forward its effort in promotion of environmental literacy.If China can keep up its pace with efforts from diverse groups of NGOs, enterprises, national and local government and individuals, the future of China is not too pessimistic.