EE in Iowa
What Is Environmental Education?
The word environment, for our purposes, encompasses a vast number of issues: from native wildlife to agriculture, from outdoor recreation to recycling, from butterfly gardening to natural history and much more. The environment is something that every living thing on the planet is a part of. It is the one thing that we are all connected to and that connects all of us. Environmental Education is about strengthening this connection, becoming aware and curious, developing appreciation and knowledge and fostering a commitment to act responsibly.
Environmental Education is formerly defined as “a learning process concerned with the interrelationships among components of the natural and human-made world producing growth in the individual and leading to responsible stewardship of the Earth."
Environmental Literacy
In 1995, the Iowa’s Governor’s Conference on Education about Conservation and the Environment defined an environmentally literate person as one who understands:
- Basic principles of ecology, sociology, and economics;
- Interconnections of all parts of the environment;
- Sources of energy, the importance of energy efficiency, and relationships between energy use and lifestyle;
- Implications of economic and population trends;
- Impacts of personal lifestyles and personal choices;
- The importance of acting in a sustainable and constructive manner to protect the quality and diversity of the natural world.
