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Improved Status for Environmental Education in Ontario Schools June 2007: Ontario Government Pledges to Green the Formal Education System
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| A pledge to green Ontario’s education system: Education Minister Kathleen Wynne (left) and Environment Minister Laurel Broten pose with students of St. Bonaventure Catholic School, where they announced their acceptance of 32 recommendations to improve environmental education. |
On June 22, 2007 the Ontario provincial Liberal government announced some very good news. It came as a promise made prior to the provincial elections scheduled for the fall.
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne and Environment Minister Laurel Broten faced the press together at St. Bonaventure Catholic School, a recently certified EcoSchool. Together, the two ministers pledged their government’s intent to accept and implement all 32 recommendations made by the Working Group on Environmental Education.
The recommendations were the work of a team six environmental education experts and program directors including Dr. Eleanor Dudar (Toronto District School Board), Dr. Alan Foster (former director of the Kortright Centre for Conservation), Catherine Mahler (Ontario EcoSchools), Dr. Michael Fox (Trent University), Marlène Walsh (Canadian Ecology Centre) and Pam Schwartzberg (Learning for a Sustainable Future). They worked for an intense two-month period in the spring of 2007, deliberating and carrying on a public consultation to synthesize a comprehensive set of recommendations for strengthening environmental learning in the formal education system.
Astronaut and scientist Dr. Roberta Bondar was chosen to lead the EE Working Group in this first-ever official review of how the environment and conservation are taught in Ontario schools. Its goal was to provide recommendations on ways to better support the teaching of environmental education to the newly created Curriculum Council.
"This review will provide me with good advice on the best ways to include the environment in the provincial curriculum,” Education Minister Wynne said when the initiative was announced in March. " Ontario's curriculum must keep pace with our rapidly changing society."
Environmental Education Ontario (EEON) board members were invited to attend the press conference at which the announcement was made. “On behalf of the entire environmental education community,” said Elise Houghton, EEON’s communications chair, “I’d like to thank the Ministers and the government for taking this important step for all of Ontario’s children.”
The “Bondar Report” Recommendations
The results of the Working Group on Environmental Education’s deliberations were published in a succinct (21 page) report entitled Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future. The report was quickly dubbed “The Bondar Report” after its high-profile mentor. It can be accessed at the Ministry of Education Website at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/curriculumcouncil/shapingSchools.pdf
Those who feel that government involvement in improving support for environmental education is essential should take the time to read the report and recommendations in their entirety.
Two main aspects of the report will be summarized here:
1. The proposed definition of environmental education
The Working Group on Environmental Education has developed the following comprehensive definition of environmental education, and recommends that it be adopted as the definition used in Ontario schools:
Environmental education is education about the environment, for the environment, and in the environment that promotes an understanding of, rich and active experience in, and an appreciation for the dynamic interactions of:
• The Earth’s physical and biological systems
• The dependency of our social and economic systems on these natural systems
• The scientific and human dimensions of environmental issues
• The positive and negative consequences, both intended and unintended, of
the interactions between human-created and natural systems.
The definition pleases environmental educators in its inclusion of education about, for and in the environment. Importantly, it also emphasizes rich and active experience in the four areas it highlights: the Earth’s natural systems, our dependence on them, both scientific and social dimensions of environmental issues – and the consequences of human-environment interactions.
In its strategic plan (Greening the Way Ontario Learns), Environmental Education Ontario placed equal importance on environmental and sustainability education as strategic goals, and proposed the expansion of the term “Environmental Education” to “Environmental and Sustainability Education.” The environment is our home. Sustainability is about the choices we make in how we choose to maintain it. Both are equally important as learning goals, and both need to be examined, specifically.
EEON wrote to Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, Environment Minister Laurel Broten, and Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, and expressed a concern that although the introductory paragraph states that this definition of environmental education “embraces sustainability,” the actual statement does not explicitly include sustainability. The definition ends with consequences, but does not take a final step of including an examination of sustainable solutions as part of environmental education.
Given the repeated urgent warnings of scientists that time is of the essence in reducing greenhouse gases to minimize the risk of dangerous climate change, including sustainable solutions as an explicit part of environmental education would seem a wise move at this juncture.
2. The 32 recommendations in Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future
The recommendations follow an honest assessment of the state of the current state of environmental education in Ontario. They are interspersed with explanatory text through the document. The scope of the recommendations is comprehensive: we have given each of them a title (not a part of the actual report) to give readers new to this initiative an idea of the range of topics they cover.
- Policy
- Standards
- Research & Consultation
- Investment Sequence
- Accountability
- Assessment
- Responsibility for Implementation
- Sound Practice Guidelines
- Guidelines for Parent Engagement
- Capacity-building, Monitoring
- Cross-Curricular Focus
- Scope & Sequence
- Include Urgency/Examples in Curriculum Documents
- Standardize Environmental Perspective
- Study of Environmental Topic in Each Grade
- Substantial EE Content: Gr. 9 Geog; 9/10Science, 10 Civics
- Environmental Action Projects in Civics
- Additional Environmental Focus Course
- Identify Interdisciplinary Links for EE/Secondary
- Specialist High Skills Majors Program
- Co-op/Environmental Placements
- Partners to Develop PD-EE Strategy
- Ongoing PD
- Learning/Problem-solving in Local Environments
- Provincial/Regional Training Sessions
- Workshops/summer institutes on Cross-curricular EE
- Consult OCT re AQ in x-Curricular education
- EE Resource Development
- Develop an EE Teaching Guide
- Facilitate Resource Access
- Strategy for Pre-Service/EE as Teachable
- Fund Outdoor Education
EEON believes that the creation of a sustainable future is now the greatest priority facing nations worldwide. Sustainability as the goal of environmental education needs to be explicitly and clearly stated within educational policy and the resources and supports which ensure from it. None of the 32 recommendations in Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future mention sustainability.
In response to correspondence from EEON on this subject, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne wrote (August 29, 2007): “We are committed to the development of an environmental education policy for Ontario schools, the establishment of standards to ensure that the quality and importance of environmental education is sustained throughout our curriculum policy documents, and the provision of opportunities in every grade throughout elementary and secondary schools for all students to learn about concepts and issues related to the environment, including sustainability (our emphasis).
3. Responsibility for Implementation
The Bondar Report commits the Ontario government to a wide-ranging set of actions: policy-making, standards setting, accountability, assessment, integration of EE content across curriculum to teacher training, resource development and outdoor education.
How will progress on all these commitments be tracked and assessed? Who will be in charge of reporting on the fulfillment of this ambitious set of goals? Will this ambitious set of election promises become reality?
These are questions that need to be asked.
For those concerned with improving environmental content in our school systems, reading Shaping Our Schools is a good first step.
Links
Education for Sustainability, Ministry of Education, Wellington, NZ
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/environ_ed/sustainable_future/futures_e.php
Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative
http://www.environment.gov.au/education/aussi/about.html
Last Modified February 2004