EDTM 312: Environmental Education Practice Flashcards

Definition flashcards covering the concepts, history, dimensions, and challenges of environmental education and sustainable development based on the lecture material.

Environner

The French word from which 'environment' is derived, meaning to encircle or surrounding.

Environmental Education (EE)

A process of developing values and explaining concepts to develop skills and attitudes pertaining to an appreciation of the relationship between man, his culture, and his biophysical environment.

Tbilisi Goals

A collection of five objectives for environmental education: Awareness, Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills, and Participation.

Environmental Literacy

A collective term used to describe the Tbilisi goals of awareness, knowledge, and the ability to take action.

CLEAR

An acronym representing a focus on Community, Learning, Environment, Active awareness, and Resources to enhance environmental education approaches.

GREEN

The Global Rivers Environmental Education Network, a global initiative to monitor water quality that includes a solving process for community participation.

Biophysical Dimension

A dimension of the environment comprising all components of the natural world, including animals, plants, soil, climate, and humans.

Economic Dimension

A dimension representing the acknowledged elements of extraction/mining, production, manufacturing, and commerce.

Social Dimension

A dimension embracing social institutions and patterns, such as demographic tendencies, education, and traditions, that regulate and improve society.

Formal EE

Environmental education activities where goals and strategies are developed in compliance with standardized school curricula across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.

Non-formal EE

Educational opportunities with objectives tailored to learning needs outside standard school structures, such as programs run by parks, museums, and nature centres.

EEASA

The Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa, formed in 1984 in Swaziland to support networking between environmental educators.

Sustainable Development

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

UNCED

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit, held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Agenda 21

Guidelines produced by UNCED for sustainable development that emphasize the need for education and public participation.

SADC-REEP

The Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Project, initiated in 1996 by Nelson Mandela to strengthen environmental education processes.

NCS

The National Curriculum Statement, which integrated environmental justice and healthy environment principles across all learning areas and grades.

Action Competence

A set of skills, values, and understandings, originally coined by Danish Professor Bjarne Jenssen, that enables learners to take action for the environment.

Constructivism

An educational theory describing learning as an active process where the learner makes connections with existing knowledge rather than passively receiving facts.

Change-oriented learning

A process for older students focusing on critical thinking about common social practices and reflecting on how to do things differently.

Sustainability

The ability to continue an action without compromising future generations' ability to do the same, fundamentally rooted in ethics.

Three Pillars of Sustainability

The ecological sphere (Environmental Protection), the economic sphere (Economic Development), and the socio-political sphere (Social and Cultural Development).

Intergenerational Equity

The principle of equity between current and future generations regarding the use and conservation of natural resources.

Synthesis

The ability to see interconnectedness and the relationships that make up the dynamics of a whole system.

Feedback Loops

Constant and dynamic flows between interconnected elements of a system, categorized as reinforcing or balancing.

Whole-School Approach

Recognition that all community aspects of a school are linked and impact a learner's teaching, learning, and well-being.

MOTORIC Learning Model

A seven-component model standing for Motivation, Observation, Talking, Orientation, Reinforcement, Implementation, and Confirmation.

Pollution

An undesirable addition of constituents to water, land, or air which adversely affects life, species, and resources.

Desertification

A type of land degradation in dry lands causing biological productivity to be lost due to natural processes or human activities.

Water Scarcity

A lack of sufficient available water resources to meet usage demands, which can be categorized as physical or economic.

Ocean Acidification

The ongoing decrease in the $pH$ of the Earth's oceans caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) resulting from burning fossil fuels.

Acid Rain

Precipitation with acidic components, such as sulfuric or nitric acid, formed when sulfur dioxide ($SO_2$) and nitrogen oxide ($NO_x$) contact water and oxygen.

Ozone Depletion

The thinning of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere occurring when chlorine and bromine atoms destroy ozone molecules.

Fundisa for Change

A collaborative teacher education programme established in 2011 to enhance transformative environmental learning.

Environmental Issue

A change in the quality or quantity of an environmental factor that directly or indirectly affects life on earth, often resulting from human interference.