{"id":6466,"date":"2015-10-09T07:25:38","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T07:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6466"},"modified":"2015-10-09T07:25:38","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T07:25:38","slug":"geep-2-an-overview-of-issues-facing-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/10\/09\/geep-2-an-overview-of-issues-facing-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"GEEP \u2013 2 \u2013 an overview of issues facing the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the preparations for the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/10\/08\/geep-1-the-global-environmental-education-partnership\/\">GEEP<\/a> [Global Environmental Education Partnership] meeting in San Diego, I was asked to write two reports about the UK situation. \u00a0This is the first\u00a0of them: <em>an overview of environmental education [EE] issues in the UK.<\/em> \u00a0Below is what I wrote\u00a0in the powerpoint template they provided:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>A. Snapshot of top environmental issues facing your country<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Intensive farming &amp; land use practices<\/li>\n<li>Habitat degredation, fragmentation &amp; loss<\/li>\n<li>Loss of key ecological niches<\/li>\n<li>Poisons \/ toxins in ecosystems<\/li>\n<li>Biodiversity \/ species loss<\/li>\n<li>Spread of invasive species<\/li>\n<li>Over fishing of the seas<\/li>\n<li>Air pollution in cities<\/li>\n<li>Loss of soil fertility<\/li>\n<li>Rapid population increase<\/li>\n<li>Over-dependence on fossil fuels<\/li>\n<li>Poor energy security<\/li>\n<li>More frequent extreme weather events<\/li>\n<li>The huge disconnect between people and the natural world<\/li>\n<li>Poor public grasp of environmental issues and climate change<\/li>\n<li>Minimal political interest, and a disregard of nature in decision-making<\/li>\n<li>Weak political drive for improvement<\/li>\n<li>Too little economic value placed on nature<\/li>\n<li>An incoherent professional capacity building policy related to environment and sustainability, and<\/li>\n<li>Insufficient \u2018environment\u2019 in the education system<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The overall challenge is to manage the trades-off between energy policy, economic growth and the integrity of landscapes, habitats, etc<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>B.\u00a0EE Stand Out Program(me)s<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>School bursaries for outdoor EE<\/li>\n<li>Forest School initiatives<\/li>\n<li>Eco-Schools programmes<\/li>\n<li>National member organisations such as: Sustainability and Environmental Education [SEEd] and the\u00a0National Association for Environmental Education [NAEE]<\/li>\n<li>Many local \/ national EE NGOs and conservation organisations, such as:\u00a0WWF ~ Oxfam ~ John Muir Trust ~ RSPB ~ The Wildlife Trusts ~ Friends of the Earth ~ Woodland Trust ~ Field Studies Council ~ Global Action Plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>C.\u00a0National Mandate<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The UK has four separate legal jurisdictions (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales), and each has its own school and university systems<\/li>\n<li>Each jurisdiction has different policies on EE \/ ESD \/ etc.<\/li>\n<li>Currently, there are no national mandates for EE \/ ESD \/ etc in schools<\/li>\n<li>Scotland has a mandate for learning for sustainability as part of its schools \u2018curriculum for excellence\u2019<\/li>\n<li>In Wales, education for sustainable development and global citizenship [ESDGC] is an entitlement of pupils in schools<\/li>\n<li>There is UK-wide governmental support for global learning initiatives<\/li>\n<li>The national curriculum in England contains references to environmental issues across many subjects and all age ranges<\/li>\n<li>The are no national mandates in tertiary \/ higher education, although student organisations (eg, the National Union of Students) are very active<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>D.\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Looking forward<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>EE will flourish where school leaders are supportive and see its merits<\/li>\n<li>Eco-Schools will continue as a prominent supporter of school-based EE<\/li>\n<li>Building bridges between EE and global learning will help each of these<\/li>\n<li>The current interest in forest schools and learning \u2018outside the classroom\u2019 will help providing that they remember to emphasise EE<\/li>\n<li>There will be no central government support for, or encouragement of, EE in the foreseeable future<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>E.\u00a0For further information<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The most recent published survey of EE \/ ESD \/ etc\u00a0 across the UK is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Martin S, Dillon J, Higgins P, Peters C, Scott W. (2013) Divergent Evolution in Education for Sustainable Development Policy in the United Kingdom: Current Status, Best Practice, and Opportunities for the Future. <em>Sustainability<\/em>. 5(4):1522-1544<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the preparations for the GEEP [Global Environmental Education Partnership] meeting in San Diego, I was asked to write two reports about the UK situation. \u00a0This is the first\u00a0of them: an overview of environmental education [EE] issues in...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}