Guidelines for Learning about the Environment

The North American Association for Environmental Education has developed "Excellence for EE - Guidelines for Learning (K-12)", a broad four strand approach to environmental education used to encourage the development of environmental literacy.

These guidelines set a standard for high-quality environmental education, based on what an environmentally literate person should know and be able to do after participating in environmental education programs. Therefore, 4-H Youth Development Environmental Education Programs should also ensure that the four strands of environmental literacy are present in programs being implemented.

Strand 1: Questioning and Analysis Skills
Environmental literacy depends on learners' ability to ask questions, speculate, and hypothesize about the world around them, seek information, and develop answers to their questions. Learners must be familiar with inquiry, master fundamental skills for gathering and organizing information, and interpret and synthesize information to develop and communicate explanations.

Strand 2: Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems
An important component of environmental literacy is understanding the processes and systems that comprise the environment, including human systems and influences. That understanding is based on knowledge synthesized from across traditional disciplines. The guidelines in this section are grouped in four sub-categories:

· 2.1--The Earth as a physical system;
· 2.2--The living environment;
· 2.3--Humans and their societies; and
· 2.4--Environment and society.

Strand 3: Skills for Understanding and Addressing Environmental Issues
Skills and knowledge are refined and applied in the context of environmental issues. These environmental issues are real-life dramas where differing viewpoints about environmental problems and their potential solutions are played out. Environmental literacy includes the abilities to define, learn about, evaluate, and act on environmental issues. In this section, the guidelines are grouped in two sub-categories:
· 3.1--Skills for analyzing and investigating environmental issues; and 3.2--Decision-making and citizenship skills.

Strand 4: Personal and Civic Responsibility
Environmentally literate citizens are willing and able to act on their own conclusions about what should be done to ensure environmental quality. As learners develop and apply concept-based learning and skills for inquiry, analysis, and action, they also understand that what they do individually and in groups can make a difference.

 North American Association For Environmental Education. (1999). Excellence for EE - Guidelines for Learning (K-12). Troy, OH. pp. 5-6.