A reflection on the conjunction of the two words ‘environment’ and ‘education’ raises the key questions of why, when and for what purpose they have been linked. Presumably answers to these questions range from the feelings and concerns of individuals through to events of international and global significance.

The first recorded use of the term ‘environmental education’ in Britain may be traced to a conference held in 1965 at Keele University, Staffordshire, with the purpose of investigating conservation of the countryside and its implications for education. At an international level, it is claimed that the term ‘environmental education’ was first used in Paris in 1948, at a meeting of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (Disinger 1983).
Many attempts have been made to define the term, particularly during the past 25 years when many critical problems facing our planet have been acknowledged and publicized.

Worldwide concern after the publication of Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) intensified and in 1970 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) held a working meeting on ‘Environmental Education in the School Curriculum’ in Nevada, USA. The deliberations of that conference continue to be a major influence on the development of environmental education.

As a result of international initiatives, a broad consensus has emerged on the principles and objectives of environmental education. These largely reflect the outcome of the Tbilisi Conference of 1977, whose Final Report sets out three ‘goals of environmental education’:
1. To foster clear awareness of, and concern about, economic, social, political and ecological interdependence in urban and rural areas.
2. To provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment.
3. To create new patterns of behaviour of individuals, groups and society as a whole towards the environment. (UNESCO 1977)
Defining the content of environmental education is problematic. Since the environment is all embracing then it must, to some extent at least, be considered in its totality to include aspects which are urban and rural, technological and social, aesthetic and ethical: Throughout primary and secondary education, the human environment, both rural and urban,
should be regarded as a continuum from the wilderness, through the productive countryside, small settlements and suburbs, to the heart of the inner city’