Introduction:
I have the pleasure to share this award-winning article to National Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna to attend a conference organized by NTI and Common Wealth of Learning on Green Teacher Initiative where I had opportunity to share my own view on Environmental Education.
Personally, I am of opinion that if the Government can focus and invest massively on education with the “right peg on the right hole”, Nigeria shall be great again.
One of the greatest problems we are facing in this country is wastage of resources from human to natural resources. This has brought us significant backwardness in socio-economic development ranges from brain drain to inefficiency in production and services across public and private institutions in Nigeria.
With the right and quality education structured with the right national philosophy and powered by effective human resources from primary to secondary and tertiary institutions, we can be prudent, set our priority right by adopting education to plan for national goals and development. Hence, Nigeria shall be great again with the passage of time.
What is Environmental Education?
Environment is everything that surrounds human beings. It is the physical representative of the earth components, where man is an important factor who is influencing and being influenced.
According to oxford dictionary, the environment is the surrounding objects, circumstances of life of a person or society. Therefore, environment constitutes land, atmosphere and water including the physical objects like building, open spaces and land. Hence, Environmental Education can be defined as the study of the sum total of biotic and abiotic, social and cultural factors that surround and influence organism.
According to First Inter- Governmental Conference of Environmental Education Tbilisi, (1977) defined Environmental Education as a life-long education, one responsive to changes a rapidly changing world. It should prepare individual for life through an understanding of the major problems of the contemporary world, and the personal skills and attributes needed to play a productive role towards improving life and protecting the environment with due regards to ethical values. The ultimate goal of the Environmental Education is to develop awareness, knowledge, Skills, Attitudes and Action that would help the individual to take proper actions to solve environmental challenges and create a sustainable environment.
Nature of Environmental Education
It equips human beings with the awareness, skills, attitudes, values and commitment to improve environment.
It is multi-disciplinary and is related to many disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, geology, geography, sociology, economics, anthropology, agriculture etc.
It is meant for all ages
It seeks to solve environmental problems
It is an element necessary to transform society
It involves concern for situation that have real consequence for a society
Principles of EE
It considers environment in totality (political, cultural, historical, technological etc.
It is a life-long learning process from pre-school level to formal and non-formal stages.
Interdisciplinary approach as it draws from various subjects
Explain the complexity of environmental problems and the need to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Having defined and stated briefly the underlining principles of EE. I would address this task from the three domain of leaning.
Cognitive approach:
To help acquire knowledge of the immediate environment
To understand the abiotic and biotic environment
To help understand the effect of unchecked population growth or unplanned resources utilization for the future generations.
Effective approach:
To appreciate the gifts of nature
To love the neighbors and value mankind as a whole
To value cleanliness and purity of our environment
Psychomotor:
To participate in the afforestation programs
To participate in the programs aimed at preventing air, water and noise pollution
To participate in the programs aimed at preventing soil erosion.
MY OBSERVATION AND CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM ON THE EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF EE.
The agitation of many Teachers in developing countries like Nigeria that effective teaching and learning could not be achieved due to lack of instructional materials can be overcome through teacher’s creativity and innovativeness. EE requires Teachers to be highly innovative to make use of the local resources to teach EE. This is true but at the same time, I want to argue by looking at it from the critical mind that to be creative you need to see beyond your nose. From my experience, many factors have affected Nigeria Teachers ranging from lack of motivation, lack of competency, lack of updating their skills and knowledge to low self -esteem. This is because, creativity has a connection with confidence and if you are not confident, you cannot be creative. These factors have affected their creativity and ability to innovate to achieve effective teaching and learning outcomes.
Psychologically speaking, for learners to achieve effective teaching and learning, the teaching and learning process needs to be child centered especially in EE because it involves exploring the environment either by walking though the campus or field trip so that they can discover and appreciate the beauty of nature. In this regard, it is the responsibility of the teacher to link the theoretical concept to the practical aspect of learning for the students to understand.
As we have it in this context, teachers can mobilize students within or around the campus to show them different types of trees and plants and their uses to human lives but I want to argue that since schools reflect the habitat of its neighborhood, not all school campuses are endowed with these resources as some campuses are located within the city. To achieve, this students need to take a field trip. The national standards in science and mathematics suggest that good programs require access to the world beyond the classroom so that students will see the relevance and connection of what they have learnt with the real world happenings. It also helps the students to have an array of opportunities and connect school lessons with daily lives and real problems.
Constructivism as a Philosophy of Teaching:
Constructivism helps students to share ideas together and engage in social discourse and direct experience helps them constructing an understanding of the phenomenon. Since teachers always face challenges in different experiences students brought to the classrooms, the use of community resources helps in bridging this gap and allows the students to have common knowledge after engaging in a particular learning experience outside the classrooms.
Also, teachers can as well develop interdisciplinary units with his students by finding out how those experiences are linked with different subjects since the world is not made of discrete discipline. Examples of community resources that can facilitate the study of different plants and trees are visiting forest reserve, and Nigerian vegetation zones such as Rainforest; fresh water swamp; Sahel savanna; short grass savanna; guinea savanna; woodland; mangrove.
The trip experiences achieved from this can be linked to the curriculum of many science subjects like geography; biology, physics, chemistry etc.
Therefore, the use of community or local resources by the teacher is really fantastic as it makes learning to be realistic and retains the experience in a child. The following are necessary when it requires going for a field trip:
- Engaging experts to come and give talk prior to the visit so that it prepares the minds of students on what to expect during and after the visit.
- Logistics need to be put in place
- All students need to participate in the planning process as it enables them to learn how to share responsibilities and report writing skills and sense of belonging.
- Certain precautions must be given to enhance safety of the students
- Food and other accommodation etc.
The Use of Media for EE:
No one can overestimate the use of media in the development of the 21st century educational experience. The use of technology has become paramount and led to paradigm shift in educational system. Among all the categories of media that is highly effective, I would argue that the best media to be employed is the television because it would capture the mind and sight of the child. Both audio and visual aids learners would be encouraged. Also, the use of internet cannot be discouraged as it enhances collaboration to different parts of the world and bringing the learning experience of the real world into the classroom.
The major setback is that, the teachers of public schools in Nigeria have not been that proficient in the use of IT. From my experience, it was amazing that some of the teachers are still adopting the 80’s method of teaching and learning. To make this EE survive and sustained the aspect of instructional media need to be critically analyzed and provide solution such as empowerment in ingenuity, training and development, problem of erratic power supply need to be addressed before implementation so that effective result could be achieved.
Puppet:
The use of puppet should be highly encouraged as it is a kind of creativity that teacher can employ to enhance effective communication and stimulate the interest of the children to learn. It is one of the good strategies that can be employing to facilitate the learning process in EE. It aids constructivism and make leaning participatory.
I recommend this should be encouraged.
Camping, excursions and transacting textbook lessons.
Camping is one of the important methods that would yield high result of learning outcome for EE. I have said it earlier that learning process should be linked to practical purposes to make the experience retained in the mind of the learner. This is pragmatism.
Before, the camping can take place, the supervisor can gather the group to partake on the trip and discuss the aim and objectives of the trip. What should be the learning outcome and this must be communicated clearly. Also, obligations should be given to the students prior to make them create sense of discipline and belongings and assuming responsibilities from the earliest stage of their lives. There must be professional discussion and orientation before the field visit to equip the student with the necessary knowledge of what to expect and precautions to safe guard them from exposing to risk and danger.
Conclusion:
From my experience, generally speaking, the value of the school system has dwindled in Nigeria and it has been stated in the national policy of education that “No nation can be more advance than the quality of its teacher”. To survive and sustain in the EE system, the innovator needs to consciously analyzed the major aim and objectives of the ideology and why the nation should collectively buy to the idea.
There must be massive awareness on a large scale such that every citizen including the younger ones knows the value of natural environment and why we must safeguards it against the future such as retaining our national heritage, economic, social and cultural values and effects of damaging to human health and natural disaster if there is no adequate management. Also, adequate instructional materials ranging from human and non-human facilities and highly trained man power especially on digital technology to enhance the learning process for the maximum achievement in the learning outcome of EE initiative.
I wish my country best of luck.
Written by: Mohammed Abass a Ph.D. research scholar in educational administration and planning @ ABU, Zaria. Director: iBass Institute of Learning Ltd, FCT, Abuja.
Reference: Comprehensive Study of Education
