Introduction
Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development...
as a Contemporary Educational Priority
The phenomena of information noise and information overproduction relate to
many contemporary civilization challenges, including the realization of the idea of
sustainable development. Continuous education in the area of solving environment
protection and human health problems seems to be one of the priority tasks of the
didactics of biology.
Volume I of the Annals touched upon the topics related to didactics of biology
in the context of its shifts as a pedagogy subdiscipline and a subject of the Nature
Studies. Volume II covered the issue of educational models in the area of biodiversity
promotion. Volume III, in turn, focused on “health literacy” – knowledge and skills
every member of the knowledge-based society should possess on the topic of health.
The challenges the contemporary schools on all educational levels have to
face revolve upon the interdisciplinary approach to environmental protection, and
in the wider meaning, sustainable development. It is a difficult and complex task,
because of the fact that currently the actions taken by schools, from primary school
to an university, are too slow in comparison to social changes and needs regarding
the environmental problem solving. Climate changes, ecological catastrophes,
atmosphere pollution or modern-age diseases are crises the contemporary world
has to face. The human anthropogenic activity contributes to the disadvantageous
changes in the natural environment. This is why appropriate education plays an
incredibly important role in the shaping of a proper life style and acting towards
environment protection. More and more attention to the issues of global and local
actions of the society on sustainable environment is being paid by governments,
governmental and non-governmental organizations and scientists of many countries.
Environment protection is a multidisciplinary subject from the border of
a number of scientific areas, which becomes more and more important in the sphere
of social responsibility for the coexistence of man and nature. Educational negligence
in the area of promoting respect to natural environment and media actions towards
promoting consumptionism result in the contemporary civilisation life style not
always being in accordance with taking care of nature, and the environment protection
[4] Introduction
awareness is too low to take any actions towards counteracting the natural resources
degradation. This is why it is so important to educate specialists in the environment
area and prepare students of both future teachers and decision-makers to properly
include environmental protection into the educational process and understand
the essence of managing the environment. It is also important to work towards
the safety in terms of “global education,” which can be achieved through proper
educational work on the local and national scale, e.g. through promoting innovative
interdisciplinary research and educational projects undertaken in cooperation
with specialists and institutions of different areas of science. These actions should
include the issue of the environment in the cultural, economic, political, democratic
and technological approach in the international context. The results achieved on the
basis of this cooperation can contribute to implementing new teaching strategies
for environmental protection. Exchanging experiences, test results and formulated
materials is a chance for teachers, educators and also students to start increasing
the capabilities, range and quality of environmental education. Teaching about the
environment should be connected with the understanding of the needs of specific
people, stimulating solidarity in the range of economic, ethical, political and cultural
actions and raising the sense of co-responsibility for improving the environment.
A reflection on the function of formal education in promoting the rules of
sustainable development should include the multiplicity of education goals and
the readiness of students and teachers to cooperate in this aspect. Helping schools
implement good practices on the environmental protection should be supported
by the municipalities and local societies. The actions programme of the local
government should be based on promoting the knowledge-deepening process on
environmental protection, as well as organizing the initiatives engaging the society
of a given region to actively improve the state of the surrounding environment and
increase pro-ecological awareness, and thus take effective actions in the region.
The dynamics and complexity of the environment as a place where a man lives
requires considering it in the scope of multidimensional education open to the
society’s needs. Shaping the right attitudes and opinions towards the pro-ecological
actions should be permanently implemented in the school and university curricula
and understood as a list of teaching and learning goals. Implementing new content
regarding the scientific advances in the field of sustainable development in the formal
education should be correlated with the promotion of the upbringing towards the
respect for nature protection laws. Only the right motivation of the members of the
society to implement the environment protection knowledge, take actions in this
regard and use the proper system of values in the environment protection aspect
can influence the global problem of environment pollution, respect the law in this
regard and creatively solve the worldwide problems of sustainable development.
Learning the practical competences in understanding and integrating the actions
towards shaping the pro-environmental attitudes and supporting the initiatives on
the notion of being responsible for the future of the world in the difficult reality of
Introduction [5]
today can be facilitated by modernizing the educational process and filling the gaps
in the students’ knowledge structure regarding the issue of environment protection.
The special educational role in teaching about the environment is being played
by the media as means of non-formal education. Through this the society can receive
information on the advantages resulting from the latest genetic and technological
studies about biodiversity, as well as use them in a balanced management of natural
resources. Monitoring the protected areas, developing strategies and programmes
of maintaining biodiversity and information on the international cooperation in this
area should reach as many people as possible. A very important role in forwarding
the right patterns of nature education is being attributed to the organization and
coordination of an information network on the international arena through the
integration of environmental, artistic, economic and social science knowledge.
A good way to understand the environmental problems and analyze the social
behaviours in this regard is the popularizational activity of the university. The
constant decline of the environment quality, social and economic problems and
inappropriate behaviour of people in the aspect of nature protection require
higher schools to strongly influence the knowledge and the shaping of the system
of values of students in the area of increasing the environmental awareness and
motivate them to solve local problems of sustainable development. The constant
development of the society, both economically and technologically, creates the
need for the higher education institutions to look for ways of realizing the goals
of environmental protection and to create methods that make society aware of the
need to responsibly deal with environmental challenges of the modern world.
Katarzyna Potyrała and Karolina Czerwiec