This article charts the history of environmental education over four decades--from the 1960s to 2006--as a rocky road of determined chocolate with the possibilities of rocks (nuts) and easy passage (marshmallow). There were distractions such as suggestions of changing names and new directions (add fruit?) along the way but the road has continued…

Three South American countries, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, have been selected in order to study the impact of the document "The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development". In these countries, whose people react energetically against any attempt to break the environmental balance, the synergic power of education is…

Discourse in the "Australian Journal of Environmental Education" of the last ten years has not addressed a pedagogy that draws on and reflects the natural history of the continent. Australia is an ecological and species diverse country that has experienced substantial environmental change as a consequence of European settlement.…

Purpose: The main focus of this paper is to discuss appropriate forms of higher education for building up students' competence for working on complex real-world problems. Design/methodology/approach: Within this paper the Harvard approach is accurately compared with the ETH approach by discussing theoretical and practical implications as well.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between sustainability education and outdoor education and to encourage outdoor recreation educators to evaluate their programs with regard to sustainability and sustainable living. Design/methodology/approach: This paper starts by presenting several factors that currently hinder the…

Purpose--To provide an overview of how environmental management systems (EMSs) are becoming sporadically employed within higher educational institutions. Design/methodology/approach--An overview of international developments in sustainable education and within UK universities. Focuses specifically on the University of Glamorgan, Wales.…

Purpose--In 1997, the University of British Columbia (UBC) adopted a sustainable development policy stating that the campus should adhere to sustainable practices in all of its actions and mandates and that all students who attend UBC will be educated about sustainability. The purpose of the paper is to consider how far UBC has moved in the last…

Geography is defined as "a transition point between natural temporality and human temporality" (Maragliano, 1998). Presented like this, geography seems, at least at first sight, to assume an inexorable function as a linking discipline between nature and society. Unfortunately this pivotal role is not realised, given that geography is…

This article explores issues related to the choice of goals and approaches for advancing sustainability in higher education through research. The paper argues that diverse nature of the questions, issues and problems facing advocates of sustainability in higher education requires a willingness to adopt an eclectic approach to the choice of…

In the beginning of the 21st century, the advancement of science and technology, and communications in particular, made possible for one to know how human activities affect ecosystems and the biosphere. Knowing the increasingly larger scale and volume of the planet occupied by the human species, it would be absolutely reckless on one's part not to…

An ambivalent, sometimes destructive, relationship between modern humanity, technology and "outer" or external nature has historically attracted the critical attention of scholars and commentators from a wide variety of backgrounds. The effects of technology on postmodern "inner" nature warrants similar scrutiny. This article examines how…

This discussion paper provides an overview and analytic guide to long term planning of education systems in the context of Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals. Long term gains in educational access depend on anticipating future financial and non-financial constraints on growth and on successful implementation of plans which…

Monitoring and evaluation has been identified as one of seven key strategies for advancing the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). The UN International Implementation Scheme for the Decade has called for the development of relevant and suitable indicators at all levels. Choosing appropriate education for sustainable…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) practitioners could benefit from recent innovations in the field of organizational development, particularly those of Peter Senge, that outline how institutions can become "learning organizations," which are responsive to change to meet the needs of their members. These techniques could be used to help…

This article outlines the Results-Based Evaluation (RBE) framework proposed for the ex-post assessment of the National Environmental Management Strategies (NEMS) in 12 small-island developing states (SIDS) in the South Pacific. It gives an overview of the methods and basis of developing an evaluation framework in the context of SIDS in the region.…