The ‘Environmentally Educated Teacher’: an exploration of the implications of UNESCO‐UNEP's ideas for pre‐service teacher education programmes

Abstract

Summary This paper draws on a range of recent curriculum development and research initiatives in order to consider what pre‐service teacher education programmes might, most effectively, be able to do to promote environmental education (EE) within schools and, through them, within the wider community. The paper begins with a critique of UNESCO‐UNEP's ideas on what constitutes an environmentally educated teacher; it then goes on to examine a number of priorities for pre‐service teacher education, drawing in particular on a current work of a European Union initiative in this field. The paper concludes by putting forward a series of organizational principles which are explicated in the form of course aims, programme elements and didactics characteristics which might inform the work of pre‐service programmes.