Environmental Education and Science in the New Zealand Curriculum

The aims of the science curriculum include helping students to develop knowledge and a coherent understanding of the living, physical, material, and technological components of their environment and helping them to explore issues and to make responsible and considered decisions about the use of science and technology in the environment. Science in the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1993) contains a range of achievement objectives that provide opportunities for integrating the aims, key concepts, and key dimensions of environmental education with science programmes.

The following sections, organised by level and by strand, identify the strands and achievement objectives in Science in the New Zealand Curriculum and suggest some associated study topics that could be used to meet the aims of environmental education and explore its concepts and dimensions. (This is the online vesion of the table on pages 32 to 35 of Guidelines for Environmental Education in New Zealand Schools.)

The skills and attitudes developed as part of science contribute to Aim 3 of environmental education, which is to develop "attitudes and values that reflect feelings of concern for the environment", Aim 4, which is to develop the "skills involved in identifying, investigating, and problem solving associated with environmental issues", and Aim 5, which is to develop "a sense of responsibility through participation and action as individuals, or members of groups, whānau, or iwi, in addressing environmental issues". These skills and attitudes are described in the integrating strand Developing Scientific Skills and Attitudes on pages 42–51 of Science in the New Zealand Curriculum.

At a broad level, these skills and attitudes are focusing and planning, information gathering, processing and interpreting, and reporting.

As students learn in science, they should be encouraged to develop the attitudes on which scientific investigation depends. These attitudes include curiosity, honesty in the recording and validation of data, flexibility, persistence, critical-mindedness, open-mindedness, willingness to suspend judgment, willingness to tolerate uncertainty, and an acceptance of the provisional nature of scientific explanation.

Other attitudes which arise out of reflection about the past, present, and future involvement of science in social and political affairs should also be encouraged. These include a positive and responsible regard for both the living and non-living components of the Earth's environment, and a desire for critical evaluation of the consequences of the application of scientific discoveries.

Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 43

The key environmental education concepts of interdependence, sustainability, biodiversity, and personal and social responsibility for action, as well as such Māori concepts as whenua, mauri, rangatiratanga, taonga, hauora, rāhui tapu, and kaitiakitanga can be developed through science.

Science provides opportunities for exploring the key dimensions of environmental education. Learning in science can be undertaken through education in the environment, such as when students undertake scientific investigations at beaches, farms, or industrial sites. Education about the environment can be pursued through a range of learning experiences, such as a study of the ways in which different species of harakeke are used by Māori weavers or the effects of pesticides on the environment. Education for the environment will occur when students act on their learning in ways that maintain and improve the quality of the environment, such as when they implement a composting or recycling project at school.

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