Environmental education as a vehicle for environmental sustainability

One of the key claims and challenges for environmental education is about how it contributes to environmental sustainability, most envisaged through changes in learners’ knowledge, attitudes, skills and/or behaviours. There are diverse models of environmental education, and they are equally diverse in the outcomes they generate. For instance, Corral-Verdugo’s (2002) structural model of pro-environmental competence suggested that contextual factors (real world challenges) are anticipated to develop relevant knowledge and skill (competence) in response. Building on existing concepts and empirical evidences, Kaiser et al’s (2008) pro-environmental competence model considered ecology-specific abilities (environmental knowledge and people’s connectedness with nature) augment individual conservation behaviour and develop aptitudes for addressing environmental challenges. Environmental education with an evidence-based approach fostering both environmental knowledge and appreciation for nature can encourage sustainable behaviour changes (Roczen et al, 2014). Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) prioritises empowering learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes, and cultivating environmental and social awareness in students to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity and promoting sustainable development (UNESCO, 2020). ESD emphasises the interconnectedness of environmental issues with human well-being, people’s rights and fair distribution of resources (Kopnina, 2012).

Education systems teaching environmental justice help students to explore important social concerns relating to education (Kushmerick et al, 2007). As Peleso (2007) pointed out, environmental justice education helps students to develop critical perspectives on the environment, considering human, political and social actions, compared to traditional environmental education, which focuses on a deeper understanding of the environment and a sense of responsibility for the preservation of the environment. If students learn about environmental issues in school, they can change their attitude and behaviour towards sustainability (Piscitelli and D’Uggento, 2022) and can play a role in ensuring environmental justice in their communities. So, it is imperative to understand the justice landscapes children encounter inside and outside school.

The role and value of environmental justice in environmental education

Environmental justice is aimed at providing equitable access to natural resources and improving the livelihood of everyone, including those directly dependent on natural resources. This issue is more prominent for those who are already marginalised and disadvantaged due to their non-participation in the mainstream social, political and educational processes. The environmental justice movement has played a crucial role in shifting public and policy attention on the unequal distribution of environmental impacts, inclusivity, fairness, participation and sustainability, as well as intersectionality (referring to ethnicity, caste, gender, literacy, area of residence and so on) in the policy and academic debate. It has played a significant role in expanding our environmental concern beyond a sole ecological perspective to socio-political and environmental activism and reshaping environmental philosophy (Griffin et al, 2017; Figueroa, 2023). The movement recognised that poor people, minorities and remote communities are unevenly harmed by environmental hazards: they are exposed more to hazardous and toxic wastes, and polluted air and water, as well as impacted by resource depletion and ongoing development (Shrader-Frechette, 2002; Newton, 2009). In the JustEd study, we explored to what extent secondary school education related to the environment is taught as a ‘justice issue and how learners respond to both formal curricula and informal forms of knowing to develop their understanding and actions for their and nature’s futures’ (Milligan et al, 2021: 2).

Research sites

The research sites comprise four purposively selected community schools in the Mountain, Hill and Terai regions including Rasuwa, Lalitpur and Mahottari districts, respectively. These locations represent Nepal’s three distinctive ecological belts and are culturally as well as geographically diverse. The school in Rasuwa represents the rural mountainous context where the Tamang, Gurung and Magar are major ethnic communities. The Lalitpur school, in an urban setting in the Hill region, is mainly attended by students from migrant and economically deprived backgrounds. The third sample school is situated in rural deep Terai Madhesh region in the Mahottari district, dominantly populated by the Madheshi ethnic communities. The fourth school is in urban Mahottari, at a juncture of the Terai and Hill regions, and is attended by children from mixed communities of Madheshi and Hill peoples. All three regions where the sample schools are located are recognised for their vulnerability to environmental disasters: Mahottari stands alone at a very high flood vulnerability index (0.766-1.000) and is in a national priority for flood adaptation planning (Ministry of Environment, 2010); Lalitpur district is ranked high in most of the risk-specific and combined vulnerability indexes; and Rasuwa is a prioritised district for adaptation planning for ecological and landslide risk/exposures (Ministry of Environment, 2010).

Methods and participants

Multiple methods were used for gathering the data to ensure data reliability and validity (Cohen et al, 2018). As noted, the methods included qualitative methods with learners and teachers, and content analysis of government policies and national curricula documents. The methods with learners and teachers include walking interviews with learners in outdoor settings around their schools, creative participatory methods with four groups of six learners each, observations of classroom teaching and learning, focus group discussions with learners, and semi-structured interviews with teachers on school premises. These methods explored learners’ experiences, knowledge, skills and intended actions related to environmental concerns. Interviews with staff explored how they addressed environmental concerns in the school and/or teaching. This paper employs in-depth data from 24 secondary-level students, aged 14 to 16 years, and their teachers (15) and head teachers (4). In addition, 78 students participated in after-class interactions about their learning and experiences. Table 1 illustrates the participants and methods used for data collection.

This research also analysed the content of government documents to assess how environmental justice was addressed in education. We analysed the Constitution of Nepal-2015, the School Sector Development Plan (SSDP) 2016–23, School Education Sector Plan (SESP) 2023/24–2031/32, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2019, Environmental Management Framework (EMF) 2016 and other related educational policies to identify and analyse policy provisions regarding environmental education from justice perspective. We conducted a qualitative content analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Miles et al, 2014) of the science curriculum and the Health, Population and Environment (HPE) curriculum for grades 9 and 10. The data and the names of the participants in this study have been anonymised. The University of Bath’s (UK) Social Science Research Ethics Committee reviewed and approved the ethical considerations and protocols adopted in this research (reference S22-025).

Disconnection 1: Aspirational policy statements gain low priority in the new curriculum

The SSDP and the SESP stated that education has an important role in promoting environmental sustainability and securing sustained livelihoods through acquisitions of knowledge, life skills and behaviour related to environmental protection (MoE, 2016; MoEST, 2022). The SESP suggested the integration of various soft/non-cognitive skills and human values, and important concepts like inclusion, respect for diversity, equity, human rights, awareness of sustainable development, environmental change and so on into curricula, curricular materials and learning processes. However, the new national curriculum, adopted in 2021, places a lower priority on environmental education compared to the previous national curriculum. The Table 2 provides a comparative overview of the content coverage of environmental education in the old and new core curriculum for secondary levels (grades 9 and 10) implemented at the national level.

In grades 9 and 10 of Nepal’s new school curriculum (2021), the HPE subject was demoted from a core subject to an elective subject, ‘Environment’. With the subject becoming elective, fewer students may choose it, and therefore it potentially leads to reduced knowledge, understanding and awareness of critical environmental issues and environmental sustainability among the youth. The removal of important topics from Science and Technology subject means students miss out on essential knowledge about the environment. On the other hand, studies (for example, Bromley et al, 2011; Jimenez et al, 2017) have reported that curricular coverage of environmental issues has increased over time in many countries. It was found that old and new school curricula do not explicitly cover the content dealing with environmental justice: equitable distribution of natural resources, meaningful participation of people in policy-programme development, their implementation, advocacy and decision making irrespective of caste, gender, socio-economic status, location and so on.

Disconnection 2: Expected learning outcomes in the National Curriculum are unlikely to deliver policy aims for education’s contribution to environmental protection

Nepal’s National Curriculum Frameworks 2007 and 2019 state that they aim to prepare conscientious citizens to contribute to sustainable development by conserving, promoting and utilising the natural and national heritage and environments (CDC, 2007; 2019). This language is action oriented: it suggests that learners acquire and put into practice a set of skills and behaviours for protecting and promoting ‘natural and national heritage and environment’. However, our analysis of environmental content in the Science and the HPE subjects in the curriculum suggests that the rhetoric of learners acquiring transformational skills, attitudes and behaviours presented at the outset of the curriculum document does not follow through in the content and learning objectives for both subjects. The content and expected learning, outcomes are still largely ‘knowledge-based’, ‘factual’ and ‘cognitive’. Mostly learners are expected to ‘introduce’, ‘identify’, ‘explain’, ‘describe’ and ‘state’ the contents covered. There are a few behavioural, action-oriented objectives. For instance: explore the ways to mitigate climate change; engage in community, school and household waste management; adopt mitigation and protection measures of biodiversity loss; participate in local efforts to environmental protection; and demonstrate changes in behaviour.

Disconnection 3: Current textbooks are poorly designed for delivering and achieving educational goals of environmental protection and sustainability

We considered that although the curriculum itself is a sparse outline of topics, in this section we can now build on this analysis to explore the extent to which textbooks advance the action and behavioural outcomes set out by the curriculum and align with NCF outcomes. It is expected that textbooks may include more in-depth knowledge, activities and examples that promote behavioural change and specific actions for learners to advance knowledge, understanding, skills and behaviour for environmental sustainability. Based on the textbook content, learners are unlikely to consider that it is human activities that are contributing largely to natural environment deterioration. Our review of textbooks and learning aids used in the HPE and the Science subjects suggests they are unlikely ‘to prepare students as conscious citizens who can contribute to sustainable development by conserving, promoting and utilising natural and national heritage and environments as expected by NCF and curriculum (CDC, 2014; 2019; 2021). For instance, the textbook content included information about the accelerated rate at which glaciers are melting, the formation of glacier lakes and the risk of glacier floods due to climate change. This type of content provides knowledge and can make learners aware of the potential disaster caused by increasing global temperature; however, this textbook content is inadequate, on its own, to foster in-depth critical analysis or discussion among students with regard to the implications of climate-change disasters for justice and global inequality, and it also seems impotent to motivate action or behavioural change among learners as it does not relate this knowledge back to their own lives or experiences. It is thus crucial to bridge the gap between academic knowledge, provided through textbook and pedagogical practices, and real-life experiences by engaging students in experiential learning. Experiential learning builds upon students’ lived literacy, resulting in enhanced learning outcomes (Peloso, 2007; Nuwategeka et al, 2021).

In addition to the content, we also considered textbooks as pedagogical aids for teachers and therefore looked at the structure of the activities and learning aids within them. The textbooks include multiple-choice questions, short-answer questions and project work about the causes of climate change, its effects and mitigation measures. If properly implemented following the required standards, these exercises engage students in reflection as well as critical thinking about their behaviour and behaviour change, so these aspects of the textbooks seemed to be more aligned with the key aspirations set out at the beginning of the NCF.

Disconnection 4: Teachers mostly using traditional teaching methods often lack focus on skill development, attitudinal shifts or behavioural change for environmental sustainability

Regarding classroom practice, the commonly suggested instructional methods in science and HPE curricula are lecture, question-answer, demonstration, exploration, discussion, project work and field study. Furthermore, the HPE curriculum suggested problem-solving, survey and discovery, role play and critical thinking. Although the curriculum suggested a wide variety of teacher and student-centred methods (CDC, 2021), it is unclear which of the methods is suggested for what type of content. The curriculum and textbooks did not illustrate how to develop practical skills for students to deal with the practical aspects of environmental education.

Disconnection 5: Gap between learners’ lived experiences and their formal learning in school

Analysis of both science and HPE curricula showed that there is content about environmental issues and environmental protection, for example, the impact of urbanisation on climate, global warming, climate change impacts, care of the Earth and so on. However, how such knowledge bases can go into implementation at the microlevel community processes has not been adequately discussed either in the textbooks or in the classrooms.

The curricula, textbooks and classroom practices failed to present and discuss the justice perspective on environmental education. The classroom observation revealed teachers were competently presenting the content knowledge in the class but did not talk about how the ongoing policies and practices impact the lives of people who are close to nature, living in poverty, and facing different forms of socio-economic marginalisation. As education is a key to social transformation, it is crucial that education should address in a timely fashion the environmental crises that disproportionately affect the poor, women, children, disabled people and people from marginalised, disadvantaged and rural contexts.

We found a significant gap between learners’ lived experiences and their formal learning in school. For instance, a teacher in a school in the mountain region did not bring recent examples relevant to environmental content despite their easy availability. Similarly, a science teacher in Kathmandu could have talked to their students about causes, consequences and responses to urban environmental damage in the context of school closures that took place due to air pollution in Kathmandu in March 2021. However, two experienced teachers were found to have contextualised the content knowledge by giving examples from their surroundings. For instance, a teacher tried to link biodiversity with multicultural and multilingual societies such as ethnicity and caste diversity, language diversity and geographical diversity, citing examples from the community context. Teachers’ effective facilitation of student learning through linking the latter’s lived experiences with curricular content illustrates how knowledge transfer takes place through instruction. A teacher suggested that for connecting school education with people’s livelihoods, teaching–learning about environmental issues and their impacts on people’s lives needs to be contextualised covering prevalent local content, and experiences. For example, exploring the causes of mosquitos being rampant; less snowfall; declining number of snow leopards; glacier lake outbursts in mountain regions; landslide and deforestation in hill regions; forest fire, flood, deforestation; more heat in Terai regions; pollution; drinking water issues in cities; and so on, and their disproportionate impact in livelihood can be brought into the school’s teaching and learning activities. Another teacher opined about involving parents in their children’s learning process. He said that ‘we can make students more inquisitive and tell students to ask their parents, to see the gradual change in the environment and link it to the topic’.

Students frequently talked about the socio-spatial distribution of environmental hazards and their impact on local livelihoods. They perceived that individuals, communities, industries and corporate companies as well as government policies and actions have exacerbated environmental hazards. A student from a school in Terai recognised the responsibility borne by the industries for environmental damage, ‘I have a strong belief that it’s because of illegal mining of sand and uncontrolled cutting of land, the communities living in mountains and plains are badly impacted, causing a high risk of flood and landslide’. Based on their observations and experiences, many students reported that environmental hazards in their localities are due to unplanned development, such as haphazard road construction in hill regions and an extension of unplanned residential areas in Terai regions; increased pollution – improper waste management, sewage of wastewater in rivers and rivulets, disposition of waste materials on the roadsides and riverbanks; deforestation; forest fire; excessive fossil fuel consumption; and so on. They believed that increased environmental hazards led to the climate crisis. The students’ observations resonated with the findings of the World Bank study that stated, ‘Average annual ambient air pollution concentrations of 50 to 80 μg/m³ nationwide considerably exceed World Health Organization guidelines of 10 μg/m³ … Water pollution and water scarcity affect women’s health, nutrition, workload, and, consequently, their opportunities to overcome poverty’ (World Bank, 2019: 59, 64). Families with low socio-economic status and their children are often highly exposed to environmental pollutants (UNICEF, 2016). However, teachers in their respective classrooms did not explore whether such issues have already been a part of their students’ real-life learning.

The students also argued that some religious and cultural practices help clean the environment as well as maintain peace, brotherhood and harmony in society. For example, cleaning ponds and rivers for the Chhath festival (mostly Hindu people in Mithila regions in Terai celebrate and are pledged to worship the sun), planting tulsi (Holy Basil) plants in house compounds, and the planting of bar (Ficus benghalensis) and pipal (Ficus religiosa) trees to worship as symbols of god are cultural practices that promote healthy living. On the other hand, learners also observed that activities such as people offering excessive flowers, food and other resources during religious and cultural festivals negatively affected the environment. A student believes that unhygienic traditional practices have continued due to illiteracy, and lack of awareness about potential negative consequences on the environment and human health. This epistemic understanding of the student is not adequately addressed in the textbooks and curriculum. Students’ understanding of the environments based on their lived experiences and the schools’ educational practices were not adequately connected. Students got opportunities to engage in several extracurricular activities inside and outside the school context on rare occasions. They organised several clubs in which they participated in pro-environmental activities. For example, it was found that children’s clubs and scouts conducted in-school and out-of-school activities – performing drama, and organising debates, cleaning campaigns and plantation programmes that increase awareness as well as realisation of their responsibility towards environment conservation.

Students reported mixed beliefs concerning teachers’ inability to contextualise their teaching with students’ lived experiences and noted that this affected their content comprehension and ability to relate learning to their lives. A female student from rural Terai said, ‘I found difficulties understanding climate change and I cannot explain more about it’. However, another student said, ‘I understood the content very well as the content was learned in lower grades and the teacher discussed it with detail and with local examples’. This shows that teachers’ ability to build on students’ lived experiences positively affects students learning.

Barriers to using more diverse and engaging pedagogies

We explored some factors that create barriers to use more diverse and engaging pedagogies in teaching and learning.

Limited availability of resources and financial constraint in schools was identified as one of the barriers to engaged pedagogies. Many teachers reported that they have limited resources for more creative, in-depth pedagogies. Despite the constraints of limited resources and budgets, teachers can use cost-effective strategies, such as integrating outdoor teaching in a local natural setting. Unfortunately, such strategies are rarely put into practice by schools. A teacher from the urban Hill school said ‘While it is beneficial to organise a field visit for students to explore environmental issues, the arrangement is challenging due to financial constraints. Neither does the school manage, nor do the students pay because most of the students in the school are from low-income families’. Teachers perceived schools’ limited resources contributed to constraining pro-environmental activities. Such practical limitations prevented students from obtaining first-hand experiences and the opportunity to engage with communities.

Classroom management was one of the constraints. All the 26 classes observed for this study had traditional types of row and column seating arrangements with very limited space available for movement, there were no computers, internet or projection facilities in the classrooms and there was no physical arrangement in the class to conduct the activities. All these posed difficulties for teachers to conduct group work and other student-centred activities.

Administrative support and willingness also contribute significantly to quality education. A teacher in the urban Hill school reported that lack of coordination in the school and reluctance of school leadership are among many factors hindering possible changes in the school practices. Schools were found to be not aware of developing policy regarding engagement of the school with the community, government and non-governmental organisations regarding environmental concerns.

Several other students reported similar experiences regarding language-related barriers in the classroom. They argued that teaching and learning should not be limited to a single language as a medium; rather, incorporation of local languages can increase access to information and participation of the pupils who do not speak the dominant languages, such as English and Nepali.

It was found that teachers were not trained in environmental sustainability. Teachers lack practical knowledge and skills to implement critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, reparative pedagogy, modern technology and so on to deal with local and global environmental concerns, beyond textbook content, in their lessons.

Right of people to have equal access to nature (for survival, leisure, enjoyment and so on – anthropocentric)

The data seem to suggest that there is little discussion of power and privilege related to climate change and environmental concerns. Thus, there is little critical debate about how the privileged choices and power exerted by wealthy groups (within and beyond Nepal) influence the rights of others to enjoy nature (Amos and Carvalho, 2020; Bhambra and Newell, 2022; Harvey, 2022). The human-centric perspective about the environment is centred around humans and their needs. It prioritises the consumption of natural resources to fulfil human needs and ‘nature is valued for its convenience’ (Sürmeli and Saka, 2013). It is imperative that the moral dimensions of humans’ actions towards the environment should be based on environmental ethics (Bourdeau, 2004).

Biocentric notions of nature

The data suggest that there could be some content that supports biocentric notions of environmental justice – for example, discussions of nature itself without reference to humans, such as glaciers melting, the devastating consequences for large ecosystems without mention of how it will impact people; this could be considered to foster among learners an appreciation for nature and to critique damage to nature beyond what the impacts on humans are. A biocentric perspective focuses on our responsibilities and contributions towards the environment, emphasising the importance of our actions for the survival and flourishing of all beings (Nuwategeka et al, 2021). It considers the natural world as a subject of justice, endowed with inherent rights and entitlements (Milligan et al, 2021). The Environment Protection Act, approved in 2019, contains a biocentric perspective and made a special provision for environmental protection. The Government of Nepal may declare adversely impacted or likely to be caused areas as ‘sensitive areas’ and issue any appropriate order for the maintenance, management or restoration of the environment (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2019).

Place-based – relating to learners’ lived experience

In Nepal’s school context, there is less space in environmental education to engage young learners meaningfully in the key challenges of our time by creating spaces for critical and integrative thinking. There are some considerations of place-based environmental education that could be mentioned here – for example, inconsistent use of local examples by teachers – perhaps employed by experienced teachers who know how to gain the interest of students and help students to succeed (regardless of the fact that localisation is not encouraged in the curriculum or textbooks). Our study identified non-formal knowledge streams within schools, religious practices of environmental conservation, and celebrations like Environment Day also play a significant role in building students’ sustainability values and competencies for climate-change action and future resilience, especially considering that these topics often receive less emphasis in the school curriculum. Many environmental educators focus on the ultimate desired behaviours (desired learning outcomes) rather than all the steps needed to get there, including habits, tasks and skills (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008). ‘Environmental education and education for sustainable development (ESD) play a role in changing people’s behaviour, produce a generation capable of thinking critically and making decisions to solve environmental problems in their communities’ (Permanasari et al, 2021: 6).