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Australian Tertiary Environmental Courses: A Status Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Ian Thomas
Ian Thomas*
Affiliation:
Department of Planning, Policy and Landscape, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
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During the 1970s and 1980s there has been a growing awareness of the environment. This has been particularly evident in the general community through:

• passing of environmental legislation;

• growth in status of environment groups;

• media coverage of environmental issues.

As a result the direction of formal education has been influenced. For example, through the Victorian State Conservation Strategy, the community has indicated the direction for tertiary institutions, where one of the objectives of this strategy is to:

promote and strengthen inter-disciplinary environmental education programs in schools and tertiary institutions. (Victorian Government, 1987, p.89)

Similarly, the Australian Government's Ecologically Sustainable Development process (ESD) has proposed the incorporation of ESD, in tertiary curricular (Ecologically Sustainable Development Steering Committee, 1992).

Linke (1979) has described the development of environmental education curricula during the 1970s whereby consideration of aspects of the environment became more common. Most activity was noted to be in primary and secondary sectors, however, at tertiary level a range of subjects focussing on the environment were apparent, as were several courses which were specifically designed to provide training in environmental understanding.

Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 9 , 1993 , pp. 135 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

References

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