Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2015
Environmental education in New Zealand (NZ) was born out of the environmental movement during the 1960s and 1970s. During that time it became increasingly apparent that we needed to know more about ourselves, our surroundings and the interactions between these two. The central impulse of environmental education is to help develop people who are knowledgeable of, concerned about, and motivated to do something for, the environment. This involves being:
1. Knowledgeable about the physical, social and economic environment of which people are a part;
2. Concerned about environmental problems; and
3. Motivated to act responsibly in enhancing the quality of our environment as well as our life.
In NZ a common misconception held was that environmental education is the same as outdoor education. It is not. Environmental education is concerned with those aims listed above, whereas outdoor education is now taken to mean, and is officially called, ‘Education Outside the Classroom’. Obviously the two are neither synonymous nor mutually exclusive (Dowling 1986). In the school context, environmental education has traditionally been considered as any teaching about ‘the environment’. Today, however, it is being understood as a process which is multi-disciplinary in approach and for the environment at heart.