Global Environmental Education, Lacking Energy

Educating young people about current and future environmental hazards is paramount to changing behavior and preparing the next generation to confront our myriad environmental challenges.

Climate change heads the list of future environmental degradation that we must confront.  We should focus our efforts on curtailing the leading contributor to climate change – the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity.

Here in the United States, some work has been done to assure that energy conservation and energy efficiency curriculum are infused into environmental education campaigns and programs as well as stand-alone energy education programs. However, a broad survey of existing energy efficiency education programs is lacking to better understand how the topic currently fits within a larger environmental education framework.

In order to build capacity internationally as well as in developing countries, we must take the following actions in order to expose students to environmental issues at a young age:

• expose students to energy concepts and the link between energy and the environment,
• prepare them to wisely use and manage energy as adults, and
• create an on-ramp to green careers in energy.

This paper explores the attitudes toward energy education and the perceived need for such curricula, barriers to adopting formal energy education, need for instructional resources related to energy, and factors that would lead to greater uptake.

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