Environmental education is fast emerging as one of the most important disciplines in the United States and in the world. Merging the ideas and philosophy of environmentalism with the structure of formal education systems, it strives to increase awareness of environmental problems as well as to foster the skills and strategies for solving those problems. Environmental issues have traditionally fallen to the state, federal, and international policymakers, scientists, academics, and legal scholars. Environmental education (often referred to simply as "EE") shifts the focus to the general population. In other words, it seeks to empower individuals with an understanding of environmental problems and the skills to solve them.

Background

The first seeds of environmental education were planted roughly a century ago and are found in the works of such writers as George Perkins Marsh, John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and Aldo Leopold. Their writings served to bring...