Interview: What’s Wrong With Environmental Education?

In a new book, Charles Saylan, executive director of the Ocean Conservation Society, and his co-author pose a key question: What can the U.S. educational system do to improve students’ understanding of the environment and its importance in their lives? The environment is often seen as a political issue and pushed to the margins of school curricula by administrators and parents, note Saylan and biologist Daniel Blumstein in The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It). But at its core, the authors contend, environmental responsibility is a broadly held, nonpartisan value, much like respect for the law, and deserves a central place in public education. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Saylan talks about the frustrations and rewards of his own experiences as an educator and lays out his vision of the fundamental changes needed. If environmental education is to be truly effective, Saylan insists, it must go well beyond platitudes and the occasional field trip.

Read the interview