Summary Environmental Education: Nurturing a Sustainable Future
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Course
BEM4101
Institution
Mount Kenya University
Environmental education empowers individuals with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to address environmental challenges and foster sustainable living. This interdisciplinary field encompasses a broad range of topics, from understanding ecosystems and biodiversity to exploring the impacts of cli...
UNIT TITLE: INTRODUCTION TO ENVIROMENTAL EDUCATION
,BEM 4101: ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Purpose
To make students aware of the need for conserving and managing the environment.
Course objective
By the end of the course unit the learners should be able to:
i. Discuss the significance of the environment as it relates to the society
ii. Discuss the various ways of managing and conserving the environment
iii. Describe the various ways of utilizing environmental resources
iv. Familiarize themselves with the legal and ethical issues on the environment
Course outline
Topic/sub-topic Hours
Management of the environment 3
Planning for the available resources in the environment
Utilization of the environment
Methods of conserving the environment 3
Awareness of the community with regard to 3
environment and legal issues in environment
The role of education in management and conservation 2
of environment
Population and Environment 3
Awareness of the environment 2
Conservation in Kenya and world effort 3
Environment and Sustainable development 2
Human settlement and environment contribution of the 3
social, economic and political aspects of the society
.
,TOPIC ONE
ENVIRONMENT
INTRODUCTION
Humans have always inhabited two worlds. One of the natural worlds of plants, animals, soil, air
and water that precede us by billions of years and of which we are a apart. The other is the world
of social institutions and artifacts that create for ourselves using science and technology and
political organization. Both worlds are essential to our lives, but integrating them successfully
causes endure tension.
Where earlier people had limited ability to alter their surroundings, we now have power to
extract and consume resources, produce waste and modify our worlds in ways that threaten both
our continued existence and that of many organisms with which we share the planet. To ensure a
sustainable future for ourselves and future generations, we need to understand something about
how our world works, what we are doing to it and what we can do to protect and improve it.
Environment has been defined as the sum total of all conditions & influences that affect the
development & life of organisms. Or the complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an
individual or community. All external conditions and factors, living and non-living (chemicals
and energy) that affect an organism or other specified system during its lifetime. Environment is
a very broad concept. For example we human beings are likely to interact with millions of other
organisms, drink a large number of liters of water, breath huge quantities of air and respond to
daily changes in temperature and humidity during our lifetime. This list only begins to describe
various components that make up the environment of an organism.
World educators & environmental specialists have repeatedly point out that any solution to the
environmental crises will require environmental awareness & understanding to be deeply rooted
in the educational system. Environmental education provides the foundation for a new order
which will certainly conserve & improve the environment. The 1980 World Conservation
Strategy, prepared by the international union for the conservation of nature along with UN
Environment Program and the World Wildlife Fund, promoted the idea of environmental
protection in the self interest of the human species.
, Information sharing and awareness raising, as well as environmental education, have been
identified as key areas in working towards sustainable development, notably by Agenda 21.
Indeed, education, access to information and awareness raising help to promote public
participation in decision making, ultimately determining the direction of development and the
state of the environment
Definitions
Environment is everything that affects an organism during its lifetime.All external conditions
and factors, living and non-living (chemicals and energy) that affect an organism or other
specified system during its lifetime. Environment is a very broad concept. For example we
human beings are likely to interact with millions of other organisms, drink a large number of
liters of water, breath huge quantities of air and respond to daily changes in temperature and
humidity during our lifetime. This list only begins to describe various components that make up
the environment of an organism.
An organism is any form of life. Organisms can be classified into species, or groups of
organisms that resemble one another in appearance, behaviour, chemistry, and genetic
endowment. Organisms that reproduce sexually are classified in the same species if, under
natural conditions, they can actually or potentially breed with one another and produce live,
fertile offspring.
A population consists of a group of interacting individuals of the same species that occupy a
specific area at the same time. Examples are all sunfish in a pond and all people in a country.
Populations are dynamic groups that change in size, age, distribution, density and genetic
composition as a result in changes in environmental conditions.
The place where a population or an individual organism lives is its habitat. Populations of all the
different species occupying a particular place make up a community. The niche of an organism is
the functional role it has in its surroundings. A niche is everything that affects and everything
that is affected by an organism during its lifetime.
An ecosystem is a community of different species interacting with one another and with their
nonliving environment of matter and energy. An ecosystem may be small, such as a particular
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