This paper reports some findings from an investigation of educational practice in ten (formal and informal) education for sustainability (EfS) initiatives, to characterise exemplary practice in school and community education for sustainability, considered crucial to Australia's future. The study focused on rural/regional Australia, specifically…

Using data from a new household survey on environmental attitudes, behaviors, and policy preferences, we find that current weather conditions affect preferences for environmental regulation. Individuals who have recently experienced extreme weather (heat waves or droughts) are more likely to support laws to protect the environment. We find…

A problem that is still unexplored in the field of socioscientific issues (SSI) and that was explored in this study is how different students decide upon a SSI they are discussing, how their justifications change during the instruction and how they use (or not) the evidence from the learning environment to support their justifications. For the…

If more conservation-minded citizens were aware of certain environmental threats and how to resolve them, these issues could be resolved more effectively. Scientific conferences focusing on conservation bring together countless experts on environmental problems and solutions, but are not an effective means of reaching the interested public on a…

This paper estimates the effects of human capital skills largely created through education on life's chances over the life cycle. Qualifications as a measure of these skills affect earnings, and schooling affects private and social non-market benefits beyond earnings. Private non-market benefits include better own-health, child health, spousal…

This study is designed to find out how people in rural communities residing in the middle Himalayas use indigenous knowledge to support environmental decisions while addressing water and land use related concerns. The study not only serves to enrich our understanding of community decision-making, especially as connected to land use and ecological…

Going green is now a national issue, and patrons expect their library to respond in the same way many corporations have. Libraries are going green with logos on their Web sites, programs for the public, and a host of other initiatives. This is the first book to focus strictly on the library's role in going green, helping you with: (1) Collection…

Higher education institutions must be resilient as they face vastly increased expectations for sustainable environments, global focus, and technological support. Speed of response to these expectations ultimately depends on shared vision, shared agreement, and shared accountability. In this article, the authors challenge all those engaged with…

This Instructional Resource is based on the authors' current efforts as part of an interdisciplinary project where artists, community members, engineers, social activists, and educators are working together to make positive change in people's lives. Water, as a subject, symbol, and life-sustaining substance, is the focus of their work and the…

Whatever adults might accomplish on the green behavior change front, any sustained success in combating climate change will require the help of the world's more than 2.2 billion children. In "TerraKids," Janet Twyman describes a possible Web site where kids learn about their family's carbon footprint and what they can do to help reduce it.…

This activity promotes ways to save electricity in the home. Students identify electronic devices in the home and examine wattage, hours of use per month, estimated wattage per month, kilowatt hours per month, average retail price per kilowatt hour in each state, and the estimated cost per month. Students gain an appreciation for how saving power…

The author, who has retired as Scarsdale elementary principal, was asked by the superintendent Michael McGill if he was interested in leading Scarsdale's green initiative. Early on in Scarsdale, they referred to their work as the "green initiative." After agreeing to lead the initiative, he set out to learn more about greening at K-12…

The author has been in education long enough to remember the bright orange stickers above every light switch reminding them to turn off the lights during the energy crisis of the 1970s. He remembers the TV commercial scanning piles of loose garbage along the highways, then panning out to show a tear rolling down the cheek of a Native American.…

In this article, a science teacher from the Midwest reflects on her summer vacation to the Gulf of Mexico. She felt that this vacation would help improve her teaching about the environmental problems in the gulf and elsewhere. After all, anyone can show photos of oil-laden birds and dead sea turtles and read news clips of a distant place, but to…

This article describes a pioneering initiative of a Brazilian university to introduce sustainability in all undergraduate curricula and in its operations. The Methodist University Sustainable Program was developed in a bottom-up way and began with the introduction of sustainability as a core value in the Institutional Political-Pedagogical Plan,…