ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the decade of the 1970s that saw the emergence of Environmental Education as an area of learning which featured for the first time as an intergovernmental policy commitment. We will begin by exploring some of the important events, contexts, and texts which gave rise to, and shaped, interpretations of this educational response to environmental concerns. It recognises the role of the 1972 Stockholm declaration in cementing Environmental Education and how the 1975 Belgrade charter and Tbilisi conference of 1977 clarified and expanded on the importance of education in the quest for planetary health. It also saw the emergence of Earth Day, first celebrated on April 22, 1970, which played a pivotal role in catalysing engagement in Environmental Education. The decade was characterised by the raising of awareness and concern of global environmental issues with a focus on ‘informing’ and ‘experiencing’. Educational activities were influenced by the founders of Environmental Education that saw learning through the disciplinary lens of psychology and interpreting education as an instrument for changing learners’ behaviour. Alongside this influence, we see learning taking place mostly in the outdoors and with the intention of building bonds between the learners and the natural environment and generating a ‘sense of wonder’. The 1970s saw increasing support for a nature narrative and an assumed correlation between developing a connection with nature at an early age in life, and making positive environmental decision-making later in life. Pedagogically, learning opportunities remained teacher-centred and driven with exploratory elements restricted to natural environments. Environmental Education took place at visitor centres, in school gardens and playgrounds, in field centres, wilderness areas, and sometimes in Environmental Education centres that were being formed at that time. In higher education, new course offerings on environmental studies and environmental science began to appear.
