Reasons named as a higher priority
For me, all of the items relate to the ultimate goal of environmental education, a sustainable planet. That goal requires behavior change and action, it results from understanding and connections to nature and I believe it’s critical for education to take place even at PreK, through college to be the most effective.
This was difficult. In my 5, I tried to include those that carried along items I had to leave out, e.g., “understanding” seems to include “cognitive domain.” And, if action and behavior change, problem-solving and environmental outcomes are happened, I decided I didn’t really care if EE were institutionalized or not.
For example, “understanding” and “connecting people to nature” are likely key foundations for outcomes like “action” and “environmental outcomes” and “social.cultural aspects” (which get at intersection of environmental and social justice) which I see as ultimate outcomes. (I thus ranked ultimate outcomes first.) For me, “understanding” also includes emotional dimensions because cognitive alone won’t do the trick. /
While I know it’s not the most compelling, I do think the core outcome for EE is to increase people’s understanding of environmental processes and impacts of human actions on them – including ecological and social systems. Problem-solving skills are a close second.
Reasons named as a lower priority
For example “understanding” is developed as part of an education focus on the “cognitive domain”.
I don’t feel a need to pick similar topics, and cognitive domain and understanding are similar. So either will do. And it is at the core of learning.
This was difficult. In my 5, I tried to include those that carried along items I had to leave out, e.g., “understanding” seems to include “cognitive domain.”
