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Participants of the Forum already had an interest in environmental education and shared a common awareness that the cycle of mass production, consumption, and disposal must be stopped because of its enormous impact on the environment. While marveling at the latest facilities and the scale of the plant, they saw the amount of money and energy poured into treatment, which made them reconsider the current state of the urban environment. Although debates in Youth Conference on Environmental Education tended to focus on the mass disposal problem, participants developed a common awareness that the actions of each citizen are important. Students from various Asian nations reported on the current environmental problems in their countries: the fact that these nations have no choice but to depend on felling trees for fuel and the problems of desertification, population growth, and concentration of population in cities. Participants listened with grave concern to their presentations. The Conference showed how little understanding adults have toward environmental problems and the lack of opportunity for adults to undergo environmental education. Furthermore, it demonstrated the importance of people developing more environment-friendly habits in everyday living from childhood towards sustainable cities. Also, older children must learn about the circulation of matter on Earth and understand the whole flow of production, distribution, consumption, and disposal in developing sound environmental ethics. It was also pointed out that they must learn to interact with the beauty of nature and first develop a love for Earth. Since human beings must realize that they cannot live without depending on the Earth's resources and other forms of life, education should focus on the fact that environmental problems can ultimately be solved not by denying science, the bastion of civilization, but by human effort, including progress in eco-technology and others. Children should not be encouraged to deny their existence through overemphasis on the myopic egotism of human being in the pursuit for greater convenience. It is also important to teach them that impact on environment can be reduced by individual efforts and regional cooperation. One important aspect that was not discussed extensively in the Conference was the need in environmental education to build abilities to foresee potential environmental problems that are likely to occur in the future. Prof. Kazuyuki Mikami (Environmental Education Center, M.U.E) |
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In this forum, we focused particularly on summarizing the area in which environmental education plays a role and on matters that require attention to clarify the actual situation of environmental education. First, we drew attention to "Coexistence with Nature". Participants understood the self-cleansing functions that the natural ecosystem has through the fieldwork at Gamo Tidelands. Then at a sewage treatment plant that artificially purifies water, they realized, comparing with the tidelands, that the human socio-economic system is responsible for the destruction of the natural ecosystem. They also became conscious of the needs to purposely adjust the imbalance. We secondly thought what the circulation-based society ought to be. Although participants only had a concept of the waste issue, they came to perceive the problem as an individual one, by visiting an incineration plant. The large amount of waste they encountered made them feel responsible for the result of human activity. Besides they brought up the question regarding our present way of manufacturing and consuming. The last thing we addressed is the community planning that aim at coexistence with nature and the circulation-based society. Through the workshop with the Ashinokuchi Elementary School pupils, they reaffirmed the importance of concrete discussion with regards to environment and life in each local community. Participants themselves became more interested in the new aspects of environmental issues through the aforementioned activities. They then demonstrated their opinions at the Environmental Youth Conference held the next day. They comprehended that if they actually experience environmental issues or they view our daily life from different perspectives, their conceptual knowledge of "environmental problem" will become their own matter. Foreign participants showed that they came to know the characteristics of environmental issues in their own country as well as in Japan, and they realized that circumstances of economic development differ from each country and they are facing different problems. They, after that, debated on the future of environmental education, considering the way of its concept and implementation. Participants put forward the necessity to recognize that our artificial environment changes itself in the course of manufacture, distribution and consumption. They also came to the conclusion that training at home, the same as in school, in the local community and the mass media, will play a significant role in activating environmental education. In addition, they advanced the need for environmental education to be done according to each generation. They generally made sure that we should regard environmental education from various point of views and this is the first step for implementing environmental education. Prof. Takaaki Koganezawa (Department of Social Science, M.U.E) |