Scientific progress and science teaching:
Basic knowledge, interdisciplinary and ethical issues

THE NORWEGIAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION NETWORK

NORWAY

The Norwegian Environment Education Network aims to establish a support network for schools such that can offer pupils action-oriented and interdisciplinary environmental education according to the intentions of the national curriculum plan. The program tries also to contribute towards the achieving the goals of socially active schools and to create conditions directly related to local environmental protection work. It is intended to establish networks for exchange of environmental and cultural protection information among schools, and between schools and municipal departments and other public institutions, research groups, organisations, etc.

The Norwegian Environment Education Network involves schools, teacher training education and adult education. The activities and tasks within the network are to be based on realizing and making concrete the curriculum plans for primary, lower secondary and secondary schools. The environmental education presents a challenge in terms of both contents and teaching methods. According to this, the project tries to give the students action-oriented environmental training. In this way, it helps them to be active and to gain knowledge about interaction between nature and society. The kids often work in groups and use the local environment as a learning area. They make observations and prepare reports about them. The students also discuss the results in the classroom and send reports to partners outside the school (for example through the electronic meeting place).
The contents in the network are organised under three main programs: water program, land program, and city-and-town program. Each program includes four components: the diversity of nature, cultural heritage and cultural landscape, planning and use of areas and sustainable production and consumption. The network also provides methodological and scientific support by offering a database written guidelines worked out by scientists. These guidelines are used when the children make the reports. They are sent to the experts, who sometimes use the student's observations in scientific programmes. Children can also ask the scientists for support with specific questions. The basis teaching material is a booklet that describes the goals of environmental education (EE), the methodological principles and the main contents with their four components. It also includes several activities related to monitoring environmental conditions (species, pollution, culture heritage sites, etc.).
Finally, by following these methods and guidelines, the pupil's work of learning can at the same time be useful for the local authorities. In this way, environmental education and local environmental protection work are able to go hand-in-hand as two sides of the same issue.

A necessary step and prerequisite for EE in schools is to integrate EE in the curriculum, but evaluation has shown that it is not sufficient. The schools need continual support in order to integrate environmental subjects as a natural part of the educational process. For this project, it is crucial that pupils experience positive results from practical environmental work. Furthermore, the experience has shown that interdisciplinary and action-oriented education outside of the classroom is difficult to achieve. Then, the network is a meeting place for schools, research, public management agencies and other interested groups in the society. Finally, by offering quality-controlled methods, the work done by pupils as they learn can help the local management authorities, so children do not need to wait to participate actively in environmental issues.

Mrs. Ellen Lange
Adviser Department for Policy Analysis and International Affairs
Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs
P. O. Box 8119 Dep N-0032 OSLO, Norway
Tel: + 47 22 24 79 13
Fax: + 47 22 24 27 32
E-mail: ellen.lange@kuf.dep.no

Mrs. Astrid Sandås
National Board of Education
P. O. Box 2924, Tøyen, 0608 Oslo - Norway
Tel: + 47 23 30 13 18
E-mail: asa@ls.no
Website: http://miljolare.no

Institutional Partners
Ministry of Research, Education and Church Affairs, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, University of Bergen, Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Norwegian Pollution Control Authority.
Financial Partners
Ministry of Education.

1996-2001. The project is planned to continue in a new phase from 2002 to 2005.

The program is to be evaluated in 2001 by a research institute: Østlandforskning. They will deliver their report in February 2002. Furthermore, another evaluation was conducted in 1997.