Arthor: Professor Sun-Kyung Lee
Affiliation: Cheongju National University of Education
Against the backdrop of the climate crisis, fine dust, and other concerns recently emerging as key environmental issues, needs for systematic environmental education (EE), especially for teenagers, have increased in Korean society. EE for youth can be provided in various ways in schools and society. EE in schools in particular can be offered systematically and equally to all students, which is deemed to be a significant feature.
1. General Guidelines for the 2022 Revised National Curriculum and Environmental and Ecological Education
The Ministry of Education released ‘General Guidelines for the 2022 Revised National Curriculum’ on November 24, 2021 (Ministry of Education, 2021). According to the guidelines, the National Curriculum aims to improve elementary and secondary school curricula by reflecting national and social needs to actively react to changes in educational environments and lead students to grow to become independent citizens equipped with creativity and inclusiveness required for a future society. National and social needs focus on education for democratic citizenship, ecological transformation education, and digital literacy education. The development of subject matter curricula for competency cultivation is presented as an essential pillar of curriculum development, highlighting ‘in-depth learning,’ ‘inter-subject connection and integration,’ ‘life-connected learning,’ ‘and ’contemplation of learning processes.‘ Moreover, emphasizing digital-based teaching and learning innovation, the guidelines make it possible to develop and apply teaching, learning, and assessment models (in-school and inter-school classes) characterized by free online and offline connections going beyond the realm of standardized classroom education.
The General Guidelines for the 2022 Revised National Curriculum published in 2022 (Ministry of Education, 2022) focus on ‘strengthening the cultivation of competencies to actively react to future changes,’ ‘reinforcing individually customized education for the cultivation of self-directedness, creativity, and character,’ ‘supporting schools’ voluntary innovation and promoting the development of flexible curricula,‘ and ’developing subject matter curricula for life-connected in-depth learning.‘ In particular, the guidelines highlight ’strengthening competencies for community engagement, expanding environmental and ecological education, improving digital literacy and promoting informatization education for a sustainable future’ in order to strengthen competencies to effectively respond to future changes. The National Curriculum presents self-directed, creative, cultivated, and collaborative citizens as desirable human characters, emphasizing competencies for self-control, information processing, creative thinking, aesthetic sensitivity, collaborative communication, and community engagement as key elements.
2. 2022 Revised Environment Curriculum
(1)Environmental Education in Korean Schools
Environmental education (EE) in schools can be offered mainly based on the following two strategies: 1) integrated approaches; 2) independent subject organization. EE in Korea is provided via related subjects for kindergartens and elementary and secondary schools, cross-cutting learning themes, and elective courses for middle and high schools. In elementary schools, an integrated approach, namely decentralized organization (Nam, 1995), is used, where education for environment and sustainable development, one of the cross-cutting learning themes, is included in ‘science,’ ‘social studies,’ and ‘ethics.’ On the other hand, in middle and high schools, EE has been offered comprehensively and independently since independent subjects such as ‘The Environment’ and ‘Environmental Science’ were introduced in 1995 in accordance with the Sixth Revised National Curriculum. However, given that EE content is also included in subjects other than the independent subjects, eclectic systems are deemed to be implemented (Nam, 1995; Lee & Kim, 2017). Considering that EE is offered in the framework of the national curriculum, it is deemed to be indispensible and effective for EE to be included and established in the framework.
In the 6th Revised National Curriculum, subjects ‘The Environment’ and ‘Environmental Science’ were adopted for middle and high schools, respectively. Whenever the National Curriculum was amended, the title of the subject has slightly changed. For middle schools, ‘The Environment and Green Growth’ was used in the 2009 Revised National Curriculum but in the other national curricula, the title of ‘The Environment’ has been adopted. For high schools, the title of ‘Environmental Science’ was chosen in the 6th Revised National Curriculum but different titles such as ‘Ecology and the Environment,’ ‘The Environment and Green Growth,’ and ‘The Environment’ have since been selected whenever the curriculum was amended. In the 2022 Revised National Curriculum, ‘The Environment’ and ‘Ecology and the Environment’ were used for middle and high schools, respectively.
(2)2022 Revised Environment Curriculum
The environment curriculum is composed of characteristics, goals, content systems, achievement criteria, and the direction of teaching, learning, and evaluation. The section of characteristics deals with features, goals, learning spheres, approaches, and connection with other classes while the section of goals presents the general objective and sub-objectives.
The characteristics and goals of the subject of ‘The Environment’ presented in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum are as follows. The subject of ‘Ecology and the Environment’ for high schools is designed to help students understand and apply the systems and lifestyles of a sustainable society based on their critical understanding of the limitations of the earth and environmental crises facing humanity such as climate change and the decline of biodiversity. This subject aims to lead learners to explore diverse environmental cases and issues from inclusive and comprehensive perspectives encompassing natural sciences, humanities/social sciences, and the arts and to grow to become citizens who can contribute to resolving environmental issues and creating a sustainable society via active engagement and practice. The subject of ‘The Environment’ for middle schools is designed to enable students to recognize the importance and value of the environment, display willingness and competencies to live in harmony with others in global ecosystems, and contribute to resolving environmental issues facing humanity such as climate change and the decline of biodiversity and creating a sustainable society. Ultimately, this subject aims to help learners address environmental issues and the environment itself in their own lives, make use of schools/society, theories/practice, and intellect/sensibility in the process, explore relations among the environment, society, and happy lives and thereby grow to become citizens who can actively engage in promoting the sustainability of global ecosystems and human society.
The 2022 Revised Environment Curriculum places emphasis on ‘connect-explore-engage’ as the principle of the subject (the environment) design, complexity, integrated approaches, and education for sustainable development (ESD). Since ‘The Environment’ was established as an independent subject in the 6th Revised National Curriculum, the reinforcement of integration and the reinforcement of ESD have continuously been highlighted. Furthermore, the 2022 Revised National Curriculum newly introduced ‘connect-explore-engage’ as the principle of the subject design. The principle has been applied to diverse domains in the curriculum, also acting as a sub-element of each domain. The 2022 Revised Environment Curriculum highlights the understanding of and responses to climate change, ‘competencies such as systems thinking,’ redundancy avoidance, and appropriate learning content. As a result, the Curriculum newly included the domain of ‘climate crisis and climate action’ in subjects ‘The Environment’ and ‘Ecology and the Environment’ for middle and high schools, respectively, to help students have a better understanding of climate change and actively engage in climate action.
Reflecting focal points and core competencies described in the general guidelines, the Environment Curriculum established the goals of the subject and related competencies. The 2015 Revised National Curriculum also emphasized environmental competencies but it was the 2022 Revised National Curriculum that introduced the concept of systems thinking to set up a basic framework for complexity and integrated approaches to be highlighted and implemented, respectively, in a more effective and meaningful way. In this context, competencies are composed of environmental sensitivity, systems thinking, competencies for collaboration and community engagement, communication and conflict resolution, creative problem-solving, and environmental information literacy. Self-control, knowledge/information processing, and creative thinking described in the general guidelines are included in the domain of creative problem-solving while ‘aesthetic sensibility’ and ‘cooperative communication and community engagement’ are included in [‘environmental sensitivity’] and [‘competencies for collaboration and community engagement’ / ‘communication and conflict resolution],’ respectively. Systems thinking and environmental information literacy are also covered.
The content systems for the subject of ‘The Environment’ presented in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum consist of five domains for both middle and high schools such as ‘The Environment and Humanity,’ ‘Environmental Systems,’ ‘Environmental Problems and Issues,’ ‘Climate Crisis and Climate Action,’ and ‘Sustainability and Civic Engagement.’ Based on the principle of ‘connect-explore-engage’, learning domains were established. ‘The Environment and Humanity’ enables learners to see and feel that humans and the environment are mutually connected while ‘Environmental Systems,’ ‘Environmental Problems and Issues,’ and ‘Climate Crisis and Climate Action’ lead students to explore problems/issues and climate change. ‘Sustainability and Civic Engagement’ aims to nurture citizens who can actively engage in creating a sustainable society and future. The principle of connect-explore-engage is equally applied to each domain. Therefore, learning each domain, students are led to recognize connections between the environment and humanity, explore environmental problems/issues and the climate crisis, and based thereon, engage in climate action for sustainable ecosystems. The domain of ‘Climate Crisis and Climate Action’ newly added in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum covers the climate crisis, biodiversity, the definition of climate, carbon neutrality, and climate action to enable students to more effectively understand related problems and issues, seek solutions, and engage in the climate initiative. The subject of ‘The Environment’ for middle schools puts emphasis on cultivating inclusive perspectives via the understanding of various environmental issues while ‘Ecology and the Environment’ for high schools aims to help learners recognize the complexity and inclusiveness of environmental problems via more in-depth studies. Both of the subjects are designed to help learners come up with solutions based on sustainability and equality.
One of the significant changes in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum is to present core ideas that students are supposed to acquire after learning each domain. Each of the five domains includes two to three core ideas and based thereon, content elements such as knowledge/understanding, processes/functions, and values/attitudes are offered. ‘Knowledge/understanding’ covers key concepts and principles while ‘processes/functions’ chooses and presents core competencies in connection with specific processes or functions such as experiences, contemplation, survey, comparative analysis, reasoning, prospects, searches, exploration, discussions, sharing, planning, implementation, application, and engagement/practice. Lastly, ‘Attitudes/Values’ copes with inclusive attitudes, respect/consideration, responsibility, sustainability, equality, and practice/engagement, as well as the values of sensitivity and empathy accompanying knowledge/understanding acquired via processes/functions (refer to Figure 2). Achievement criteria are established by combining two or more elements constituting knowledge/understanding, processes/functions, and attitudes/values. The program was carefully designed to prevent too many elements from excessively increasing the amount of education.
The 2022 Revised National Curriculum presents the direction of and methods for teaching/learning and evaluation for the subject as a whole, rather than offering teaching/learning and evaluation by domain. In terms of the direction of teaching and learning, in-depth learning opportunities for cultivating core competencies in EE are provided, offering teaching/learning services for customized curricula supporting learners’ lives and growth and helping students better understand and acquire eco-scientific knowledge. As a result, learners are able to explore diverse types of careers and occupations and independently design their own lives and careers. Teaching and learning methods presented therein include ‘the exploration of real world issues,’ ‘sharing the process of and results from environmental engagement and exploration,’ ‘searching for various cases of endeavors to resolve and remedy environmental problems,’ ‘interaction, communication, and collaboration with diverse members,’ and ‘career-connected opportunities.’ The direction of evaluation is composed of the following three pillars: 1) balanced evaluation of processes/functions and values/attitudes, as well as the understanding and knowledge of environmental issues; 2) evaluation not only of results but also of processes; and 3) evaluation in which various stakeholders such as teachers and students participate.
3. Elective Courses and Education for Environment and Sustainable Development as a Cross-Cutting Learning Theme
In the 2022 Revised National Curriculum, EE covered in subjects other than ‘The Environment’ is based on the following two elements. First, education for environment and sustainable development remains the same as before, which was chosen as one of the ten cross-cutting learning themes in the 2015 Revised National Curriculum. Therefore, this should be used as an important learning topic considered for school education and other subjects. Also, the 2022 Revised National Curriculum selected ecological transformation education as one of the national and social requirements. Against this backdrop, in early 2022, the Ministry of Education prepared and distributed content system tables for ecological transformation education to curriculum developers, requesting them to be reflected in each subject curriculum. As a result, ecological and environmental education were included in achievement criteria, characteristics, goals, teaching/learning methods, and special notes much more than before. In addition, as elective courses, ‘Climate Change and Environmental Ecology’ and ‘Climate Change and a Sustainable World’ were newly established for subjects ‘Science’ and ‘Social Studies,’ respectively. Therefore, the 2022 Revised National Curriculum is deemed to offer more opportunities for EE than before, both quantitatively and qualitatively, which is considered to be well-timed and appropriate.
-- about Advisory Committee Meeting
-- Case sharing from other countries
Affiliation: Cheongju National University of Education
Against the backdrop of the climate crisis, fine dust, and other concerns recently emerging as key environmental issues, needs for systematic environmental education (EE), especially for teenagers, have increased in Korean society. EE for youth can be provided in various ways in schools and society. EE in schools in particular can be offered systematically and equally to all students, which is deemed to be a significant feature.
1. General Guidelines for the 2022 Revised National Curriculum and Environmental and Ecological Education
The Ministry of Education released ‘General Guidelines for the 2022 Revised National Curriculum’ on November 24, 2021 (Ministry of Education, 2021). According to the guidelines, the National Curriculum aims to improve elementary and secondary school curricula by reflecting national and social needs to actively react to changes in educational environments and lead students to grow to become independent citizens equipped with creativity and inclusiveness required for a future society. National and social needs focus on education for democratic citizenship, ecological transformation education, and digital literacy education. The development of subject matter curricula for competency cultivation is presented as an essential pillar of curriculum development, highlighting ‘in-depth learning,’ ‘inter-subject connection and integration,’ ‘life-connected learning,’ ‘and ’contemplation of learning processes.‘ Moreover, emphasizing digital-based teaching and learning innovation, the guidelines make it possible to develop and apply teaching, learning, and assessment models (in-school and inter-school classes) characterized by free online and offline connections going beyond the realm of standardized classroom education.
The General Guidelines for the 2022 Revised National Curriculum published in 2022 (Ministry of Education, 2022) focus on ‘strengthening the cultivation of competencies to actively react to future changes,’ ‘reinforcing individually customized education for the cultivation of self-directedness, creativity, and character,’ ‘supporting schools’ voluntary innovation and promoting the development of flexible curricula,‘ and ’developing subject matter curricula for life-connected in-depth learning.‘ In particular, the guidelines highlight ’strengthening competencies for community engagement, expanding environmental and ecological education, improving digital literacy and promoting informatization education for a sustainable future’ in order to strengthen competencies to effectively respond to future changes. The National Curriculum presents self-directed, creative, cultivated, and collaborative citizens as desirable human characters, emphasizing competencies for self-control, information processing, creative thinking, aesthetic sensitivity, collaborative communication, and community engagement as key elements.
2. 2022 Revised Environment Curriculum
(1)Environmental Education in Korean Schools
Environmental education (EE) in schools can be offered mainly based on the following two strategies: 1) integrated approaches; 2) independent subject organization. EE in Korea is provided via related subjects for kindergartens and elementary and secondary schools, cross-cutting learning themes, and elective courses for middle and high schools. In elementary schools, an integrated approach, namely decentralized organization (Nam, 1995), is used, where education for environment and sustainable development, one of the cross-cutting learning themes, is included in ‘science,’ ‘social studies,’ and ‘ethics.’ On the other hand, in middle and high schools, EE has been offered comprehensively and independently since independent subjects such as ‘The Environment’ and ‘Environmental Science’ were introduced in 1995 in accordance with the Sixth Revised National Curriculum. However, given that EE content is also included in subjects other than the independent subjects, eclectic systems are deemed to be implemented (Nam, 1995; Lee & Kim, 2017). Considering that EE is offered in the framework of the national curriculum, it is deemed to be indispensible and effective for EE to be included and established in the framework.
In the 6th Revised National Curriculum, subjects ‘The Environment’ and ‘Environmental Science’ were adopted for middle and high schools, respectively. Whenever the National Curriculum was amended, the title of the subject has slightly changed. For middle schools, ‘The Environment and Green Growth’ was used in the 2009 Revised National Curriculum but in the other national curricula, the title of ‘The Environment’ has been adopted. For high schools, the title of ‘Environmental Science’ was chosen in the 6th Revised National Curriculum but different titles such as ‘Ecology and the Environment,’ ‘The Environment and Green Growth,’ and ‘The Environment’ have since been selected whenever the curriculum was amended. In the 2022 Revised National Curriculum, ‘The Environment’ and ‘Ecology and the Environment’ were used for middle and high schools, respectively.
(2)2022 Revised Environment Curriculum
The environment curriculum is composed of characteristics, goals, content systems, achievement criteria, and the direction of teaching, learning, and evaluation. The section of characteristics deals with features, goals, learning spheres, approaches, and connection with other classes while the section of goals presents the general objective and sub-objectives.
The characteristics and goals of the subject of ‘The Environment’ presented in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum are as follows. The subject of ‘Ecology and the Environment’ for high schools is designed to help students understand and apply the systems and lifestyles of a sustainable society based on their critical understanding of the limitations of the earth and environmental crises facing humanity such as climate change and the decline of biodiversity. This subject aims to lead learners to explore diverse environmental cases and issues from inclusive and comprehensive perspectives encompassing natural sciences, humanities/social sciences, and the arts and to grow to become citizens who can contribute to resolving environmental issues and creating a sustainable society via active engagement and practice. The subject of ‘The Environment’ for middle schools is designed to enable students to recognize the importance and value of the environment, display willingness and competencies to live in harmony with others in global ecosystems, and contribute to resolving environmental issues facing humanity such as climate change and the decline of biodiversity and creating a sustainable society. Ultimately, this subject aims to help learners address environmental issues and the environment itself in their own lives, make use of schools/society, theories/practice, and intellect/sensibility in the process, explore relations among the environment, society, and happy lives and thereby grow to become citizens who can actively engage in promoting the sustainability of global ecosystems and human society.
The 2022 Revised Environment Curriculum places emphasis on ‘connect-explore-engage’ as the principle of the subject (the environment) design, complexity, integrated approaches, and education for sustainable development (ESD). Since ‘The Environment’ was established as an independent subject in the 6th Revised National Curriculum, the reinforcement of integration and the reinforcement of ESD have continuously been highlighted. Furthermore, the 2022 Revised National Curriculum newly introduced ‘connect-explore-engage’ as the principle of the subject design. The principle has been applied to diverse domains in the curriculum, also acting as a sub-element of each domain. The 2022 Revised Environment Curriculum highlights the understanding of and responses to climate change, ‘competencies such as systems thinking,’ redundancy avoidance, and appropriate learning content. As a result, the Curriculum newly included the domain of ‘climate crisis and climate action’ in subjects ‘The Environment’ and ‘Ecology and the Environment’ for middle and high schools, respectively, to help students have a better understanding of climate change and actively engage in climate action.
Reflecting focal points and core competencies described in the general guidelines, the Environment Curriculum established the goals of the subject and related competencies. The 2015 Revised National Curriculum also emphasized environmental competencies but it was the 2022 Revised National Curriculum that introduced the concept of systems thinking to set up a basic framework for complexity and integrated approaches to be highlighted and implemented, respectively, in a more effective and meaningful way. In this context, competencies are composed of environmental sensitivity, systems thinking, competencies for collaboration and community engagement, communication and conflict resolution, creative problem-solving, and environmental information literacy. Self-control, knowledge/information processing, and creative thinking described in the general guidelines are included in the domain of creative problem-solving while ‘aesthetic sensibility’ and ‘cooperative communication and community engagement’ are included in [‘environmental sensitivity’] and [‘competencies for collaboration and community engagement’ / ‘communication and conflict resolution],’ respectively. Systems thinking and environmental information literacy are also covered.
The content systems for the subject of ‘The Environment’ presented in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum consist of five domains for both middle and high schools such as ‘The Environment and Humanity,’ ‘Environmental Systems,’ ‘Environmental Problems and Issues,’ ‘Climate Crisis and Climate Action,’ and ‘Sustainability and Civic Engagement.’ Based on the principle of ‘connect-explore-engage’, learning domains were established. ‘The Environment and Humanity’ enables learners to see and feel that humans and the environment are mutually connected while ‘Environmental Systems,’ ‘Environmental Problems and Issues,’ and ‘Climate Crisis and Climate Action’ lead students to explore problems/issues and climate change. ‘Sustainability and Civic Engagement’ aims to nurture citizens who can actively engage in creating a sustainable society and future. The principle of connect-explore-engage is equally applied to each domain. Therefore, learning each domain, students are led to recognize connections between the environment and humanity, explore environmental problems/issues and the climate crisis, and based thereon, engage in climate action for sustainable ecosystems. The domain of ‘Climate Crisis and Climate Action’ newly added in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum covers the climate crisis, biodiversity, the definition of climate, carbon neutrality, and climate action to enable students to more effectively understand related problems and issues, seek solutions, and engage in the climate initiative. The subject of ‘The Environment’ for middle schools puts emphasis on cultivating inclusive perspectives via the understanding of various environmental issues while ‘Ecology and the Environment’ for high schools aims to help learners recognize the complexity and inclusiveness of environmental problems via more in-depth studies. Both of the subjects are designed to help learners come up with solutions based on sustainability and equality.
One of the significant changes in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum is to present core ideas that students are supposed to acquire after learning each domain. Each of the five domains includes two to three core ideas and based thereon, content elements such as knowledge/understanding, processes/functions, and values/attitudes are offered. ‘Knowledge/understanding’ covers key concepts and principles while ‘processes/functions’ chooses and presents core competencies in connection with specific processes or functions such as experiences, contemplation, survey, comparative analysis, reasoning, prospects, searches, exploration, discussions, sharing, planning, implementation, application, and engagement/practice. Lastly, ‘Attitudes/Values’ copes with inclusive attitudes, respect/consideration, responsibility, sustainability, equality, and practice/engagement, as well as the values of sensitivity and empathy accompanying knowledge/understanding acquired via processes/functions (refer to Figure 2). Achievement criteria are established by combining two or more elements constituting knowledge/understanding, processes/functions, and attitudes/values. The program was carefully designed to prevent too many elements from excessively increasing the amount of education.
The 2022 Revised National Curriculum presents the direction of and methods for teaching/learning and evaluation for the subject as a whole, rather than offering teaching/learning and evaluation by domain. In terms of the direction of teaching and learning, in-depth learning opportunities for cultivating core competencies in EE are provided, offering teaching/learning services for customized curricula supporting learners’ lives and growth and helping students better understand and acquire eco-scientific knowledge. As a result, learners are able to explore diverse types of careers and occupations and independently design their own lives and careers. Teaching and learning methods presented therein include ‘the exploration of real world issues,’ ‘sharing the process of and results from environmental engagement and exploration,’ ‘searching for various cases of endeavors to resolve and remedy environmental problems,’ ‘interaction, communication, and collaboration with diverse members,’ and ‘career-connected opportunities.’ The direction of evaluation is composed of the following three pillars: 1) balanced evaluation of processes/functions and values/attitudes, as well as the understanding and knowledge of environmental issues; 2) evaluation not only of results but also of processes; and 3) evaluation in which various stakeholders such as teachers and students participate.
3. Elective Courses and Education for Environment and Sustainable Development as a Cross-Cutting Learning Theme
In the 2022 Revised National Curriculum, EE covered in subjects other than ‘The Environment’ is based on the following two elements. First, education for environment and sustainable development remains the same as before, which was chosen as one of the ten cross-cutting learning themes in the 2015 Revised National Curriculum. Therefore, this should be used as an important learning topic considered for school education and other subjects. Also, the 2022 Revised National Curriculum selected ecological transformation education as one of the national and social requirements. Against this backdrop, in early 2022, the Ministry of Education prepared and distributed content system tables for ecological transformation education to curriculum developers, requesting them to be reflected in each subject curriculum. As a result, ecological and environmental education were included in achievement criteria, characteristics, goals, teaching/learning methods, and special notes much more than before. In addition, as elective courses, ‘Climate Change and Environmental Ecology’ and ‘Climate Change and a Sustainable World’ were newly established for subjects ‘Science’ and ‘Social Studies,’ respectively. Therefore, the 2022 Revised National Curriculum is deemed to offer more opportunities for EE than before, both quantitatively and qualitatively, which is considered to be well-timed and appropriate.
-- about Advisory Committee Meeting
-- Case sharing from other countries