Ecological Consciousness: Building a Sustainable Future

The aims and practices of traditional environmental education have evolved in the Australian curriculum in response to the growing concern of the global environmental predicaments of climate change, global dimming, species diversity loss and the impacts for future generations. The Cross-curriculum priority of Sustainability is fundamental for teachers to include in all learning programs as it provides the link between social, economic and environmental systems that are required to sustain human life. Teachers have an obligation to ensure that all students have a clear understanding of the natural environment which will then allow them to gain an ecological awareness. It is this awareness that will allow future generations to make informed choices to look after the living earth preserve precious resources for future generations. Students need to be educated about ecological awareness as they grow up in an artificial, technological environment, cut off from the natural world, and because nature characterises both our existence and relationship with the world. Teachers have a clear role and responsibility to develop ecological awareness in their students as they have the most impact on student learning and will propel them towards a sustainable future. This is environmental awareness essay  in which this topic will be considered.

The global environmental challenges have begun to threaten our future. It is the role of the teacher to prepare the next generation for the challenges of the future. A teacher is many things, an educator, an entertainer, a role model, a supporter, and an assessor. The teacher's primary role is not just to teach. but to inspire. Teachers have a clear role to promote the acquisition of knowledge and skills to empower students to problem solve the complex challenges they will face in the future The role of a teacher is extremely important when teaching environmental awareness as they are an educator to teach the knowledge, an entertainer to engage the minds, a role model to practice what they preach, supporter to enable the students and an assessor to give feedback and keep the future generations on the right path. It is not only a teacher's role to educate students, but it is also their responsibility to ensure that they meet the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and fulfil the requirements of the Australian curriculum provided by ACARA. By meeting these responsibilities teachers ensure that all students have an individual opportunity to succeed in the future with the knowledge, understanding, and skills essential for the 21st century through the integration of sustainability and ecological awareness in every aspect of pedagogy. Teachers have the largest impact on student outcomes which is why the role and responsibility to develop ecological awareness in their students is very important.

Whilst the imparting of knowledge is the teacher's main role, the attitudes and beliefs of the teacher influence how students translate ecological awareness. Profound lifelong learning occurs when the teacher supports and practices innate conservationism. The influence of the teacher on student attitudes is a result of technology-obsessed students who spend most of their life indoors in front of a screen resulting in feeling isolated from the natural world. Therefore, the role and responsibilities of the teacher are vital to developing ecological awareness to this generation of students. Everything that we require for survival is reliant, either directly or indirectly, on the natural environment. If the love of nature is transferred to school students, this will have a positive impact throughout their lives and will lead to an environmentally aware, sustainable future. Nature characterises both our existence and relationship with the world. It is the role and responsibility of teachers to enable future generations to create an environment where both people and nature can exist in harmony, thus ensuring that the political, social, economic and environmental requirements of today are met without compromising the future.

Through the teaching of ecological awareness, young people sense and become conscious that they are part of a larger global environment. The responsibility to develop this ecological awareness often falls to the teachers in specialist subject areas of science and geography. Science utilises the skills of interpretation and interpretation of the phenomena that occur in nature by using methods and ways of logical thought. Learning about the philosophy of sustainability and ecological awareness is critical for future generations. Teaching ecological awareness is the responsibility of all teachers regardless of teaching specialty, however for Science teachers' the role and responsibility are greater. This is because school science is often young people's first, greatest and often only opportunity to learn how science links to the global world.

The Science curriculum extends an engaging and dynamic context of ecology and environmental awareness which has the potential to engage interest around topics such as climate change global dimming and loss of diversity. Incorporating ecological awareness in science lessons in the secondary curriculum is an opportunity to construct the world population's understanding of the science of sustainability. Science teachers have the responsibility to use their specialist knowledge to be able to incorporate ecological awareness into every science strand. This can include relevance to Physics using light refraction relating it to the Greenhouse effect. In Chemistry, hydrocarbon combustion can be used to help students discover the properties of greenhouse gases and Biology where the focus can be on ecosystems and interconnectivity of systems including the carbon, nitrogen and water cycles. Science teachers have a clear role to inspire, impart knowledge and teach inquiry skills. Science teachers have a responsibility to themselves and to all students to provide engaging contextual learning opportunities that allow the next generation to have the underpinning knowledge and understanding to develop an ecological awareness so that they can environmentally conscious people of the future.

Looking towards the future, there will be an heightened importance for teachers to ensure that the development of ecological awareness occurs in students, however, out of the thousands of new teachers that graduate many currently feel unprepared to teach sustainability concepts without the inclusion of some science instruction. What is in the future teacher's favour is that they are already following many sustainability practices as they have been made aware through their education that climate change is a real issue that society is faced with. Teaching ecological awareness will continue to be a significant challenge for teachers of the twenty-first century due to the influence of politics, economics, socio-cultural and environmental aspects around the world.

A sustainable future is achievable due to the individual teaching choices made by well-informed, and well-prepared future teachers who realise the importance of their role and their responsibility which will not change. As I am a teacher of the future, I am aware of how personal beliefs and thinking about teaching influence my classroom practice. What individuals believe passionately influences the way they make sense of the world and guide the decisions that they make and the actions that they take. Unless the perspectives of the world towards the environment is not altered, the efforts to protect the natural world are destined to fail. As a teacher of the future my role and responsibility as a Science teacher is to developed ecological awareness with the aim of ecological awareness is to increase environmental knowledge, use fact to change attitudes and behaviours and inspire innovation to create solutions to environmental challenges now and for the future.

In conclusion to essay about environmental awareness, the aims and practices of environmental education have evolved in the Australian curriculum in response to the growing concern of global environmental challenges. The Cross-curriculum priority of Sustainability is fundamental for teachers to include in learning programs as it links social, economic and environmental systems that are required to sustain human life. Teachers have a clear role and responsibility to develop ecological awareness in their students. Education crucial for guiding change and the teacher's role and responsibility for the development of ecological awareness is the key. The future of humanity and the health of the Earth is dependent on this. Ecological awareness and sustainability are based on the principle that everything that we need for our survival depends on the natural world either directly or indirectly. Teachers play a crucial role in developing this understanding.

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