Environmental education and the dimensions of sustainability: An analysis of the curriculum of the Cuahoga Valley Education Center

This study examines the curriculum of Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center (CVEEC), in order to determine whether or not it is promoting strong or weak sustainability. It is presented that the bioregion provides intangible and non-sustitutable “identity information” to society that links education to strong sustainability through the inherent valuation present in decision making. The program places students in a hypothetical decision making process, which gives evidence to ecocentrically based decisions. The program educates students in the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social domains. The program uses identity information from the bioregion as a basis for instruction. The program consists of activities that allow students to make decisions regarding environmental issues relating to sustainability that result in ecocentric based decisions. The analysis of this paper serves as the basis for a framework that defines how an environmental education program might be considered to be promoting strong sustainability.