A Model for Introducing Environmental Quality Education into a School Curriculum. Taft Campus Occasional Paper No. VII.

At a meeting in DuPage County, Illinois, in April 1972, speakers representing the PTA, students, school teachers and administrators, outdoor education, the Illinois School Boards Association, and the Open Lands Project voiced enthusiastic support for introducing environmental education into the school curriculum. One of the County's several college, secondary, and elementary level environmental programs described in the meeting, the Glencoe (Illinois) Environmental Education Curriculum was designed to develop environmental consciousness and social responsibility through an integrated curriculum approach for grades K-8. The program's initial success was partly due to the fact that it involved all sectors of the community in its activities which included the establishment and maintenance of a glass recycling center, largely the work of students and the PTA. Speakers advocated such citizen participation in environmental education as well as the reassessment of educational priorities to make education accountable to an environmentally responsible society. (SB)