Built environment education : a curriculum paradigm

The expansion of Built Environment Education into art programs is a relatively recent phenomenon but very timely. The need to develop in students an understanding of their living environment is urgent as they inherit a world that is experiencing the depletion of its resources and erosion of its ecological balance.There is a fundamental need for more comprehensive curriculum planning in built environment education. The goal of this research is to develop a curriculum paradigm that can be used to create curriculum plans and instructional designs for built environment education as part of the art class in secondary schools.The built environment content of this curriculum paradigm is based on the active investigation of the students' internal world with all its different perceptions and lived experience and how this affects their understanding of the greater built environment. Through a more intense investigation of the greater built environment, the students will then analyze the effect that this environment has on their own perceptions and living habits. By developing a more conscious understanding of the built environment, the students will be better equipped to make informed decisions on how to better adapt to or change their environment.A guiding principle for the curriculum paradigm was to ensure that the introduction of a new subject area, such as built environment education, into art education curriculum involved processes of creativity and discovery along with self-reflective and participatory action for both the teacher and students. To be effective, the content material must not only be accessible through the traditional modes of academic literature research but also made valid through observation, reflection and interaction with the particular built environment of the teacher and students themselves.Vigilance and active participation in the process of urban change are vital. These changes can only be effective and enduring if we acknowledge the capacity of the built environment to enrich our lives as private and communal beings.One of the essential goals of this curriculum paradigm is to capture the excitement and potential that the built environment offers as a pervasive agent for understanding and celebrating constructed past, present and future