Creating a successful environmental education curriculum: a rare example

With the state of the world these days, environmental education has more\ud importance than ever. Rapidly declining resources and diminishing environmental quality\ud are just a few examples of the reason that our citizens need to become educated stewards\ud of this planet. The onus on environmental educators is to implement the method of\ud education that is known to be the most effective toward creating pro-environmental\ud attitudes and behaviors.\ud This project was created in an effort to synthesize the most effective methods\ud of teaching environmental education and use those to design a predictively successful EE\ud program. Five factors emerged from the research as being of the greatest impact in\ud producing long-term pro-environmental attitude and behaviors in students, and those\ud were used as the model for creating this project. Using recycling education as a platform\ud for addressing environmental issues, Recycling and Rubbish Education, or RARE was designed. The program features detailed lesson plans and activities for grades K-6,\ud focusing on recycling education while interweaving the 5 criterion discovered in the\ud research. The end result is a K-6 curriculum and accompanying activity guide which can\ud be considered a ???model??? EE curriculum, and one which reflects the best possible means\ud of achieving long-term pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in its students.CSU, Chic