Why Do We Need to Teach Education for Sustainability at the Primary Level?

Abstract

There is a growing realisation among the peoples of the world of our impact on the environment. When we consider that we depend entirely on our natural environment to provide the resources that sustain our lives (water, food, materials, fuels, etc.), we can see why this situation should cause concern. Part of this concern resides in the knowledge that development trends are not sustainable; our current levels of population and consumption mean we are far exceeding our planet's capacity to support us and other species. These trends are having consequences such as resource depletion and waste disposal, climate change, extinction of species and challenges to the integrity of ecosystems, which we describe in more detail in Chapter 2. These consequences are so severe and widespread that scientists have informally coined a new term for the time we are living in-the Anthropocene-to signifY the unprecedented impact of human activity on the Earth.