Since 1987, World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) proposed an acceptable concept for sustainable development, the countries around the world gradually had realized the significance of Education for Sustainable Development(ESD). Education was one of the key strategies that was expected to deal with the environmental crisis globally. Therefore, how to develop and design a quality environmental education lesson and learning activity is very crucial. At present, the demand of quality environmental education lessons and activities from Taiwan's nonformal institutions has increased significantly because of enactment of the Environmental Education Act in 2010. Therefore, the goal of the study is to identify what the need of environmental educators in nonformal institutions are, especially in the context of promoting ESD relevant concepts.
Research methodology adopted in this study is a predominantly qualitative approach combined with quantitative data collection. Firstly, we individually conducted semi-structured interviews with senior environmental educators (n=4) to develop survey questions. Secondly, we used survey to collect data concerning the professional development needs of environmental educators in Taiwan (n=103). Thirdly, a focus group interview was conducted (n=6). Lastly, two expert meetings (n=6) were conducted to reflect all collected data to synthesize the professional need of environmental educators in nonformal education institution.
Results/Conclusions
There are four findings of the study. One of the findings was indicated that the needs of environmental educators for professional competencies focused on how effectively converse with the public, they would involve knowledge and ability aspects. According to the second finding, the front-line environmental educators still thought that dissemination of environmental knowledge and using experience to promote environmental awareness were more important than value clarification and guiding action reflection in practice. In the third finding, it's hard to integrate with theory and practice for the environmental educators from promotion of ESD. In the final finding, multi-disciplinary collaboration was important but not the focus of professional development needs. We thought that multi-disciplinary collaboration stay on the cooperation of internal institutions, not cross-organizational collaboration.
According to the findings above, we expect to construct a professional development curriculum model based on how to converse with the public in the future. This model would be the important preliminary for development of ESD in Taiwan.