Building Community Resilience Through Environmental Education: A Local Response to Climate Change

Building Community Resilience Through Environmental Education: A Local Response to Climate Change

Mphemelang Joseph Ketlhoilwe
Copyright: © 2019 |Pages: 21
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-7727-0.ch001
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Abstract

The call for collaborative efforts to respond to climate change is heeded through bilateral and multilateral agreements. The UN Sustainable Development Goals bears testimony to the call. Environmental education is one of the vehicles to raise awareness, understanding, and assessment of sustainable development goals at a community level to build resilience for sustainability. Environmental education enhances the accomplishment of the key competencies for sustainability. Climate change is a complex environmental problem that is not only naturally induced, but made more stressful by anthropocentric capabilities in the quest for a better lifestyle. Although climate change causes and impacts are known, its mitigation strategies are compounded by human wants at the expense of their own sustainable survival. This chapter explores ways of building sustainable development in communities. Environmental education is a core development strategy in local communities against the adverse impact of climate change, especially in vulnerable areas.
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Contextual Background

Public education needs drastic re-orientation to mainstream climate change and variability to promote learning for sustainable development. Community environmental education programme has a role to play in understanding, mitigating and adapting to climate change. A study conducted by Ardoin and Heimlich (2013, p. 106) indicated that

During the interviews, several of the decision makers commented on the role that education plays, particularly as a tool for awareness. One said, “The benefit to education is that it helps people develop a deeper understanding of an issue. . . . If [my organization] wants to encourage people to take a specific action around an issue, if people are already up-to-speed on it—they’re knowledgeable about it, they care about it—it makes [my organization’s] work easier.

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