Environmental Health Education: A Participatory Holistic Approach

Abstract

In response to the lack of theoretical foundations in the emerging field of ''environmental health education,'' this article presents a proposal for a theoretical framework which integrates complementary elements drawn mainly from the fields of environmental education, health education, and risk education. This framework is centred on a participatory holistic approach; it seeks to stimulate the development of personal and collective competencies for citizen involvement in improving the relationship between communities and their environment in order to simultaneously promote human health and the integrity of the closely interrelated life systems. The development of this proposal is based on an initial theoretical construct, produced from an anasynthesis of existing literature and results of previous projects, that is being validated and enriched by actual empirical fieldwork. The latter involves the collaborative design and experimentation of educationalintervention projects, among social groups in the region of Lac Saint-Pierre, concerning the issue of fish consumption, its benefit, and also the risks associated to lake chemical contamination.

Vehicular air pollution and asthma: implications for education for health and environmental sustainability

“…Crucially, the international health organisations as well as national health ministries, patient organisations, and general public must explicitly address the link between vehicular dependency, air pollution, and asthma. Education can help enable such a change, as suggested by Sauvé and Godmaire (2004) whose framework of integrated holistic education combines different theoretical elements from the principal contributing educational fields: environmental education, health education and risk education. In the context of asthma and vehicular pollution, integrating reflection into action would mean translating knowledge about causes of the disease and car culture's role into a concrete decision to perhaps switch to public transport.…”

“…Holistic education involves students learning about themselves, about health and about social responsibility (Sambe 2011). It can also involve a combination of environmental and health education (Sauvé and Godmaire 2004), and addresses the link between vehicular dependency and asthma. Holistic education combining environmental and health education is centred on knowledge transmission and behavioural change; viewing the environment not only as an object of study, civic respect or sustainable management, but also as a collective project that involves various stakeholders (Sauvé and Godmaire 2004, p. 37).…”

Les ressources déployées par des leaders du développement durable : Quelles leçons pour l’éducation relative à l’environnement ?

“…La prise de décision environnementale fait référence à la façon dont les individus, groupes et organisations procèdent pour faire des choix qui ont des impacts sur l'environnement (National Research Council, 2005). Comme les problèmes environnementaux sont complexes, dynamiques, non structurés et difficiles à résoudre, la capacité de poser un problème en incluant plusieurs de ses aspects (Pruneau et coll., 2009), la capacité de construire des représentations visuelles du problème, la pensée créative, l'auto-efficacité collective (Bandura, 1995) et la pensée critique (Sauvé et Godmaire, 2004) sont nécessaires à la résolution de problèmes environnementaux. La gouvernance consiste en la création et l'implantation d'actions fondées sur les buts communs de citoyens et d'organisations, qui peuvent exercer ou non un pouvoir d'autorité ou de création de lois (Rosenau et Czempiel, 1992).…”

Leaders of Sustainable Development Projects: Resources Used and Lessons Learned in a Context of Environmental Education?

“…Environmental decision-making refers to the way individuals, groups and organizations make choices that have an impact on the environment (National Research Council, 2005). Since environmental problems are complex, dynamic, unstructured and difficult to solve, the ability to pose a problem (Pruneau et al, 2009), the ability to form visual representations of the problem, creative thinking, collective self-efficacy (Bandura, 1995) and critical thinking (Sauvé and Godmaire, 2004) are necessary for environmental problem solving. Governance consists of creating and implementing actions based on goals shared by citizens and organizations that may or may not possess authority or law-making power (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992).…”