Yes I do. I do think that environmental studies should be a compulsory subject at primary level of education! We can no longer ignore the threat of environmental destruction! It is a MUST! We should teach them about environmental responsibility and sustainability in early childhood.

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

"Environmental Studies is a multidisciplinary academic field – which systematically studies human interaction with the environment in the interests of solving complex problems. Environmental Studies brings together the principles of Sciences, Commerce/ Economics and Social Sciences so as to solve contemporary environmental problems. It is a broad field of study that includes also the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them. The field encompasses study in basic principles of solve contemporary environmental problems. It is a broad field of study that includes also the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them. The field encompasses study in basic principles of ecology and environmental science, as well as associated subjects such as ethics, geography, policy, politics, law, economics, philosophy, environmental sociology and environmental justice, planning, pollution control and natural resource management. ecology and environmental science, as well as associated subjects such as ethics, geography, policy, politics, law, economics, philosophy, environmental sociology and environmental justice, planning, pollution control and natural resource management."...

Therefore, I think it is very essential and very important that Environmental Studies should be a subject at ALL levels of education.

Please, see the link ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_studies

Even a primary school kid can be sensitive to environmental conditions, feel the discomfort of global warming, and learn to care for the environment: the water, rivers, trees etc.  I believe every child should be scientifically literate from a young age, in our present global village, and learn to respect and love the earth, our only planet and home.  Thanks for your question.  Here is one similar question.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_Environment_Education_be_made_a_compulsory_module_or_subject_in_primary_and_elementary_education?_tpcectx=profile_questions

Yes I do. I do think that environmental studies should be a compulsory subject at primary level of education! We can no longer ignore the threat of environmental destruction! It is a MUST! We should teach them about environmental responsibility and sustainability in early childhood.

Yes. It needs to be not as a subject that is to be passed or something with marks but be a part of the curriculum that becomes an integral part of the education of kids at that level.

the kids need to be - not only kids but all - indoctrinated with environmental issues and concerns. A healthy respects for the environment is what is required.

Children must not be indoctrinated or instilled with a new view of society. There is a difference between environmental science and environmentalism. Children should be taught science and an ability to think for themselves. Yes. We should inform them at an as early age as possible about the world around them. We should not indoctrinate them.

Since the entire world is facing the problem of environmental deterioration. Hence  Environmental Studies should be a compulsory subject at all level of education.

Do you think that Environmental studies should be a compulsory subject at primary level of education?

Yes it should because by starting it as a subject at primary school can create awareness earlier among students to do the right things to protect the environments & at the same time minimizing the bad deeds that we are doing which are harming the environments.

Yes, Environmental Studies should be a compulsory subject at primary level of education as it is primarily concerned with human activity, with the child's physical surroundings and the natural phenomena with which s/he is familiar. The child has a natural urge to explore and investigate his/her own environment and thus it is good educational practice to direct and channel his/her curiosity so as to enable him/her to differentiate his/her experiences, to organise knowledge and to form a satisfactory concept of his environment.

Shankhadeep Chakraborty,

It is essential to make children aware about the environment, but In India the tendency of so called renowned schools is to teach big chapters from big EVS books  right from the pre-primary level. Children become annoyed and panicky to memorize all the answers. I have a daughter, so I have direct experience about the mess. Process of building awareness to environment should be interesting and free from exam cum class promotion process.

Yes,It is essential to prepare students aware with environment.But i am not telling that it should be the compulsory subject.At primary level students learn by the environment .They loves and likes the actions,practices and study with environment.Primary level students tendency is to mix into surrounding environmental climate as good. At primary level there is no need them to understand ecology system and others function of environment rather than they should understand the environment only such as small part of our environment,plants,natural and human environment.Actually the relationship between students and environment starts at primary stage of students but it develops at step by step with increased age group.We can teach environmental awareness  with the help of other subjects which they are studying at primary level.This is my view.

With Regards,

Dear Chakraborty

From the very beginning,  the child starts learning about his/her environment. But in a structured way, it has been suggested that environment studies should be started from class 3rd of school education( NCF-2005, NCERT, New Delhi) . From this stage the child , not only starts acquiring knowledge about  his /her environment , but also starts getting awareness for the  protection of all the segments from harmful activities of humankind and even in using his/her  environment for the learning of other subjects.

Thanks and Regards

 R S SINDHU

off-course

I think that children should assimilate the environmental concepts, to become citizens of a world without polution.

I do not think that all aspects of education should be instutionalized. What can be included in the school curriculum will always be a very small amount than what is necessary to know.  If each time there is a new important issue, we try to introduce it in the curriculum, something else will have to become remove from it.  Yes sometime we have to do it but we have to be very carefull and conservative about it.  Parents have a role to play.  Media have a role to play.  Library and Internet and general cultural diffusion has a role to play.  And most subjects that enter school can be taught peripherally withing other subjects.  Much before a child can be explain the  questions of environments, the child has to understand how the food is produced, has to have experience nature and and seen animals.  Our connection with nature has to be evident prior for us to care for it or understand in an intellectual ways these connections. 

Yes. It should be in very simple format so that student as well as teacher can understand the topic.

I think that in primary school it should only lively and friendly talk and after may be 4-5 years it shoud be discussions, but only after 7-8 should be compalsory environmental education.

Some relevant resources for this issue are attached.

Article Students' academic performance in environmental studies: an ...

Article Implementing a Primary Level Environmental Education Curriculum

Article Environmental education and curriculum at primary level

If we want the next generations to respect the environment better than the present one, that would be the only way to go. Start from grade one.

Maybe the environment can then recover a bit from the damage by all those that use it as a garbage damp : poison - spitting fossil fuel machines, mercury-infested aerosol sprays and an endless list of toxic chemicals that kill anything living.

... yes ...

Of course!

Best regards, Lilliana

Yes it should

Environment has become the problem of present century .For the environment conducive to the basic need of the universe we can not afford to depend on the mercy care of the universe .

It is in  this line it become the responsibility of every citizen of the word to take care of the environment by changing our habit ,our on introspection,we can certainly make the improvement on the areas where we are residing .

We do not want to touch the normal habit of individual but it is the now time that the environmental studies to be imparted to the primary student but it is the responsibility of educational that the student should not be over burden by imparting scientific & technological function of the environment ,instead of this they should be made under the program of simple theory of the environment so that they can understand the basic need of environment & not only that they may behave as a regular habit for which they have studied .

This is personal opinion 

In our country (Argentina), as well as in other Latin American countries, natural socio-ecological systems are endangered by the advance of industrial agriculture and other activities promoted with the sole intention of making money, a lot of money. Teaching young people how natural and social systems work can help to empower them to defend natural wealth and the original communities.

Yes, environmental sciences should be taught from childhood and throughout high school.

Thank you for recommending my opinion. I am already officialy retired but I am still working part time in a project on protection of native forests, the rest of the time I am trying to transmit my vison of education hoping that somebody may listen and act consequently.

Environmental studies are very extensive, they have many directions and their importance will be increased in future.

Here is the experience from FYR Slovenia and Yugoslavia.

Lessons of the environmental studies in the primary school reform

The subject of the Environmental Studies has appeared in the primary school curriculum together with the reform of the compulsory education at the end of the previous century. It is the successor of the subject of the Natural and Social Sciences (NSS) which has been taught at primary schools in Slovenia since 1957.

The reasons why the Environmental Studies (ES) came into existence can be found in the social changes which occurred in Slovenia at the beginning of the 90s of the previous century, in the new concept of primary school programme, in the established negative sides of Slovenian education, in greater comparability of the subject with similar subjects in other European countries and, last but not least, in the negative sides of the subject Natural and Social Sciences.

In the same way as the Natural and Social Sciences, the Environmental Studies also follows interdisciplinary issues. Its content is integrated from different scientific areas; natural sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, techniques and technologies) and social sciences (history, geography, sociology, ethnology). It is also taught in the first three years of the primary school, three lessons a week, the only difference being the fact that it is taught to a year younger children (six year olds) and that there are two teachers in the classroom or a combination - a teacher and a nursery nurse.

The differences between the two subjects can be found in the curriculum. The curriculum of the Environmental Studies includes recent theoretical, developmental, psychological and methodological issues. It is designed on the basis of the learning target strategy and process strategy of the curriculum planning and it is based on the constructional and humanistic theory of learning and teaching, on the greater emphasis of cross-curricular connections between subjects and the increased teacher's autonomy. The only compulsory part of the curriculum are the teaching aims while the pupils' activities, curriculum, didactic recommendations and suggested cross-curricular connections are the suggested part and can therefore be replaced with the more convenient criteria...

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003451.htm

I think so kind of studies at the moment are considered very important so it should be a mandatory subject

regards

Yes in Primary school. They say catch them young. it is easier to inculcate a sense of care for the envirnment at an very early developmental stage