Abstract:

Environmental education has been a subject of international debate since 1969, when the term was first introduced (Stapp et al., 1969; UNESCO, 1997). Since then, it has been implemented in various ways in schools of all levels and in widespread education. In recent years, environmental education has become closely linked to the concept of sustainability (Brundtland, 1987), which is an integral part of the broader social justice landscape, especially since the signing of the 2030 Agenda in 2015.

While the climate crisis places the education of present and future generations in environmental conservation and sustainable change as an absolute priority, the scientific debate on the subject expresses heterogeneous theoretical assumptions and objectives, and reflects the complexity of the educational mandate. If, on the one hand, we have already witnessed the evolution from the original green skills to the so-called "green competences", meaning a broadening of the knowledge, skills and attitudes recognized to enhance and implement the protection of our planet (Bianchi, Pisiotis & Cabrera Giraldez, 2022); on the other hand, the literature is rich in suggestions that go far beyond, and show the ethical (Bateson, 1977) and political (Latour, 2019) perspective of ecological education, combining its call to responsibility (Apel, 1992) with a deeper sense of communion with the planet and the totality of existence (Naess, 1973; Rifkin, 2022).

The aim of this contribution is to analyze some of the best-known academic contributions through a narrative review (Bourthis, 2017) on the topic and - on the basis of some case studies and field research presented in the international literature - explore the intertwining of technical-disciplinary knowledge and existential dimensions. School activities and educational practice are recognized here as privileged observatories for understanding how seemingly antithetical perspectives can actually reinforce each other, fostering a dialogue between competences and experiences, cognitive and non-cognitive, individual and community.

Keywords:

Environmental education, green competences, ecological education.