Denis U. Agiande
Abstract
Research to improve teaching and learning is a continuous process and one of such researches is on teaching school subjects for conceptual understanding and higherorder thinking and problem-solving skills, and their application. Effort in this direction has produced successful experimental programmes in most school subjects such as Mathematics, Language studies, Social Studies, including Environmental Education (EE). EE as a discipline is so broad that many teachers/lecturers, for several teaching constraints, sacrifice depth of teaching in order to cover the breadth of the curriculum, thereby negating the primary objective of Environmental Educators which is to facilitate students’ active participation in the teaching learning process. Students who are taught in this manner store their knowledge in ‘bits’ and ‘pieces’ and have difficulty connecting EE concepts holistically. But constructivist teaching for conceptual understanding seeks to correct this abnormally in EE teaching and learning because teaching for conceptual understanding often means covering less breadth and more depths. This article explores the concept of teaching for understanding in EE as put forward by expert EE educators; that others can apply with concrete positive results for the benefit of other EE educators that will enhance the proper teaching of the discipline at all levels.