Environmental protection in school curricula: Polish context

Abstract

Properly planned and effectively implemented education provides an opportunity to change human behavior, which in turn may lead to an improved quality of life worldwide, including by means of realizing a cleaner environment. This article presents the results of research on the integration of environmental protection issues into curricula by Polish teachers. It was assumed that the environmental protection issues included the challenges related to the sustainable management of natural resources. The sample consisted of 337 teachers of general subjects who were employed in schools in the Malopolska region (southern Poland) and working with students in lower-secondary (13-16 years old) and upper-secondary (16-20 years old) schools. The results of the research show that many teachers know how to integrate environmental protection issues into their curricula. However, there are still many teachers who ignore key issues in the education of sustainable development in their teaching process.