The concept of ecosystem services in environmental education. Exemplary approaches at schools, universities and in the further education scene for planners

Abstract

The concept of ecosystem services has great potential to an-chor nature conservation and species protection more firmly in a broader social debate. As an assessment framework, it il-lustrates the benefits of natural services in the broadest sense and is the subject of intense debate with regard to its scope and the operationalization required for spatial planning. In the sense of an integration into the social debate about the sustainable use of natural resources, the concept should be inclu-ded in the canon of educational offers – beyond the ‘classical’ offers and topics of environmental education. This paper ex-emplifies how the concept is taught in school education (using the example of the Federal State of Saxony, Germany), and in higher education in selected subject areas in Germany as well as in the further education landscape for planning practitio-ners (in Germany, Austria and Switzerland). The paper shows approaches and deficits for a future goal-oriented operatio-nalization of the concept. The focus is explicitly on environmental education and the provision of educational offers for actors in spatial planning, and reflects the current landscape of educational offers in the mentioned fields.