Recognizing the importance of promoting environmental education from an early age, the government has recently introduced it to the national curriculum as an independent subject.
"The addition of the textbook 'Humans and Environment' to the curriculum of secondary schools last year, marked the formal entrance of the environment into the national system of education as a scientific topic," said Abolqasem Mousavi, head of the Department of Environment's education office.
"The book contains seven chapter headings, including biodiversity, pollutants, water, waste, air and tourism, and came out of one year of intensive joint work by textbook writers and environmental experts," he told IRNA on Saturday.
Iran has been wrestling with a range of escalating environmental challenges, from dust storms and water scarcity to air pollution and deforestation.
The fact that much of the environmental degradation is associated with human damage highlights the importance of providing education on environment protection from the school age.
"Another measure in the education sector likely to take effect in the upcoming academic year requires the childcare and pre-school centers to use a specially-designed environment-focused educational package. The package would include three sections, separately targeting the students, teachers and parents," Mousavi said.
Joint Project
A joint study by the Education Ministry, DOE and other related bodies is underway to develop an educational program based on a conceptual and an integrated model, he noted.
Mousavi explained that the conceptual model aims to identify the topics to be incorporated into the textbooks and the integrated model explores ways to best combine the environment-related material into the content of other textbooks, for example by giving environmental tips in drills or example sentences of language books or in math books.
The study is drawing upon the successful experiences of other countries in promoting the environmental education, the official said.
"We have met some of the requirements in developing the educational program by reviewing and using other countries' experiences based on a comparative approach. We have set up green schools, for instance."
