Wang Jin-liang

Opportunities and Challenges for Environmental Education at Yunnan's Institutions of Higher Learning

Fostering and raising public environmental awareness, enhancing peoples sense of responsibility for protecting the environment, and promoting harmony between humankinds behavior and the environment by means of environmental education and training is the fundamental way to resolve problems of the environment. This calls for large numbers of fairly capable specialized technical personnel. There are, in the main, three aspects to the environmental education conducted by institutions of higher education in Yunnan province: environmentrelated professional education, college and university environment-related specialized teaching combined with scientific research projects, and teaching-initiated environmental education activities on and off the school campuses and the various publicity and educational activities initiated in and outside the schools by school-student environmental protection mass organizations. The opportunities faced today are the needs of the states energy-saving, emissions-reduction, and environment-friendly social construction projects, the needs of Yunnan provinces environmental protection and Kunming municipalitys “Four Creations,” and the needs of carrying out Yunnan provinces “Three Life Educations.” It also faces challenges: the lack of an institutionalized educational system for environmental education in Yunnans institutions of higher learning, a weak teaching force, a surfeit of education in monographic studies, insufficient research in comprehensive education, and not enough education in the use of results.