Many articles and papers concerning environmental education as a part of school education for the past about 20 years were reviewed. The review extracted several issues about environmental education in schools, as follows:
  (1) Examination of the concept “environment” is insufficient. There is not a common understanding among environmental educators about the meaning of the concept. It is necessary for the concept “environment” to be discussed more thoroughly, and the effect that the concept gives to environmental education should be considered.
  (2) Environmental education dwelling on many environmental problems leaves learners pessimistic about the future. However, environmental education without teaching about environmental problems at all is insufficient. This type of environmental education effectively hides the crime of environmental disruption by the adult generation.
  (3) Environmental education tends to demand a change in today's lifestyles and values. Environmental education has therefore been regarded as dangerous. In environmental education, it is desirable to respect various values and to take positive neutral viewpoints.
  Secondly, unique examples of environmental education that have been suggested in the past are introduced and examined.
  Finally, the curriculum constitution of Japanese schools is examined. The relationship between the period of integrated study and environmental education was discussed. On the basis of these examinations, the author proposes that environmental education in schools be carried out as mainstream during the period of integrated study.

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  This paper examines “Education for Sustainable Development (ESD),” clarifying the current situation of research, activities, and future perspectives on ESD. It must first be noted that ESD is closely related to the concept of “Sustainable Development”, and that the idea of ESD first clearly appeared in the Thessaloniki Declaration of 1997. In 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, the Japanese government and NGO committee members advocated introduction of ESD into every effort for achieving a sustainable society and sustainable education systems by developing a United Nations international project. Therefore in 2005, the United Nations launched the “UN-Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). Since then, the number of research results and practical reports on ESD has increased. In Japan, the national government has been promoting ESD, for example, by arranging several laws and systems concerned with ESD. Furthermore, many educators and practitioners have also endeavored to implement ESD in many fields, such as school education, social education, and in local communities where networks and communities hold consultations for improved environments and amenities. Research outcomes such as ESD theory, ESD in school education, and ESD in community-building education are also taken up in this paper in order to explain current research contents, methodologies and findings. Regarding the volume and quality of research outcomes in the field of ESD, there is still a need for further consideration. In respect to the works mentioned above, there are ten points on problems, prospects, and themes that need to be henceforth addressed and are briefly mentioned.

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  This study analyzes trends in environmental education focusing on shifts in lifestyles. First, all relevant abstracts in the oral presentation category at the annual meetings of, and research papers issued by the Japanese Society of Environmental Education were selected and analyzed.
  Results showed that reports on environmental education focusing on shifts in lifestyle made up a minority for this society. The contents of the studies can be classified into three types as follows; 1) studies on curriculum development and its verification, 2) studies aimed at analyzing behavior or awareness, and 3) other similar theoretical studies.
  Furthermore, several relevant study papers have also been issued by groups such as The Japan Society of Home Economics and The Japan Association of Home Economics Education. In recent years highly interesting reports have also been issued by the Architectural Institute of Japan and the Association of Energy and Environmental Education.
  In the future, it will be necessary to ensure that environmental education focusing on shifts in lifestyles develops not only in the formal education arena, but also in the areas of social education and education of the general public.

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  For this study, a questionnaire survey of cooperation between elementary schools and civic groups in environmental education was conducted. Civic groups and teachers of elementary schools in Aichi Prefecture, Gifu Prefecture, and Mie Prefecture were surveyed.
  The main results of this research are as follows.
  1. Teachers rely on informal information, and are not using coordinators enough.
  2. Programs are often done during the period for integrated study, but much of the program content concerns science.
  3. Meetings are often done before cooperation, but preliminary inspection of fields is not done very much.
  4. Learning outcomes are not shared enough.
  5. Teachers and civic groups are having difficulty in adjusting time, and civic groups feel difficulty in communication with the teachers.
  6. Civic groups keenly hope for communication with the teachers.
  7. Teachers and the civic groups often hope for cooperation in the region.
  8. Teachers hope for systematic education.
  The following proposals are given based on the situation described above:
  1. It is necessary to promote coordination.
  2. It is necessary to expand cooperation to the subjects. It is necessary to increase jointly developed programs.
  3. It is necessary to secure time for preparing and evaluating cooperation.

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  Most programs for children's nature experience take a form that assumes purposive plans beforehand and puts an emphasis on play. This situation is contradictory because play, in essence, is aiming at itself. The author argues that it is necessary to inquire into the meaning of children's relationship with nature at the actual field of children's play. The purpose of this study is to clarify the meaning of children's relationship with nature in the context of community of play by means of participant observation and capturing a dynamic context of the development of play in relation to a multilayer community. From 2004 to 2007, the author participated in the activity of the group “Asahi-yama Park Kids” that acted around Asahi-yama Memorial Park in Sapporo city. This study analyzed the meaning of play based on selected episodes. Results showed (1) Children appropriated intentional affordance (Gibson, 1979) in practices offered by adults in the major context; (2) They discovered new affordance in their tools or materials used in the major context and appropriated them because of divergence from the major context; (3) They discovered multiple affordance in surrounding environments and appropriated it because of divergence from the major context; and (4) New values over the expectation of adults emerged from each level of a multilayer community. In addition, these context dynamics were hand in hand with properties of the natural environment. The natural environment provided multiple affordance for adults and children alike of different ages depending on their physical limitations and developmental stages (Sawada & Minami, 1997) and had no limitation on their utility unlike artifact objects which have limited usage. Play drawn by affordance of natural environments, however, meant mutual mediation with play drawn by intentional affordance of artifacts.

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