This paper discusses the relationship between environmental education and understanding the essence of science and scientific culture. When learning and teaching about the environment, it is important to understand the essence of natural science. This is because modern civilization is a scientific civilization, and environmental issues in our society are intimately connected to science and technology. Given that science and technology can be considered part of the human environment, this paper equates considering what science and technology should be to considering what the human environment should be—environmental education, in other words.

  In addition to verifiability, reproducibility, and objectivity, uncertainty is also a property of science. However, the government curriculum guidelines in Japan are not based on the scientific view of the uncertainty of scientific knowledge.

  Even so, when citizens critically evaluate science and technology, participate in the planning of science and technology governance, and make decisions about the state of science and technology based on scientific evidence, it is important to have a foundational understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge, which is constantly being modified and updated. Environmental education can be described as essential to promoting an understanding of the essence of science.

  Finally, this paper notes the issues facing modern science-based civilization, citing the arguments of comparative civilization scholars. It articulates a role for environmental education in reexamining the limits of a science-based civilization and assisting future generations to imagine a new civilization in which they can enjoy spiritual richness.

  This article presents a study that examines the effects of an early childhood environmental education (ECEE) program targeting “for” the environment. Little is known about the empirical evidence regarding the impact of ECEE on preschool children’s actual behaviors in their home settings. With the involvement of their parents, the program used a paper-board game and visual prompts to promote pro-environmental behaviors in young children, particularly related to lighting use at home. The study was conducted in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan with the participation of 22 parents and 22 young children. They were encouraged to play the board game and then place the visual prompts by the lighting switches at their homes. The study included questionnaire surveys for the parents and interviews with the children to assess the impacts of ECEE. Compared to their behaviors before the program, the children who did not often engage in turning off lights demonstrated an increase in pro-environmental behaviors when leaving an empty room and engaged in pro-environmental communication with their parents. Throughout the program, the children expressed their opinions to their family members, contributing to ripple effects on parents through their children.

  In this report, we present an overview and the results of a questionnaire survey conducted by Taito Leaning Plaza in FY2022 on the practice targeting working people using the “Kankyo café” method to promote and raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity. Four groups of 16 people (four people in each group) living or working in Taito Ward were involved in this project. In group work 1, each participant wrote down words associated with “the never-ending joy of experiencing nature (life),” and then asked about experiences related to memories of the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch), dividing the time of experience into children (C) and adults (A). The results indicated that children had more olfactory memories than adults. In group work 2, the participants were asked to write on sticky notes which of the ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, cultural, and infrastructure) they associated with the phrase “biodiversity supports ecosystem services (nature's gifts), and ecosystem services maintain the conditions necessary for life on earth.” Each group discussed the relationship between these words and services. The total number of words given by each group was 47, and the average number of each ecosystem service selected for each word consisted of supply service 74%, coordination service 70%, infrastructure service 57%, and cultural service 53%, in that order. In the survey, participants seemed to have gained a deeper understanding of ecosystem services, such as “I felt that ecosystem services are important for companies to consider in their business.”

  This paper outlines the practices of the National Institute for Environmental Study’s “Summer Open House 2023” for elementary and junior high school students to promote and raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity (ecosystem services) based on participants' “sense of wonder” experiences, and compares them with the Taito Learning Plaza. In group work 1, participants were asked to write down words and phrases associated with the question, “In your daily life, what experiences did you enjoy or feel surprised at when you came into contact with living things or nature?” The participants were also asked about the stories related to the five senses that came to mind most from the words. In group work 2, the importance of biodiversity was explained, and it was explained that our lives are supported by “nature's gifts” (ecosystem services) from ecosystems. The results showed that habitat services (59%) were selected the most, while Taito Ward selected the fewest (53%). The number of services selected for each word in each group and their average ranged from 1.0 to 2.0 (average 1.5), which was lower than the number of services selected for each group of adults (2.1 to 2.9, average 2.6) in the Taito Learning Plaza. These were thought to be due to the fact that children had less knowledge (about supply services, coordination services, etc.) and experience than adults, and were not able to link each word to various services

  Global environmental problems have become one of the most important issues in modern society, and cooperation across national boundaries is increasingly required to solve them. However, environmental education tends to treat environmental problems as individual moral issues and does not focus on structural problems in our society. In order to improve this situation, environmental citizenship education is becoming popular in Europe and the United States. It aims to treat environmental problems not only as individual problems but also as social and political issues, and to foster citizens who participate in society and take responsible environmental protection actions. In this study, we implemented environmental citizenship education in which junior high school students, after learning about environmental problems, identified the stakeholders of those problems and made proposals and held negotiations to improve the problems. The results suggest that through a series of learning activities, students' interest in environmental issues, as well as their citizenship to take action toward realistic solutions to the problems, are fostered.