Viewpoint: Working with Environmental Education Pedagogies in Life Orientation to Enhance Social and Environmental Responsibility

Abstract

The aim of this viewpoint paper is to generate interest in working with environmental education pedagogies in order to enhance the quality imperative of social and environmental responsibility for South African learners through the fundamental subject, Life Orientation. Drawing on our own experiences as Life Orientation and environmental education lecturers at a tertiary institution, we build, in this paper, on the initiative of the Department of Basic Education to include social and environmental concerns in the Life Orientation curriculum for the Further Education and Training Phase. As researchers, we therefore highlight, for South African Life Orientation teachers, the parallels that exist between environmental education and Life Orientation, and propose a guiding theoretical framework on how teachers can purposefully and effectively integrate environmental education pedagogies with Life Orientation so as to enhance the quality of their teaching practices and lesson objectives around specific contextual social and environmental concerns for their learners.