Guideline 2.1: Awareness.

Resources should acknowledge that feelings, experiences, and attitudes shape environmental perceptions and issues.

What to look for:

• As appropriate for the developmental level, opportunities are provided for learners to explore the world around them.
• Activities provide opportunities for experiences that increase learners' awareness of the natural and built environments.
• Resources help learners understand the interdependence of all life forms, including humans (i.e., dependence of human life on the resources of the planet and on a healthful environment).
• Exercises and activities encourage students to identify and express their own positions regarding environmental issues.

Guideline 2.2: Focus on concepts.

Rather than presenting a series of facts, resources should use unifying themes and important concepts.

What to look for:

• Concepts from environmental sciences fields such as ecology, earth science, chemistry, conservation biology, etc., are presented, as appropriate for the intended developmental level.
• Concepts from social sciences fields such as economics, anthropology, sociology, and political science are presented, as appropriate for the intended developmental level.
• Facts are presented--and vocabulary words introduced and defined--in context and support of the important concepts.
• Ideas are presented logically and are connected throughout the resources, emphasizing a depth of understanding rather than encyclopedic breadth.
• Resources include a clearly articulated conceptual framework that states the concepts to be learned and relates them to each other.
• Resource content fits within the larger scope and sequence for environmental education.

Guideline 2.3: Concepts in context.

Environmental concepts should be set in a context that includes social and economic as well as ecological aspects.

What to look for:

• Environmental issues are explained in terms of specific concepts.
• Historical, ethical, cultural, geographic, economic, and sociopolitical relationships are addressed, as appropriate.
• Learners are offered opportunities to examine multiple perspectives on the issue and to gain an understanding of the complexity of issues, as appropriate for their developmental level.
• Further investigations help learners probe more deeply into the ecological, social, and economic aspects of issues, and their interrelationships.
• Concepts are introduced through experiences relevant to learners' lives.
• Resources help learners to make connections among the concepts.
• Learning is based on students constructing knowledge through research, discussion, and application to gain conceptual understanding.

Guideline 2.4: Attention to different scales.

Environmental issues should be explored using a variety of scales as appropriate, such as short to long time spans, localized to global effects, and local to international community levels.

What to look for:

• Resources consider communities of different scales. These scales include the local, regional, national, and global levels.
  
• Local, regional, continental, and global geographic scales are used to help learners understand that issues can be important, widespread, and complex.
  
• Resources examine issues over a variety of temporal scales so that short-term and long-term problems, actions, and impacts are clear.