According to the Belgrade Charter, the goal of environmental education is:

To develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment
and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and
commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions of current problems and
the prevention of new ones.

Many studies try to shed light on the relationship between environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. While results are unclear, some of the relationships found are as follows:

Firstly, knowledge and attitudes are mutually reinforcing; those who are keen to make a change will actively sought more knowledge. Thus, beyond providing information, it is also important to persuade people to engage in sustainable behaviour. Secondly, while behavious can be shaped through external means, the lack of knowledge and attitudes may result in counter hostility and evasion. Therefore, to effect positive change, behaviour modification should not be the sole focus in environmental education programmes.

Listed below are two interesting ways of conceiving how environmental education complement human psychology.

Biophilia Hypothesis

First proposed by Edward O Wilson, the hypothesis suggests that humans have an innate liking (-philia) towards nature and living things (bio-). However, being biophilic does not mean we were born with knowledge about the environment; biophilia merely means that we are biologically predisposed to acquire knowledge about what lifeforms are safe, interesting and useful to us. Thus, environmental education serves to water the seed of biophilia within every person, allowing it to grow into positive environmental attitudes such as empathy for other living things.

 

Nature Deficit Disorder

In his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv used the term to describe why children (and adults) who lack time outdoors exhibit emotional and behavioural problems. Parent’s risk aversion, loss of natural surroundings, and the advent of technology are listed as driving factors of children’s loss of opportunity to go outdoors. As formal environmental education are being enacted in schools, children learn about nature and engage in outdoor play. This mitigates the loss of outdoor playtime in their homes. Informal environmental education targeting adults can also alter knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, albeit less effectively.