The effects of educators’ level of environmental literacy on their view of student environmental literacy and perceived barriers.

Abstract: Formal and nonformal educators help develop the environmental literacy (EL) of K-12 students, but do so in very different contexts. This paper describes educators’ views of their roles in developing student environmental literacy and barriers to that work. Educators with more advanced EL mentioned practices such as perspective taking and information evaluation. Many educators highlighted developing a connection – between students and the environment or between curriculum and students’ lives – as key to their work. The barriers identified reflect previous research, with nonformal educators also identifying access to student and peoples’ access to their sites as a major barrier.