By Oweyegha-Afunaduula
You may or may not have heard of the idea of environmental public learning. More commonly we talk of environmental learning as if it is an individualist undertaking aimed at promoting environmentally conscious, environmentally sensitive interaction between individuals and the environment with the hope that everyone exposed to environmentally conscious, environmentally sensitive education will develop the attitude to take action towards conservation of the environment. However, environmental public learning also exists and is aimed at building public action in, for and about environmental conservation.
Environmental public learning is a way to educate people about the environment and encourage them to take action. It can include raising awareness, teaching skills, and developing a sense of responsibility towards the environment (AI) Its aim is multifold.:
Environmental knowledge: about the structure and function of the environment its dimensions (i.e., the ecological-biological dimension, the socio-economic dimension, the socio-cultural dimension and the time or temporal dimension) and their interconnectivity.
Environmental literacy: ecological principles, ecological systems, environmental systems and how humans and the environment are interconnected.
Environmental responsibility: the sense of personal and collective responsibility in, for and about the environment.
Environment as a living system: understanding that the environment is not just a thing to be exploited by humans for their selfish ends but a living system that needs care in order to support humans and other living beings.
Sustainable public actions: environmentally informed policies and laws that help conserve the environment rather than promote insatiable exploitation to satisfy the greed and selfishness of humans, particularly those in power.
According to Oweyegha Afunaduula (1994, 2024), the “socioeconomic dimension of the environment” refers to the social and economic factors that influence and are impacted by environmental issues, including aspects like poverty levels, income distribution, access to resources, land ownership patterns, and community livelihoods, all of which play a significant role in how people interact with and depend on their environment of which they are integral.
He advances that the “sociocultural dimension” of the environment refers to the social and cultural factor that influence and are impacted by environmental issues, including aspects like social organisation, culture how cultural groups interact with the environment, et cetera. Recently he wrote about how refugees and former refugees as migrant cultural groups are destroying the environment of Uganda, including land grabbing thereby erasing sacred sites of great conservation value (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2022) and the diverse ecologies of the country (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2023).
Lastly in his diverse writing on the environment since 1994 he has recognised the time or temporal dimension as a critical but most abused dimension of the environment, yet it is integrated in all the other dimensions of the environment in the sense that all processes in, across and between the dimensions occur at different time scales. Besides, the events in, across and between the different dimensions occur at different times, affecting the environment in various ways.
Unfortunately, the environment, in different environmental education undertakings, has been taught and learned as unidimensional, existing as just the ecological-biological dimension or the physical dimension. The water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe, the soil we till, the minerals we seek, mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, forests, et cetera belong to this dimension. Even the artificial physical things introduced in the environment by Man, Homo sapiens, such as buildings, dams, roads, nuclear plants, factories, cities, et cetera also belong to the ecological-biological dimension.
Accordingly, environmental learners think they have got enough knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight about the environment once grounded in this dimension at all levels of education. They study biodiversity, climate change, pollution, conservation, sustainable development, environmental justice, reducing waste, recycling, reducing toxicity and hazardous waste, and protecting land, water, the atmosphere, forests, animals, and so on. Some become experts and professionals in any of these undertakings they become our environmental managers.
However, since the environment consists of four dimensions -the ecological-biological, the socio-economic, the sociocultural and the time or temporal dimensions -what all this means is that individual and public environmental learning, by focusing on one dimension only, is tackling one-quarter of the environment. The other three-quarters, consisting of three dimensions of the environment, is excluded.
Environmental learning by exclusion cannot be environmentally-conscious or environmentally-sensitive. It is the main reason why despite so much investment of time, energy, money and human capital the environment continues to supersonically hopelessly degrade before our own eyes.
There is need to rethink the way we teach people about the environmental to ensure that we develop knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight on, in, for and about the environment holistically to include all its dimensions. When we do, environmental public learning will teach that humanity and the environment are connected through more than one dimension and that the dimensions themselves are not mutually exclusive but mutually inclusive (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 1994, 2024).
Since the early 1990s I have been involved with the environment of Uganda after following a programme of instruction and research in the Biology of Conservation at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, in the early 1980s. The instruction was multidisciplinary, meaning that many disciplinary scholars were involved in enhancing my environmental learning, my environmental mindset changed so much that that I soon questioned whether multidisciplinary environmental learning was adequate to produce the cadre of environmental scholars, managers and conservationists we needed to meaningfully and effectively conserve the environment in its entirety.
Multidisciplinarians believe that Environmental multidisciplinary study provides a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the environment and its issues, and contributes to the environmental and sustainability protection and improvement (BLOG, 2024). However, this is not true. It stil provides disjointed environmental knowledge just as disciplinary environmental study does, although multidisciplinary environmental study allows knowledge workers to know what the other is doing without necessarily integrating their knowledge and methods.
Along the way, I got attracted to the views that:
the environment is multidimensional (i.e., ecological-biological, socioeconomic, sociocultural and time or temporal dimension) with the dimensions themselves also dimensional.
The dimensions of the environment are not exclusive of each other and dynamically interact and influence affect each other.
It is more useful to adopt the learning sciences of interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity (or non-disciplinarity) if we are to meaningfully educate the next generation of environmental scholars, managers and conservationists with a holistic mindset and understanding of the complexity of the environment.
“Interdisciplinary learning about the environment” refers to an educational approach where students study environmental issues by drawing knowledge and perspectives from multiple academic disciplines, like biology, chemistry, geography, economics, sociology, and policy studies, to gain a holistic understanding of complex environmental problems and develop effective solutions.
Cross-disciplinary learning about the environment” refers to an educational approach where students study environmental issues by drawing knowledge and perspectives from multiple academic disciplines, like biology, chemistry, geography, economics, sociology, and policy studies, to gain a holistic understanding of complex environmental problems and develop solutions that consider various factors involved.
“Transdisciplinary environmental learning” refers to an educational approach that integrates knowledge and perspectives from multiple disciplines like ecology, economics, social sciences, engineering, and humanities to comprehensively understand and address environmental issues, going beyond traditional boundaries of individual fields to collaboratively find solutions to complex problems (wild problems) through diverse viewpoints and practices.
Extradisciplinary environmental learning may refer to environmental education that incorporates knowledge and methods from multiple disciplines. However, more precisely it eliminates the need to evoke disciplines in its methodology of learning. That is why it is also called non-disciplinary environmental learning. This approach can help students and public learners develop a sense of environmental consciousness and inspire them to take action.
My appeal to universities, especially in Africa, that have environmental training programmes is that they should shift form disciplinary and multidisciplinary environmental studies programmes and instead adopt environmental studies by the new learning sciences of interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity or nondisciplinarity. These can be run concurrently on a university campus that is open to new and different knowledge production cultures and/or systems. This will be the best way to encourage and advance environmental public learning in Africa in general and Uganda in particular.
For God and My Country.
Further Reading
BLOG (2024). Explain the Multidisciplinary Nature of Environmental Studies. O.P Jindal University, March 1 2024. https://jgu.edu.in/blog/2024/03/01/multidisciplinary-nature-of-environmental-studies/ Visited 2 March 2025 at 11:35 am EAT
Njoroge Linda (2023). Oweyegha-Afunaduula: Why effective environmental conservation requires aligning environmentality and governmentality. Ultimate News, https://ultimatenews.co.ug/2023/06/oweyegha-afunaduula-why-effective-conservation-requires-aligning-environmentality-with-governmentality/ Visited on 2 March 2025 at 9:21 am EAT
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (1994). Towards environmentally conscious curriculum design at Makerere University, Uganda. Dialogue (Kampala, Uganda), Volume 1 Issue 1: 30-33.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2022). How refugees and former refugees are destroying the environment of Uganda. The Kampala Report, November 30 2022. https://www.thekampalareport.com/talk-back/2022113021674/how-refugees-and-former-refugees-are-destroying-the-environment-in-uganda.html Visited on March 2025 at 10:27 EAT.
Oweyegha-afunaduula (2023). Environmental governance for diverse ecologies in Uganda: Is it possible? MUWADO, December 1 2023. https://muwado.com/environmental-governance-for-diverse-ecologies-in-uganda-is-it-possible/?v=2a0617accf8b Visited on 2 March 2025 at 10:35 EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2024). How Eroding Traditional Cultures Is Simultaneously Eroding Our Environment in Uganda. Ultimate News, February, 13 2024. https://ultimatenews.co.ug/2024/02/oweyegha-afunaduula-how-eroding-traditional-cultures-is-simultaneously-eroding-our-environment-in-uganda/ Visited on 2 March 2025 at 9:09 am EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2024). Rethinking the environment for effective environmental management and conservation of Uganda’s diverse ecologies. Muwado, November 26 2024. https://muwado.com/rethinking-the-environment-for-effective-environmental-management-and-conservation-of-ugandas-diverse-ecologies/?v=2a0617accf8b Visited on 2 March 2025 at 9:15 am EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2024). Why the environment continues to decay and collapse despite enormous knowledge, awareness and concern. MUWADO, March 25 2024. https://muwado.com/why-the-environment-continues-to-decay-and-collapse-despite-enormous-knowledge-awareness-and-concern/?v=2a0617accf8b Visited on 2 March 2025 at 9:25 am EAT.
The Ultimate Editor (2024). Oweyegha-Afunaduula: How I revolutionised Environmental Training at Makerere University from 1991 to 2009. Ultimate News, February 21 2024. https://ultimatenews.co.ug/2024/02/oweyegha-afunaduula-how-i-revolutionized-environmental-training-at-makerere-university-from-1991-to-2009/ Visited on2 March 2025 at 10:16 am EAT
