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Section 1 Environmental Studies - From Principles to Practice An important aspect of this guide for teachers and managers is a programme for environmental studies covering the years from P1 to S2. This nine-year plan draws on commonly used topics and current practice in schools and is consistent with the guidance provided in the revised guidelines for environmental studies. It should not be misunderstood to be a preferred programme of study but rather an illustration of how the key ideas and contexts of environmental studies might be put together to satisfy the requirements of the guidelines. The guide also illustrates opportunities for collaboration and integration across the three components - social studies, science and technology - and shows how some topics can have a major focus in one component, for example in science, as well as also addressing a minor focus in another component, for example in technology. In the primary years, topics may vary considerably in their length to ensure a suitable balance of depth and coverage. The five-topics-per-year framework takes account of the minimum time allocation of 15 per cent for environmental studies as recommended in The Structure and Balance of the Curriculum: 5-14 National Guidelines. It must be emphasised that the nine-year plan is only an illustration. It is intended to encourage schools to see their planning in terms of a nine-year continuum, flexible in ways that accommodate particular circumstances and resource considerations, a range of teaching approaches and, pre-eminently, the needs of pupils. Aspects of each of the guides for social subjects, science and technology relate back to the exemplar nine-year plan and it is hoped that practitioners responsible for teaching any one component will be interested in seeing the others. Planning a coherent nine-year programme requires attention to be given to balance across the components and outcomes as well as the links between and among them. Over the stages of 5-14 there will inevitably be changes in emphasis, perhaps moving from integrated approaches in the early years to more topic-based work and subject-centred approaches. Effective programmes of study should be based on the principles of breadth, balance, coherence, continuity and progression. This guide provides advice on how this can be achieved in environmental studies: technology. The revised document on the structure and balance of the 5-14 curriculum and its associated guide also offer practical advice on programme planning. [RETURN TO 5-14 ONLINE] [BACK] [INDEX] [NEXT]