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Fostering the One Health Approach in Environmental Education: Innovations, Challenges, and Opportunities

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 22 January 2025 | Viewed by 843

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Specific Didactics, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Interests: biology education; early childhood education; environmental education; higher education; primary education; scientific practices; secondary education; sustainability; teaching methods

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Guest Editor
Department of Specific Didactics, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Interests: biology education; early childhood education; environmental education; higher education; primary education; scientific practices; secondary education; sustainability; teaching methods

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Understanding Environmental Education (EE) is increasingly complex due to its multidisciplinary nature. Traditional EE in teaching has mainly focused on conveying ecological content and raising awareness of environmental issues without a clear emphasis on actionable objectives. This is exacerbated by the neglect of EE content in early education stages, where foundational learning occurs.

Additionally, EE often lacks a health perspective, and Health Education is seldom linked to environmental health. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to contemplate the novel educational direction required to achieve high-quality and transformative "Education for Environmental, Animal, and Human Health (One Health)". This entails educating students about healthy environmental characteristics, signs of deterioration, the impacts of an unhealthy environment on human and animal health, and everyday actions to prevent and mitigate damage. Ideally, this would foster an understanding that environmental issues vary across regions and affect organisms differently.

The One Health approach is typically discussed in the medical and ecotoxicology literature, focusing on topics such as microbial resistance, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic diseases. However, there is limited research on its integration into classroom education. Additionally, many citizens overlook environmental and animal health when considering health issues, reflecting their utilitarian view of the environment and other organisms, as seen in the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Special Issue welcomes original articles exploring "Environmental Education for Sustainability" and the "One Health Approach in Education," especially if they integrate both perspectives. We particularly encourage the submission of studies that investigate how incorporating the One Health approach into classrooms through EE (systematic reviews, intervention proposals, case studies, and so on) can motivate citizens to enhance sustainability. Manuscripts should adhere to journal guidelines and prioritize clarity, coherence, and conciseness.

Prof. Dr. José Manuel Pérez Martín
Dr. Tamara Esquivel-Martín
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • comprehensive literacy
  • early childhood education
  • educational transfer
  • environmental citizenship
  • environmental education
  • one health
  • primary education
  • scientific practices
  • secondary education
  • teaching training

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 3116 KiB  
Article
Are Future Teachers Involved in Contributing to and Promoting the Reduction of Massive Waste Generation?
by María Ángeles García-Fortes, Unai Ortega-Lasuen, Patricia Esteve-Guirao, Oihana Barrutia, Ana Ruiz-Navarro, Daniel Zuazagoitia, Magdalena Valverde-Pérez, José Ramón Díez and Isabel Banos-González
Sustainability 2024, 16(17), 7624; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177624 - 3 Sep 2024
Viewed by 490
Abstract
Massive waste generation linked to overconsumption is considered one of the most significant socio-ecological issues today, becoming a challenge for health and well-being and a barrier to achieving sustainability. Education is key to raising awareness and involving citizens in the adoption of responsible [...] Read more.
Massive waste generation linked to overconsumption is considered one of the most significant socio-ecological issues today, becoming a challenge for health and well-being and a barrier to achieving sustainability. Education is key to raising awareness and involving citizens in the adoption of responsible consumption habits, facilitating the recognition of the relationship between our daily activities and the production of waste. The aim of this exploratory study is to analyse the perceptions and commitments of future secondary school teachers (FTs) toward this issue and to explore the educational approaches they propose to address it in the classroom (n = 138). In this work, a mixed-methods approach was used based on quantitative and qualitative data collected through a questionnaire. The results show that FTs have difficulties in recognising the different factors involved in the problem of massive waste generation. However, they incorporate the health and ecological vision, which is close to the holistic vision of the One Health approach. The majority of them take personal responsibility for the problem, although they opt for low-effort options. Regarding the educational proposals they design, only a minority can do it following a commitment-oriented approach. Full article
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