Developing the Conceptual Model for Environmental Education Expansion by Evaluation of Strategic Parameters

With the appearance of the new paradigm for development in the seventies, numerous regional and international agreements were signed in the world to protect the environment. In the meantime high emphasis has also been put on the need for creating and maintaining an educational system aimed at changing the public behavior and attitude towards the environment as the first step towards sustainable development. The objective of this research is to present a conceptual model for developing the national environmental education by evaluation of the strategic parameters. The research tool was a questionnaire and the validity of the indicators was realized by obtaining the opinions of the relevant professionals and experts, while their credibility was computed as equivalent to 0.95 using the Cronbach’s alpha formulae. In this research, following a review of the different international views, the results of global conferences, library study, review of documents as well as interviews with environmental experts, a questionnaire was also prepared in the frame of SWOT table and presented to 50 environmental pundits and experts to allocate weight. The findings show that the total weighted score was 2.73 in the matrix of internal parameters and 2.61 in the matrix of external parameters. These scores are above the average of 2.5, signifying that the strengths and opportunities in the development of environmental Education dominated the weaknesses and threats, and the type of resulting strategy was aggressive. In the end, a conceptual model based on all parameters was prepared and proposed for the development of environmental Education.