Environmentally significant life experiences: what do they have in common?

A primary aim of Environmental Education is to promote respect for environmental values. Environmental Education needs to explore new approaches that encourage a deeper, more powerful process of environmental consciousness-raising that is both long-lasting and far-reaching. Significant learning experiences about the environment are a powerful, fast and long-lasting way to achieve this objective. Significant learning experiences are regarded as a useful means to this end, which can lead people to make decisions and take actions to protect the environment. Although their mechanism is not understood in depth and they cannot be reproduced at will, it is worth paying serious attention to them on the grounds that they have great potential as consciousness-raising events. Although significant learning experiences have so far received little scholarly attention, environmental education needs a deeper exploration in this interesting field. This article analyses 14 cases of significant learning experiences with a view to conceptualizing, understanding and clarifying these experiences, identifying some characteristics that they have in common, and explaining some of the ways in which they influence people’s lives.