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Vital Elements of an Education Strategy

In order to develop an effective environmental education programme, the garden must decide what types of programmes it will run, who it will aim the programmes at, and which particular aspects of conservation and environmental awareness it will concentrate on.

To do this each botanic garden needs to prepare a written education and awareness plan identifying and prioritising:

• the conservation messages of the garden
• groups to be targeted
• the facilities needed
• the facilities available
• the knowledge required for each group to understand the conservation messages
• the skills that each group needs
• the attitudes and behaviours to be encouraged
• the programmes to be developed

Educators need to consider not only the present situation in the garden, but also the capacity for development of education programmes over the next 2, 5, even 10 years. Ideas which are not seen as a priority should be set aside.

Each garden is unique and so will have particular aspects of environmental and conservation education that it is best equipped to teach. For this reason, and because the development and running of the education programme will affect everyone, it is a good idea for all members of staff to contribute to the formation of the plan.