As a meaningful alternative and supplement to conventional environmental education, participatory and experiential learning embodies contrasting features. First, unlike the mainstream approach, which is focused on teaching about environment, the alternative features education for, in, through, and/or with environment. Perhaps the most visible difference between the two types of environmental education is the site where learning takes place. Since participatory and experiential learning is typically outdoor and fieldoriented, it avoids the common pitfalls of lecture courses taught in classrooms (inherently isolated from the outside world) to induce passivity and an illusion of the "real world" into the mind of the learner. Regarding the content/mode of education, the "book-based and examination-oriented" conventional education has tended to lead students to prepare for "their final examinations and achieve high scores rather than develop actual skills and competencies in the subject matter" (Bhandari and Abe 2000, 75). The alternative approach, in contrast, is based on the direct observation of and action on the environment.

　 Most importantly, there are growing cases of survey data and scholarly observations that indicate substantial differences in outcome between the two educational approaches. Hawthorne and Alabaster (1999), for instance, revealed the results of their multiple regression-and-correlation analyses as follows:

　

Participation in environmental education and training is the most important predictor of environmental behaviour, closely followed by emotionality....[A]lthough participation actually explains very little of the variation in behaviour, learning through participation in environmental activities is the most important factor in the prediction of environmentally responsible behaviour. (Underline mine. 40)

　

　 One of the main factors linking "participation" to "environmental behavior" must be the fact that, whereas merely learning about the ecological crisis in abstract language could cause paralysis of action in a feeling of powerlessness, participatory-experiential learning empowers the person with "concrete knowledge, or knowledge of action strategies" (ibid., 40). Another important factor was indicated by Gardner (2001), who maintained that we typically have substantial "internal pressure to follow through on our commitments, especially if they are made publicly or as part of a group," and that "so strong is our need to be true to our word that small commitments have been shown to make people more receptive to larger commitments" (195). The same work also noted as a pronounced factor the modeling of environmental actions taken by others, and stated that "peers are especially powerful influences" (ibid.).

　 "Emotionality," identified as the second most important factor for proenvironmental behavior by Hawthorne and Alabaster (1999), is also obviously closely associated with the participatory-experiential approach, since active interactions with the environment (such as planting and raising trees), as well as with the public over environmental issues (such as advocating for the protection of ecological system), naturally create and intensify the person's emotion towards the subject. Hart (1997) wrote that "it is only by intimately knowing the wonder of nature's complexity in a particular place that one can fully appreciate the immense beauty of the planet as a whole" (18).

　 Are you becoming interested in participatory and experiential environmental learning, either as an alternative to or supplement for conventional education? If so, please move on to the next and major portion of this booklet, which introduces the specific cases that were presented at the Global Forum on Education for a Sustainable Future.