Over the last few years, a wide range of reports from foreign countries have addressed environmental education practices, including the concept of sustainability. In Japan, however, only a small number of such studies addressing this issue have been reported, and the old concept of environmental education as merely nature experience has persisted. In the present study, firstly, it was shown that the concept of environmental ethics is essential to any environmental education program that encompasses the issue of sustainability. In particular, a focus on both intergeneration ethics and nature values was considered to be appropriate from the viewpoint of environmental ethics, in concert with theoretical investigations aimed at sustainability. Secondly, through the nature experience afforded by an environmental education program aimed at nurturing the concept of environmental ethics in the minds of students, it was verified that both viewpoints could function effectively when planning and practically applying nature experience, including the concept of sustainability, in schools. In this connection, the results of analysis based on questionnaires distributed to students before and after experiencing the program were as follows: 1. Both forest conservation and riverbank cleaning activities were important for nurturing the basic concept of intergeneration ethics. 2. Nature experience in forests and activities focusing on native fauna in local areas, such as salmon in Sapporo City, were major factors encouraging the formation of inherent values.

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  This study was designed to verify that ESD occurs not only through acquisition of knowledge via formal/non-formal education, but also through dynamic informal learning embedded in the functionings of daily life and community development. To understand the relationship between this type of learning and ESD, a case study was conducted of Uwabata, a rural community in Miyazaki Prefecture, known for its unique Autonomous Community Center (ACC). Drawing on Tsurumi’s (1989) concept of “endogenous development”, the study examined the links between learning and local autonomy as a key to endogenous development. Analysis of learning in Uwabata highlighted the fact that endogenous ESD can be distinguished from globally recognized ESD in three areas, i.e. by having 1) a clear structure linked with “nature”, “people”, and “affluence of life” (including spirituality), 2) a pool of knowledge/skills among residents as a whole, and 3)“cycle” and “inheritance” functions. While being open to the outer world and systems, the community maintains its identity in terms of local values, knowledge, and skills embedded in various life functionings that people wish to achieve.

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  This article discusses what Japanese environmental educators can learn from “resilience theories” as reevaluating the basic values and objectives of environmental education in Japan after the big quake and the nuclear power disaster in Fukushima in 2011. The authors introduce the development of resilience study and the basic concepts of socio-ecological system theory, summarizing key studies on “resilience” which appeared in European and North American environmental education journals. The following three issues are discussed in this article. (i) Incorporating the concept of “risk” in the context of environmental education. (ii) Reevaluating ideas surrounding socio-ecological system from the historical perspectives of social system and ecological system so as to remain critical to the history of human exploitations of nature. Also, critiquing the worldview of system theory while respecting the locality of each unique community. (iii) Creating resilience learning theory in the context of Japan, as examining diverse lessons learned in the disaster stricken Tohoku areas. Environmental educators can define “resilience” as “the power of local community facing disasters.” Japanese environmental educators have always highlighted the importance of the “power of local community” as a response to environmental risk, but the authors insist that it is now crucial to take problems of social exclusion into account.

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