An attractive starting point for reflections on natural sciences education is ancient Greek natural philosophy, the mother of natural sciences one could say. The objective of natural philosophers was to understand the physical environment and the changes taking place in that environment. Another important philosophical question was ‘What is a good life in a moral sense?’ Two rationalities were discriminated:  instrumental rationality – the best means to realise an objective – and substantial rationality – authentic values and principles that one chooses for in freedom. The methodology used for knowledge generation by ancient Greek natural philosophers was observation, construction of mental models and discussion. Knowledge dissemination was in the hands of private teachers teaching in informal environments like for instance a sport school (gymnasium). Scol? meant creating free space to think and discuss with others.

Since that time much developments have taken place in the field of knowledge generation and dissemination of knowledge to society. During the knowledge revolution that took place in Europe in the 17th century major changes took place in the methodology of knowledge generation. Observation using human senses was ‘extended’ by the use of instruments and in discussions about theories and models academies of sciences and scientific journals got  a role. In that period the (natural)scientific method was developed and a system of quality control by peers was introduced. These developments lead to the concept of ‘verified truth’ and to a disciplinary approach to knowledge generation; both concepts are still rather dominant in our society, for instance in the system of law, research and education.

The general idea about knowledge in the 19th century was that knowledge has universal value and therefore is context independent. In our present thinking knowledge can not be separated from the context in which it is developed and before knowledge developed in one context can be applied in another context is has to be translated to that context. Furthermore, as societal problems are always complex problems the use of knowledge to solve societal problems must not only be of good scientific quality as assessed by peer review, it should also be societally robust, which asks for forms of peer review in which also societal stakeholders are involved.

Problems in the field of environmental sciences and sustainable development are always complex problems in which different levels of scale and different system levels are involved. Such problems ask for a multidisciplinary approach and stakeholder involvement. These characteristics play an important role in designing environmental sciences education. As in our present globalised world continuous change seems to be the most stable characteristic, environmental sciences education will have to change continuously as well. In the next part an overview of the changes in environmental sciences education at the Open University of the Netherlands will be given.

Environmental Sciences at OUN in 1984

After a few years of preparation the Open University of the Netherlands started officially in 1984. Working in the domain of distance education the challenge was to design programs in such a way that good academic quality was combined with as much freedom of time, place and pace for students as possible. The mission of the Open University was twofold: a) offer a second route through or a second chance on higher education to adults in the Dutch society and b) contribute to the innovation of higher education in the Netherlands. Looking back after 20 years it can be concluded that the second part of the mission was the most difficult one, not in the least because of the ‘not invented here’ phenomenon and a somewhat conservative tendency in higher education.

The Open University of the Netherlands started with 7 faculties and for each faculty a preparatory committee had indicated the domain in which the programmes had to be developed. For the faculty of Natural Sciences the programmes to be developed were Environmental Sciences and Food and Nutrition. Both programmes had a common natural sciences base. In the Environmental Sciences Programme there were two specialisations, one with emphasis on environmental policy and one with emphasis on a natural sciences approach to environmental issues. The faculty of Natural Sciences has had an multidisciplinary staff from its start on. In addition to the natural sciences disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences with mathematics as an supportive subject) also policy and management sciences were involved. The methodology for course development was very modern for that time. A course never was the responsibility of just one professional, but always of a multidisciplinary team. A course team was composed of relevant content specialists, educational scientists and media specialists. The programme design was a modular one: by combining different course modules in the programme different specialisations could be created. So using this modular approach a certain degree of flexibility could be realised at the level of the programme. At course level, however, flexibility was rather limited. Emphasis was on written material, supported by face to face teaching and practicals if necessary.