Basic systems are interacting components forming a web. History is patterns of the past. Environment education is patterns of the environment and how they interact. An issue always starts as a problem and then values make it an issue. Awareness, understanding, and action are a progression.
Different values create different outcomes.
In Florida, school children managed to get the government to purchase and protect a swamp. You've got to do things in order to learn. The students doing the melaleuca pulls learned from their mistakes and are now quite effective. Try teaching the krebs cycle with students acting out the steps as a ballet. People come to understand the patterns of things by experiencing them .