Environmental education
An influential article by Stevenson (1987/2007) outlines conflicting goals of environmental education and traditional schooling.&lt;ref name="Stevenson, 1987/2007"&gt; Originally published in Robottom, I. (Ed.) Environmental education: Practice and possibility. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press, pp. 69-82.&lt;/ref&gt; According to Stevenson (1987/2007), the recent critical and action orientation of environmental education creates a challenging task for schools. Contemporary environmental education strives to transform values that underlie decision making from ones that aid environmental (and human) degradation to those that support a sustainable planet. This contrasts with the traditional purpose of schools of conserving the existing social order by reproducing the norms and values that currently dominate environmental decision making. Confronting this contradiction is a major challenge to environmental education teachers.