Fostering Environmental Virtue for Children : A Learning Strategy in Bandung
Wibowo Heru Prasetiyo

Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta

Abstract

Everybody has rights and obligations related to the environment ever since they were born. The rights have to be balanced with moral obligations whenever a global catastrophe happens over territorial boundaries (Nagra, 2010). The response to this phenomenon is expected to create an environmental education that is capable to enlighten children about sustainable environmental management. In order to reach that goal, it is necessary to sharpen their environmental virtue. One program that had tried to attempt to realise the goal is School Urban Farming in Bandung. This study used a qualitative method in approaching the program, with the author being actively involved in the program (participant as observer). The respondents were chosen using the purposive sampling technique, while the data was collected by observation, interview, and document analysis. Stages of qualitative analysis by Milles and Huberman (2012) was referred to support the theory approached in this study. The data was then analyzed using the triangulation method. The results showed that School Urban Farming was effectively able to teach children about ecology and build ecological mentality in their minds. School Urban Farming was proven significant in improving value orientation of the environment, which might be able to generate environmentally significant behavior. Thus, it is also proven that the program helped institutionalized civic virtue in the environmental field through learning process.

Keywords: civic virtue, environmental behavior, environmental virtue, school urban farming

Topic: Virtues, Characters and Civic Community