Back to Basics: Aesthetic Experience

This paper explores the importance of sensory experience as a basis for learning and teaching and considers the value of the environment as an educational resource. Links are made between aesthetic experience and art, design, and environmental education. These cover the following areas of study: 1) art education: to promote environmental awareness and develop an emotional response to place; 2) critical study: to enable pupils to make value judgements about environmental quality; 3) design activity: to consider environmental change. Examples of work in primary and secondary schools are described. Conclusions are drawn that point to the need for environmental education programs based on young people's direct experience. Developing environmental consciousness should serve not only to increase visual awareness but also to form the basis for encouraging an appreciative and critical eye and promote interest in environmental improvement. The need is to enable young people to take a more creative and participatory stance in shaping their future environment.