Research on Ecological Moral Education in the Course of “Ideological Awareness

M & D FORUM
Research on Ecological Moral Education in the Course of “Ideological
and Moral Cultivation and Legal Basis” —— Thinking of
Strengthening the Education of College Students' Ecological Civilization
Awareness
HAN Dong
Ideological and Political Department of Dalian Jiaotong University, Dalian, 116028
Abstract: The education of students’ ecological civilization awareness is an important aspect of
ideological and political education in colleges and universities, which is also an important component to
raise the ideological and ethical standards of students. As a very important course in the ideological and
political theory course system, “Ideological and Moral Culture and Legal Basis” bears the mission of
moral education. In order to improve the students' awareness of ecological progress, guide students to
establish a correct ecological morality, encourage them to become qualified "ecological person" and
improve the standard of ecological progress of the whole society, approaches and methods are found to
penetrate ecological and moral education into the course of “Ideological and Moral Culture and Legal
Basis”.
Keywords: Colleges and universities, Ecological moral education, The course of “Ideological and
Moral Culture and Legal Basis”, Course
Introduction
Chinese higher education scholar Pan Maoyuan pointed out, “A lot of instances of serious damage to
ecological environment... Many of them whom the primary responsibility lies with are the specialized
personnel trained at our colleges and universities”. Therefore, the colleges and universities should bear
the important historical responsibility as the principal battlefield to conduct the ecological moral
education for students to enhance their ecological moral quality. In order to promote the overall quality
of students' moral, the colleges and universities should train the students in the educational philosophy
of harmonious co-existence between man and nature, and carry through effectively ecological moral
education to enable them to establish a scientifically sound ecological moral concept and develop good
ecological moral accomplishment. Through the above way, it enables students to conscientiously fulfill
their natural moral responsibilities and obligations, and to assume the important task of building a
harmonious society. As the main position of students’ ideological and political education, the course of
“Ideological and Moral Culture and Legal Basis” (hereinafter referred to as IMCLB) is a required course
of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. It is particularly important to
carry out ecological moral education in this course.
1 Necessity of Strengthening College Students' Awareness of Ecological
Civilization Culture
Ecological morality is one of the moral standards established to strengthen ecological construction and
protection, and to achieve ecological sustainable development. It has morally established the rights and
missions the man should implement on the relationship with nature. It advocates the equality,
compatibility and harmony between the human and nature. At present, the moral education in China is
facing a lot of problems, especially the students’ lack of ecological awareness and ecological morality
occurring frequently. They generally lack a correct understanding of ecological civilization. Their values,
the form of thinking, habits and lifestyle are incompatible with the basic requirements of ecological
civilization.
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The report of the 18th CPC National Congress suggests that, “Faced with increasing resource constraints,
severe environmental pollution and a deteriorating ecosystem, we must raise our ecological awareness
of the need to respect, accommodate to and protect nature. We must give high priority to making
ecological progress and incorporate it into all aspects and the whole process of advancing economic,
political, cultural, and social progress, and work hard to build a beautiful country, and achieve lasting
and sustainable development of the Chinese nation.” Combined with China's actual situation, as well as
the status quo of college students’ awareness of ecological civilization, I believe that it is necessary to
strengthen the cultivation of their awareness of ecological civilization, specifically the following
aspects:
1. In terms of the current situation in China, the level of the environmental pollution is increasing with
years, and the environment for human survival is getting worse yearly. Therefore, it is of great urgency
to solve the issue of resources and environment in China. The report of the 18th CPC National Congress
puts ecological construction into the layout of the socialism with Chinese characteristics, and proposes
the goal of building a "beautiful China". In that case, it is the common responsibility of the 1.3 billion
Chinese people, including university students, to protect the ecological environment.
2. According to the historical mission of our colleges and universities, they are commissioned with the
important task of personnel training. At present, there are around hundreds of millions of students leave
school for society every year. They are the future and hope as well as being the builders and successors
of the country. It will directly affect the construction and development of our country in the future,
whether they have a good cultivation of ecological civilization consciousness and conception of
ecological civilization.
3. It is necessary to teach the students to be civilized men with ecological ethics, also known as
“ecological man”, according to the educational function of ideological and political theory courses.
Moral education process in the colleges and universities is the process of training students sound ethics
values and ethical behavior, while the ecological civilization values is an important moral values of
contemporary students. To integrate ecological civilization consciousness education into ideological and
political theory education in the colleges and universities for comprehensive ecological moral education
is to help students learn how to judge the right or wrong in the relationship between human and nature to
make the correct choice and adjust their behavior all the times. Ecological civilization education is the
historical task of moral education in the colleges and universities given in the new era.
2 Issues About Ecological Moral Education of the Students in the Colleges and
Universities Involved in the Course of “IMCLB”
At present, the moral education in the colleges and universities mainly focus on how to deal with the
relationship between the individual and others, the relationship between the individual and society, the
relationship between the individual and the collective, and the relationship between the collective and
society. Relatively, it neglects to teach students how to deal with the relationship between human and
nature and other relative education, including the relationship between human and other life forms. This
one-sided moral education results in the students’ lack of consistency in the recognition of the ecological
values orientation. Ecological moral education divorced from the social environment is the concrete
reflection of that. It is often made a casual remark in passing without serious and specific explanation
during teaching. The event that Tsinghua University outstanding student Liu Haiyang threw sulfuric acid
on bear has already reflected the serious ecological moral problem existing in the students in the
colleges and universities. For college students, the main channel of ideological education is ideological
and political education courses, among which, only the course of “IMCLB” is related to the ecological
moral education in the text book, but also a few words.
The ecological conception education only exists in the fourth question, Promoting Harmony between
Human and Nature, of Section Ⅲ Treating Life Environment Scientifically, Chapter Ⅲ Comprehension
of the True Meaning of Life and Creation of the Value of Life. Chapter Ⅴ Compliance Social Ethics,
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Maintenance of Public Order of the text book is mainly education about social ethics consciousness.
However, ecological morality and social ethics are both connections and differences. The section Legal
Norms in Public Life of Chapter Ⅴ touches on the basic spirit and main content of “Environmental
Protection Law”, but the context will not be extended due to the limited class periods.
3 Exploration of Ways and Means of the Course of “IMCLB” Cultivating
Students’ Awareness of Ecological Civilization
The course of “IMCLB” is the principle battlefield of ecological civilization education in colleges and
universities. But for many years, it is not taught comprehensively, and does not cause enough attention
of schools, teachers and students. When the course is finished, the students don’t know what the
ecological moral education is. They even don’t know it has been taught in the course, let alone of good
teaching effect. Combing the specific content of “IMCB”, I talk about ways and means of cultivating
students' awareness of ecological civilization in two phases which are theory teaching and practice
teaching.
3.1 Cherishing life education
It is particularly important to carry out life education, because the phenomenon of disrespect for life
occurs repeatedly during the college students. It is the embodiment of ecological morality. There are a
lot of examples for that, such as the case of Zhu Ling from Tsinghua University thallium poisoning in
1994, the case of Ma Jiajue from Yunnan University in 2004, the case of thallium salt poisoning
happened in China University of Mining and Technology in 2007 and the case of graduate student
Huang Yang from Fudan University was poisoned and died. . . It is very important to carry out the life
education and personality education among college students. Life education originated in the late 1960s.
The American scholar J. Donald Walters first proposed the idea of life education in 1968. The meaning
of life education involves four main areas: the first is to learn to cherish and respect life including his
own life and all the lives in nature; the second is to help students understand the meaning of life and
evoke the awakening and the pursuit of their own quality of life; the third is to deal with life and death
rationally and to develop a healthy attitude towards death; the fourth is that the life education should
follow the law of development of individual life, and the combined organically with the quality of
ecological civilization and ecological moral education. This part could be taught comprehensively in
Chapter Ⅲ Comprehension of the True Meaning of Life and Creation of the Value of Life.
3.2 Social moral consciousness education
Social moral consciousness education is taught in Chapter Ⅴ in this course. There are both connections
and differences between ecological morality and social morality. The main connection is that ecological
morality has the nature of social morality in the maintenance of ecological environment, which applies
to all social members. The main difference is that the range of the object of the ecological morality
extends from human society to the whole nature, which is more concerned about the welfare of all
species constituting the ecological balance of the Earth, not only emphasizes the welfare of mankind,
that transcends national boundaries, beyond ethnic, the cultural, religious and social systems. Ecological
morality is a kind of world ethics with distinctive character of times. The research of relationship
between ecological morality and social morality could be added into Chapter Ⅴ Compliance Social
Ethics, Maintenance of Public Order.
3.3 Strengthening the education and publicity of the environmental protection law
The ecological moral education should not only stay on the moral level, but also on the aspects of
ecological law which should be necessarily learned by students. "Environmental Protection Law",
"Forest Law" and "Wild Animal Protection Law" are all specific laws and regulations related to the
ecology. The college students should strengthen their legal awareness. The whole society should form
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the ecological civilization fashion that proud to protect ecological environment and shamed of
destroying that. The society should enhance their awareness of environmental laws. This part also can be
used as practical activities furnished to the students to enable them to carry out the discussions, debates
and other activities, so that they can be widely involved.
3.4 Carrying out social practice, developing the habit of ecological moral conduction of college
students
Strengthening ecological and moral capacity-building is a key part for the ecological morality converts
to social practice. In that case, school could actively organize the Environmental Protection student
organizations or interest groups, and carry out innovative environmental protection activities with rich
content, combined with quality education, residing ecological moral education in practical activities, to
cultivate the students’ awareness of environmental protection and quality of the love of nature science.
The students should personally participate in the green volunteer activities to feel the significance of
ecological protection directly, and to cultivate their ecological civilization behavior.
4 Conclusion
The above is a summary of strengthening students’ ecological and moral education in the course
“IMCLB” from theory teaching and practice teaching. It is worthy of our exploration to carry out a
series of activities such as college students’ participation in community service and Young volunteers
action. The main research direction from now on is conducting students to cultivate ecological
civilization awareness for the purpose of internalizing that into their own standards of behavior through
all kinds of social practice. In short, ecological moral education is a complex system. The college
students are responsible for building socialism with Chinese characteristics and bringing about a great
renaissance of the Chinese nation. Therefore, it is an urgent need for colleges and universities to
strengthen the students’ ecological civilization awareness, and also an urgent need for teachers in class,
inside and outside school, from theory and practice to carrying out all-round ecological moral education.
Fund:
Dalian Jiaotong University’s Project of Theory and Practice Research on the Political and Ideological
Work and Party Building, DJSZ-2013-A07.
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