The past, present and future of mainland China’s green schools

The development of green schools has been a main feature of environmental education in China. The Centre for Environmental Education and Communications (CEEC) started the green school project at both national, provincial, autonomous regions and city levels from 2000 to 2006. In 2007, the former State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) (now named the Ministry of Environmental Protection) registered China as a member of the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) and thus, established its connection with international green schools. Since then the CEEC has coordinated the Eco-Schools project which is supported by the FEE.
This chapter, based on the previous work of Zeng et al. (2009) and other literature, provides an updated and critical review of green school (eco-schools) development. The first section reviews the development of green schools and related environmental education curriculum policy changes as well as promotion strategies in the Chinese Mainland since 2000 to now. The second section covers the status and challenges of regional differences in green schools in China as a vast country with diverse ethnic and socio-economic diversity. The third section provides examples of green school in different regions in China and identify successful factors and challenges of implementation. The final section discusses the future prospect of green school development in China. Copyright © 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG.