This paper questions the content of environmental education. What should a core curriculum of environmental education contain if we want an outcome of experts who are able to act in different contexts to actually solve environmental problems? What skills are needed to solve environmental problems? Can we teach about environmental problems in higher education without a focus on practice? And if not, in what practice should we start? An important aspect is that environmental problems are construed in an abstract way, with a gap between acquiring knowledge about them and actually coming to grips with them. One can describe environmental problems as something, which happens in nature. In this description the event is discovered and the cause of the event is proven to be some actions in society, e.g. the development of a new technology or an increasing use of a new innovation. The connection between events in nature and action in society is frequently discovered and described by natural scientists. They use concepts to describe changes in nature, which are developed in a natural science context (Johansson & Szybek 2002). The way natural sciences describes and perceive the world is separated from the world where we live our daily lives. Szybek uses the metaphor of different stages. (Szybek 2002). We live our life on one stage, but the natural sciences exist on another stage. In Sweden, the majority of environmental education programs begin with courses in the natural science e.g. chemistry or ecology. When we educate students about environmental problems and start with the natural sciences, some educators assume that knowledge in natural science leads to a comprehension of how we shall act in our daily life (Johansson & Szybek 2002). But the context of natural science is not the context of our daily life. The natural science knowledge about the causes of environmental problems is not automatically transferred to the world of work and the daily life. This rises the question if we need knowledge about natural science to be experts in solving environmental problems? Dreyfus & Dreyfus (1986) describe an expert as a person who has a practised understanding of how to deal with something. The disparity between a novice and an expert is that an expert acts depending on the context, but a novice attempts to follow rules without taking notice about the context. Experts solve problems, when they do what works depending on the situation. (Dreyfus & Dreyfus 1986, Flyvbjerg 2001). To be an expert you need a context, in which you can put solutions to the test and figure out which of them are working. You need a practice to be an expert. But under which conditions can environmental education create experts in solving environmental problems? And what should the overall goal of environmental education be? Nussbaums (1997) argue that we need to develop abilities in higher education to critically reflect on one's own tradition and culture, to see oneself not only as a citizen of a local region or group, but as a human being and a part of humanity as a whole. Further, higher education should help an individual as a citizen to put oneself in another's position, to empathise with their feelings, experiences and opinions. This is also what education for sustainability should lead to. But can we reach this goal with an education, which doesn't start with practice? Can there be environmental experts who aren't educated with a focus on practice? And what is the role of natural science in the process of develop a competence of solving environmental problems? References: Flyvbjerg, B. (2001) Making Social Science Matter. Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dreyfus, H. & Dreyfus, S. (1986) Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer, New York: Free press