The soul of the current educational reform is to "develop innovative spirit and ability to implement ideas in practice." In order to meet China's needs in human resources in the new century, a recommendation to aggressively launch research-oriented learning at the high school level was made for the first time at the Third National Education Workshop in 1999. In this article, the author discusses the benefits of research-oriented learning when applied in environmental education. Among other things, research-oriented environmental education allows students to acquire and apply environment-related knowledge under the direction of the teacher, in a manner similar to the way scientific studies are being conducted. Not only can students pick up more knowledge, but more importantly also improve their problem-identifying and solving skills. The author also discusses the objectives and methods of research-oriented environmental education course, which stresses direct participation and personal experience throughout the entire learning process.