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You
are here: Environmental Education in the United States:
Teaching in the Present, Preparing Students for the Future
This article is derived from a paper presented at the International Symposium on Environmental Education, February 19, 1999, in Tokyo, Japan.
by John Haskin
Several years ago I welcomed a busload of urban 6th graders from Brooklyn to our environmental education center in the mountains. This was their first time out of the city. As they stood around the bus waiting for their luggage, one of the students pointed toward a small grove of trees near the parking lot and asked me, "Are those trees real?" I wasn't entirely sure what he meant. I answered, "They sure are . . . would you like to go see them?" With about 20 of the students following, we headed to the trees. As the students approached the trees, I could feel their tension. A palpable sense of energy, not all of it positive, swept through the group as they entered the grove. It was obvious that these were children who had never been among trees before, therefore, they were not quite sure what to expect. Yet, within a few minutes, their attitude shifted from apprehension to excitement. I stood back and watched as the students moved from one tree to another, some running, some wrapping their arms around the trees feeling the rough bark, some laying on their backs looking up through the branches.
As we left the trees, the first student told me that while on the bus he and the other students had made bets as to whether the trees were real or just pictures like on television. He proudly informed me that he had won the bet.
This true story frames the context of our challenge as environmental educators. Environmental education creates opportunities where students can have a direct experience with what is, for many of them, a separate reality. It is implied that through the process of environmental education students will develop knowledge about and concern for the natural world. The task of the instructor is to craft appropriate experiences in reflection of both "place" and "learner." These students from Brooklyn did not need a lecture on forest ecology, nor did they require expensive scientific equipment. All they needed was to be in the woods.
Environmental education in the United States has developed along a bifurcated path. On one hand, we think of environmental education as strategies emphasizing the development of scientific knowledge and technical or managerial solutions to environmental problems. However, there is also the dimension of environmental studies that seeks to instill a sense of caring and responsibility for the earth (Chawla 1998). The synergism of these goals fuels both the enthusiasm for and the confusion about defining environmental education.
In this paper, I outline the historic roots, present practices and potential trajectories of environmental education in the United States. The opportunities have never been greater, nor the need more urgent, for an environmental education.
Environmental education did not spring forth fully formed from any one discipline, but rather as a product of a co-evolutionary process within science, public awareness of environmental issues, and educational ideas.
Environmental thought in the United States has its roots in the Romantic-Nature Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Then, the difficult lessons of the dust bowl era in the 1930's and the extinction of previously abundant species such as the passenger pigeon sobered Americans into the development of the Conservation Movement, an approach to science that merged environmental thinking, science and life practice. Aldo Leopold, a college professor from Wisconsin, became the primary spokesman for the conservation movement. In the 1960's, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring led to the first Earth Day celebration in 1970. In that same year, President Nixon signed into law Title Three, which provided funding for and mandated that every state develop and incorporate environmental education strategies and curriculum into their schools.
The educational roots of environmental education began in the early part of this century when a group of teachers and educational leaders, led in part by educational philosopher John Dewey, began to work on new models for American education and learning. In 1919, they identified six basic principles for their Progressive Education Movement:
1. Children should have the freedom to develop naturally.
2. The child's interests should be the basic motive for all his or her work.
3. The teacher should function as a guide, not a taskmaster.
4. Schools should pay equal attention to all facets of children's development, including the physical.
5. Record keeping should serve the goal and methods of the scientific study of children's development.
6. The school and the home must be active partners in meeting the needs of children.
One of Dewey's graduate students, L. B. Sharp, pragmatically started his child-centered, inquiry-based school camping approach in 1930, with his oft quoted phrase, "That which can best be learned in the out-of-doors, through direct experience, dealing with native materials and real life situations, should be learned there." Many schools in the early 1970's returned to Sharp's school camping model in order to fulfill their federal environmental education mandate. Federal financial support then sparked an explosion of summer camps adapting their facilities to serve school groups throughout the year. Despite the disintegration of federal dollars in the late 1970's, residential environmental education continues to be one of the most popular expressions of experiential and environmental education available to school districts. Today these programs are largely funded by the school districts themselves or by parents.
The events surrounding the twentieth anniversary of the first Earth Day coupled with the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit renewed Americans' interest in the environment and its potential role in education. However, as environmental education became an increasingly mainstream educational practice, it has become the subject of heightened analysis and tension.
There are basically two areas of contention. One relates to the ongoing debate of accuracy and fairness in environmental education materials and methods that has been historically fueled by industry. The second relates to environmental education's potential role in the educational reform movement.
During the last decade in particular, there has been considerable debate regarding the political motivations of environmental curricula. These arguments seem to coincide with the movement towards conservatism in the United States. In response to these concerns, in 1997, the Independent Commission on Environmental Education reviewed nearly 80 national and regional environmental education curricula for their accuracy in presenting environmental science and problems. Their work revealed that most materials presented environmental science accurately reflecting current and evolving thought. However, some materials contained either consistent factual inaccuracies or misstated theories of science (ICEE 1987).
Concurrent to the work of the Independent Commission on Environmental Education, the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) developed their own guidelines for professional practice and program development. Their guidelines draw heavily from those guidelines crafted in the Belgrade Charter (1975) and Tbilisi Declaration (1978). The NAAEE guidelines specifically address issues of fairness and accuracy in the development of environmental education materials, student assessment and literacy as well as professional teacher development (NAAEE 1997). However, the guidelines are entirely voluntary, providing no requirements for compulsory adoption.
Environmental education also has contributed to the ongoing national debate on educational reform. The State Education and Environment Roundtable has advanced project-based interdisciplinary studies as a way of breaking down the traditional compartmentalized approach to education. Identified as using the Environment as an Integrating Context for learning, their guidelines incorporate the following goals:
1. Break down the traditional boundaries between disciplines.
2. Provide hands-on learning experiences through problem-solving and project-based activities.
3. Create collaborative relationships between teachers.
4. Adapt to individual students and their unique skills and abilities.
5. Develop knowledge, understanding and appreciation for the environment, community and natural surroundings (Lieberman 1998).The works of the NAAEE and SEER are focused on defining a new or clearer path for environmental education. There is also an emerging field of environmental education research that is attempting to identify the significant life experiences of pro-environmental adults and how those events have shaped their life choices. The possible theoretical implication of this research is the substantiation of the concept that environmental education has the potential to serve a key role in educational reform.
Despite the ongoing difficulties in securing funding for environmental education projects and the inherent challenges of teaching the dynamic subject of environmental studies, the future prospects for environmental education are both bright and urgent. The task of preparing youth for an ever-changing world will require the constant evaluation and revision of our educational programs and methodology.
As reflective environmental educators, we must consider tools that will help us be more effective in our practice without straying from the foundational strengths of the movement. Toward that end, schools and educational organizations must strive to select the methodological pathways and curricular tools that will meet the needs of their students both present and future.
Environmental education centers must challenge themselves to adopt institutional practices that model the same sorts of ideals they present in their educational programs – to do less is to suggest hypocrisy. This involves committing to sustainability in design and practice, thus embodying what Oberlin College professor David Orr has referred to as a "crystallized pedagogy," or to put it more simply, to practice what you preach. It also involves research: educational research for the growth of the environmental education profession and scientific research for the furtherance of knowledge and for the children's exposure to genuine science.
Effective environmental education brings about an increased awareness and appreciation of nature. It also reveals, in context, the wounds or separations that exist between the human and nonhuman worlds. Therefore, the problem every environmental educator must address is how to motivate students into action without terrifying them into inaction. Environmental educators that fail to address the potential fear-producing effect of their lessons risk creating in their students a calloused or even fearful attitude toward nature, what educator David Sobel has referred to as "Ecophobia."
Australian educator Noel Gough has commented that environmental educators need to provide students with more complex and complicated discourse. I predict that this advanced discourse will involve creating landscapes of possible life-action in students and instilling an awareness of their responsibilities.
The inevitability of earth transformation does not preclude us from mindful decisions regarding the appropriateness of our actions. To be aware of the world around us is not enough, nor is it enough to be knowledgeable of ecology and earth systems. The critically important relationships we have with the natural world, including clean air, potable water and fertile soil, require the thoughtful application of personal and social practice. Creatively exercised, environmental education provides the context of concern necessary to develop this thoughtful application.
As environmental educators, we are teaching in the present, preparing students for the future. We must strive to create educational experiences that challenge our students' perspectives both locally and globally. Whether we use a field guide or a database, the strength of our curricular tools is measured through the life actions of our students. The impact of our methodology will be determined by the next generation.
Resources
Berry, Wendell. (1983) The Gift of Good Land. New York: North Point Press.
Carson, Rachel. (2002, reprint) Silent Spring. Boston, MA: Mariner Books.
Chawla, L. (1998) "Research Methods to Investigate Significant Life Experiences: Review and Recommendations." Environmental Education Research 4(4): 383-397.
Disinger, J. F. (1987) "Cognitive Learning in the Environment." Environmental Education Digest ED287684(2).
Gough, N. (1993) "Environmental Education, Narrative Complexity and Postmodern Science/Fiction." International Journal of Science Education 15(5): 607-625.
ICEE (1987) Are We Building Environmental Literacy? Materials Review. Washington, DC, ICEE: 39.
Lassiter, Barbara. (1978) American Wilderness: The Hudson River School of Painting. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday.
Leopold, Aldo. (1992, reprint) A Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lieberman, Gerald. (1998) Closing the Achievement Gap: Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning. Poway, CA: Science Wizards Press. Read the Executive summary of this report here: http://www.seer.org/extras/execsum.pdf .
NAAEE (1997) Environmental Education Guidelines for Excellence. Oregon, IL, NAAEE: 81.
Orr, David. (1992) Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World . Albany: SUNY Press.
Palmer, J., and J. Suggate (1996) "Influences and experiences affecting pro-environmental behaviour in educators." Environmental Education 2(1): 109-121.
Shepard, Paul. (1996) Traces of an Omnivore. Washington, D.C., Island Press.
Sobel, D. (1996) Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education. Great Barrington, Orion Society.
Tanner, T. (1980) "Significant life experience." The Journal of Environmental Education 11(4): 20-24.
Wilson, E.O. (1986 reprint) Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
At the time of this writing, John Haskin was Associate Executive Director of Frost Valley YMCA and Environmental Education Center in Clareyville, NY. He is now the Director of Education at the Teton Science School in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
© May 2003 New Horizons for Learning
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