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Environmental Education Approaching The Research Term Paper

The authors insist that teachers need not "know everything or be able to identify everything," but on the other hand, they should explore environmental issues with their students, and "always be thinking about how they might encourage students...by introducing nature-related materials, nature-related themes and concepts, [and] student centered activities" (Basile, et al., 20). A good philosophy to develop is that nature is always all around us; Basile encourages her students to observe and make journal entries about what they "see and hear in the schoolyard" (21). This engenders a sense that the environment isn't some vague place "out there," but rather, that conservation and ecology are right here in the school yard.

Indeed, not only is it important to bring students to a level of consciousness about the nearness of nature, but the goal of education - according to the book, Environmental Education: A Resource Handbook - should be inclusive of all students, even "challenged students" who have disabilities. And for all students, the authors go on, the teacher's greatest environmental task is "to foster the development of lifelong learners, capable decision makers, and problem solvers, who will make valuable contributions to our society and the world" (Ricker, et al., 34).

In the C.A. Bowers book, Educating for an Ecologically Sustainable Culture, the author (Introduction) quotes a statement presented to the General Assembly of the UN (by the Union of Concerned Scientists), which was signed by 1,600 scientists - 100 of them having received the Nobel Prize - from 70 countries. The statement is a challenge to all professionals working in the field of environmental education; "...if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated," then a "great change in our stewardship...

The statement was offered to the United Nations in 1993. Doing the math, and if those 1,600 scientists are to be believed, that leaves about 27 years to turn back the tide of bad environmental habits. Without good leadership in the environmental education field, those needed changes are simply not going to happen. That, above all, should be factored into to a personal philosophy of education.
Works Cited

Basile, Carole; White, Cameron; & Robinson, Stacey. (2000). Awareness to Citizenship:

Environmental Literacy for the Elementary Child. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc.

Bowers, C.A. (1995). Educating For An Ecologically Sustainable Culture: Rethinking Moral

Education, Creativity, Intelligence, and Other Modern Orthodoxies. Albany, NY: State

Heimlich, Joe E. (2002). Environmental Education: A Resource Handbook. Bloomington,

Indiana: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

Johnson, Edward; & Mappin, Michael. (2005). Environmental Education and Advocacy:

Changing Perspectives of Ecology and Education. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Thomashow, Mitchell. (1995). Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Basile, Carole; White, Cameron; & Robinson, Stacey. (2000). Awareness to Citizenship:

Environmental Literacy for the Elementary Child. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc.

Bowers, C.A. (1995). Educating For An Ecologically Sustainable Culture: Rethinking Moral

Education, Creativity, Intelligence, and Other Modern Orthodoxies. Albany, NY: State
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