Ecological Education in Action: On Weaving Education, Culture, and the Environment

Gregory A. Smith, Dilafruz R. Williams

SUNY Press, Jan 1, 1999 - Education - 244 pages

Ecological Education in Action celebrates the work of innovative educators in North America who explore ecological issues in school and non-school settings. These educators demonstrate how to reshape the thinking of children and adults to affirm the value of sufficiency, mutual support, and community.

Courses in environmental education often focus on scientific analysis and social policy--not cultural change. Children are exposed to information regarding environmental problems and explore such topics as endangered species, the logging of tropical rainforests, or the monitoring of water quality in local streams and rivers. Some adopt manatees or whales, or create school-wide recycling programs. These topics and efforts are without question commendable, however, missing is a recognition of the deeper cultural transformations that must accompany the shift to a more ecologically sustainable way of life.

Ecological Education in Action describes courses, programs, or projects that are transformative in nature, aimed at engendering the experience of connectedness that lies at the heart of moral action. The book creates a powerful and useful image of what an ecologically grounded form of education for our own era could look like.

[Contributors include Ray Barnhardt, C. A. Bowers, Gregory Cajete, Peter Blaze Corcoran, Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, Stephanie Kaza, Martin Kemple, Joseph Kiefer, Paul Krapfel, David W. Orr, Madhu Suri Prakash, Hedy Richardson, Elaine Schwartz, Gregory A. Smith, Sarah Taylor, and Diafruz R. Williams.]

Contents

• Reengaging Culture and Ecology: 1
• K12 SETTINGS: 19
• Stories from Our Common Roots Strategies for Building an Ecologically Sustainable Way of Learning: 21
• Deepening Childrens Participation through Local Ecological Investigations: 47
• From Human Waste to Gift of Soil: 65
• From Margin to Center Initiation and Development of an Environmental School from the Ground Up: 79
• Exploring Childrens Picture Books through Ecofeminist Literacy: 103
• Education Indigenous to Place Western Science Meets Native Reality: 117
• HIGHER EDUCATION AND NONFORMAL SETTINGS: 141
• Liberation and Compassion in Environmental Studies: 143
• Changing the Dominant Cultural Perspective in Education: 161
• Environmental Autobiography in Undergraduate Educational Studies: 179
• Reclaiming Biophilia Lessons from Indigenous Peoples: 189
• Creating a Public of Environmentalists The Role of Nonformal Education: 207
• Reassembling the Pieces Ecological Design and the Liberal Arts: 229
• Selected Programs and Resources that Address Ecological Education: 237
• Biographical Sketches: 239
• Index: 243

About the author

Gregory A. Smith is Associate Professor in the Education Department at Lewis and Clark College. He is the author of Education and the Environment: Learning to Live With Limits, also published by SUNY Press, a coauthor of Reducing the Risk: Schools as Communities of Support, and the editor of Public Schools That Work.

Dilafruz R. Williams is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Portland State University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Ecological Education in Action: On Weaving Education, Culture, and the Environment; G - Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series
• Editors: Gregory A. Smith, Dilafruz R. Williams
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: SUNY Press, 1999
• ISBN: 0791439852, 9780791439852
• Length: 244 pages
• Subjects: Education / Curricula; Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / Science & Technology; Science / Environmental Science