What do the following approaches have in common when considering environmental education; Across the Spectrum chapter one and Urban Environmental Education chapter’s one-two? It is all about balance, environmental education encompasses many avenues; connecting students, community, politicians and others. When considering starting an environmental education class or program, it important that all the individuals mentioned are working together. Most importantly, what is valued in the community (Russ, 2015, p. 27) .
In ‘Across the Spectrum’ Stapp mentioned having his students discuss the limits of conservation education compared to outdoor education. Outdoor education is more about getting students outside having fun and enriching school programs,
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When the majority of the students live outside the city limits, they have a tendency to be more nurtured and immersed into nature. In addition, our school had its own school forests which also helped connect students with nature. However, when I worked in a small city, Fergus Falls, I taught some students who did not have much connection with the natural world. There were plenty of natural things around, yet students were unaware of their own surroundings. On a field trip to Maple Wood State Forest, I was surprised that some students were hesitant to walk trails for it was the first time some students had been in the woods. At that moment, students’ ability “to perceive and understand urban environmental aesthetics” (de Sousa Vianna, 2002) was skewed. Those students viewed the forest as a place to fear and be weary, instead of place for play and exploration. Once students became comfortable to enjoy themselves and play, the sense of fear and hesitation diminished. I had a similar experience when teaching inner city students in Duluth, there were students scared to step off trail. Urban Environmental Education has a fear factor with nature, that is urban students can be afraid of aspects associated with the natural …show more content…
13) from school grounds (Russell, 1973) to urban nature trails (Polley, Loretan, & Blitzer, 1953). Just outside the classroom door we have a city park. Many people use the park, including dog owners. There is a space within the park that is not used very often and would be a great spot to build a dog park area; this is one project. There is also a stream nearby and it would be great to create a sustainable area for stream studies. Yet just adjacent from the stream there is the “clay pit” pond, so it would make sense to build a dock and observation area between the stream and pond. Eventually, I envision the students working with the Coon Rapids dam to help manage the existing trails. Right now there are many trails without signage, which makes it unsafe for hikers, runners, and bikers. There are also trails that need to be rerouted and closed, for some areas promote erosion and degradation. If this relationship fosters between the dam and school, students will also be invested in problem solving, environmental stewardship, and youth and community development. Problem solving: Students will first need to determine which trails already exist and of those which need to be closed due to sustainability. Students will learn mapping skills, calculate slope, observe runoff, use tools, consider the biology/ecology of the area, and work with officials
The topic that we have been given for this assessment is a quite broad subject, because of this I am going to be narrowing this down to the ideas that Kurt Hahn and Sir James Darling brought forth to Geelong Grammar School Timbertop and how throughout the history of the Schools Campus the changes that have happened to the Outdoor and Experiential learning side. The thinking behind my decision to reduce the subject down to one single stream was to express my own op
Teachers induce thinking and beliefs within their students, and elementary teachers within Ecotopia illustrate the importance of free agency in an ecological world. There are elementary teachers in Ecotopia who specialize in certain subjects in which they aspire their students to stimulate and indulge in their own goals and interests (Callenbach 128). Although Ecotopian teachers provide tutelage for instructing all subjects, they support the idea that their country has “crossed over into the age of biology” in which the majority of their focus is towards biology (Callenbach 126 - 129). Ec...
Richard Louv explains how people can find “freedom, fantasy, and privacy… a separate peace” (7) in nature. Many researchers are becoming aware of the positive effects nature can provide. Previous generations often tell stories of their childhood; stories about running around in fields or woods. They talk about how it gave them feelings of euphoria and freeness. Nowadays, rarely will one hear of today’s children telling similar stories. With more time being spent indoors, doing homework, and using technology, there are fewer kids enjoying the wonders of the outdoors. Studies have shown that children, and people in general, should spend more time in nature. Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods discusses how people are negatively affected without exposure to nature; there are vital steps that individuals, communities, and the nation can take to help with nature-deficit disorder.
These young generations were also built around a society that is always in motion and is used to people and noise. When you take these younger generations into an unfamiliar environment these become uncomfortable, much like when innercity children were brought to Death Valley (Egan and Egan). The students felt threatened because of how quiet and empty the park was and even “wouldn’t get out the van,” because of the unnerving atmosphere (Egan and Egan). These responses are normal in consideration of how the kids grew up if all one knew was noise and people being somewhere quiet and unpopulated would be an unsettling experience. The national parks also display a low diversity rate which can be very offputting to the public today, especially young colored people. When most of the parks were formed segregation was still infuriated in America so colored people were not introduced to these beautiful landmarks resulting in them not being able to pass down experiences to their children. The lack of diversity is still floating around the parks and makes the parks only “appealing to a certain kind of person,” which gives it an unwelcoming atmosphere (Egan and Egan). And resulting from this kind of atmosphere will leave the parks empty and silent until the
Beginning with our current and so far to what we have read the topics about biophilia, sustainable urban development, and that of sustainable transport, I can say I have so far learned more comprehensively about sustainability and the subsequent movement back toward a semblance of biophilia, then I have from all my previous schooling. Taking into account how many years it has been since that I’ve had to learn/relearn and also that of the generational gap of information encompassing these given topics, and with my knowledge (and/or lack thereof) may be sparse in consistency there certainly is a lack of usable knowledge from that of when I was in the earlier years (to ease confusion this refers to the levels of k-12) of schooling and that of the known usable knowledge now. To start this essay I will talk about the influences that were/are important in my education, what has/is the primary source to shape my education, and my past/present educational experiences.
The Pre-K and Kindergarten class studied habitats of various animals and insects. They were given examples and tough how the animals made their homes. The students built a bird house as their project and as something to take home to remind them of what they learned. Finally they went on a field trip to Legoland where they explored and built “habitats” for their families and the Lego people. The first and second grade class learned about marine life and the ocean. They built shoe box dioramas of coral reefs and created art projects depicting sea life as well as learning new facts about the ocean. The students got to go to the Aquarium for their field trip. Finally the third and fourth graders studied the rain forests and their ecosystems. The students built rainforest models and terrariums along with small group discussions on different ideas human intervention and conservation. They finished their week at the zoo where they studied different rainforest inhabitants in
The Department for Education (2012) states that “a high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key
The experience of teaching ELL students was very enlightening to me. At the time I was expected to teach this lesson, students were in the middle of their social studies unit of responsibility. They learned about various types of responsibilities, and one of them was responsibility to the environment. The actual lesson I was supposed to teach focused on the importance of making choices that would have a positive impact on students’ close environment. I was also to talk about environmental problems in the students’ neighborhood, and encourage them to devise some solutions to those problems.
In the essay “Children in the Woods”, Barry Lopez discusses how he encourages children to take an interest in wildlife and nature conservation. His methods include taking children on walking tours through forests while prompting them to make observations. Lopez places special emphasis on the abundance of knowledge that can be gained through observation. Lopez emboldens children to use their imaginations while discovering nature instead of relying on the author’s “encyclopedic knowledge” (Lopez 735). The author also focuses on how many components of nature work together as a whole. In “Why I Hunt”, Rick Bass writes about his passion for hunting. Bass describes how hunting, besides a means of sustenance, is an exercise in imagination. Bass observes how society has become preoccupied with instant gratification and has lost its sense of imagination, “confusing anticipation with imagination” (Bass 745). Both essays share common ideas, such as how an active imagination is vital to the human experience, the totality of connection in the natural world, and the authors’ strong spiritual connections to their environments. In contrast, the main focus of Lopez’s essay is conservation education in children, while Bass’s essay discusses how society has become disassociated from nature in a modernized society.
Yet, despite a lack of access to multicultural environmental education in formal settings, adults are also changing the way the environment is conceptualized, and the way problems are identified and solved from their cultural subjectivity. For Hill (2003), environmental adult education encompasses activist projects, community building, solidarity, resistance and marshalling networks of knowledge. Environmental adult education positively contributes to environmental justice communication through citizen mobilization, popular activism, and direct actions that are essential for democracy, healthy people, and ecological systems. This education helps minority communities address the confluence greed, white privilege and class advantage as apparatuses that can be measured in environmental
Sinclair, J. and Diduck, A. (1995). Public education: an undervalued component of the environmental assessment public involvement process. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 15, 219-240;
Coming from a more urban place going up I am use to concrete and tall building. The wilderness is something of a fantasy seen mostly in books. The tallest tree I’ve seen where I am from now seem small and insignificant, being here and being surrounded by nature some of which has been around for hundreds of years. In an article called ‘Walk on the Wilder side’ an English teacher experiences how detach from nature her students are firsthand. “Somewhere in the recent past her students had become the Net generation, weaned on electronic text, instant messages, and virtual reality. The gap between word and world had widened at the time when cotemporary environmental authors cry out for reconnection.” (Mary Ellen Dakin, 2011). A need to bridge the gap between kids that grow up in urban setting and nature itself has never been more important now. People are now spending so much time on their phones and computer not only can they get disconnected from nature, but they can also get disconnected from the world. When the English teacher in an urban area found that many of her student did not have a good understanding of the nature around them, she had them go outside and sit in a park and write about what they saw and heard. “She would see that they lack a vocabulary specific to the natural world, unable to name types of trees, birds, insect, grasses, flowers, and weeds they observed (one student would write
Eventually, nature will no longer exist for future generations and the benefits we receive from nature will wither away. If teenagers can learn to love nature now, there will be an increase of people who will help protect nature in the future. There will be an increase of activists, volunteers, politicians, scientists, and businessmen who will fight for and protect nature within the city. Afterall, if the wilderness and nature reserves are the only protect areas of nature, fewer people living in cities will experience what nature has to
Adjusting these two requests opportuneness and exactness has perplexed school across the nation. Not all teachers have successfully joined environmental change in the educational programs. Now and again freshness to the subject goes about as a weight, diverse conditions there's assurance in the gathering. We're similarly endeavoring to get the teachers to allow them, students, to fathom that we have alternatives as an overall population, as individuals in your own specific lifestyle. So the students can completely think about the method, and look at the choices, and see that with each choice there are coming about.
Student have been learning about erosion and weathering which are major forces that shape the world around us. Students understanding these forces will help them understand the way our land is shaped from rivers to lakes to canyons and our shore lines. People play a part in the way and amount that our soil erodes around us. it is important for us to understand how erosions works, and how effect on soil erosion since we depend in soil to grow. A field trip to Mary Vagle Nature center will allow student to see erosion hand on, and will help them be able to identify erosion in their daily life.