Ecological literacy and biophilia: loving the world

This blog is exploring perspectives on ecological literacy. I purposely have not focussed on a definition, though that may be useful at another time. And the blog has not yet offered many applications of ecoliteracy in action, except for the Tanka poetry lesson.  I have been drawn instead to thinking about how to make the pursuit of this new way of thinking more appealing. The term ecological literacy makes the whole enterprise sound like hard work. We all have enough of that. 

I’ve recently been suggesting that perhaps stirring our feelings about the wonders and mysteries of life is a promising starting point for developing people’s ecological thinking ‘muscle.’ Harvard entomologist E.O. Wilson hypothesizes that what is needed in the environmental movement is a re-awakening of our slumbering biophilia—“love of life or living systems.”

Humans and nature: deep connection, re-connection

Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis says that our evolution as humans is enmeshed with the intricacies of other living organisms. “They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and is permanently rooted….  To the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist, the old excitement of the untrammeled world will be regained…mysterious and little known organisms live within walking distance of where you sit.  Splendor awaits in minute proportions.” (Biophilia, 1984, page 139). WWF’s 60 second video “The world is where we live ” almost feels like evidence for Wilson’s case!

Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder  (2008) describes humans’ connection to nature in different but related terms, doesn’t he? Instead of seeing the connection as the deeply rooted origins of our evolutionary past, he makes the simpler, more verifiable case that childrem must be re-connected to nature for healthy human development. His focus is more on play and the deep sensory experience of being immersed in the natural world.

The dilemma of urban schools connecting to ‘nature’
These are big demands for schools and schooling. A prescription such as “To the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist” may seem like a very big precondition for experiencing nature and developing ecological literacy in our urban setting. This is something we may try to achieve when we create a school garden, make school grounds part of our teaching and learning in other ways, or visit an outdoor education centre. The problem is, for many raised in the city (and rarely away from it) this may not provide  a steady enough diet of ‘nature.’ Opportunities for contact with nature on school grounds are necessarily contained, and trips to an outdoor education centre very limited. (Even a trip to the Evergreen Brick Works would be a rare and special event.)

Can videos such as Dayna Baumeister’s “Life’s Operating Manual” (or the large body of work by David Suzuki and Richard Attenborough) act as a supplement to help awaken our biophilia? Richard Louv would seem to say no—that what is needed is the direct experience of nature and the stimulation of all the senses that being “in it” can provide. The “dual sensory nature” of TV, videos, and the Internet (and all it has brought us) is, he would say, too limited.

But is this all-or-nothing proposition sensible? Might some students and teachers have their slumbering affection for the natural world (if Wilson’s hypothesis has merit) aroused in part through videos of dramatic nature discoveries? (Or conversely, dramatic discoveries of human impact such as the work of Edward Burtynsky?) Perhaps we can make better use of such visual tools to coax us into “ecological thinking”—to begin to glimpse through the sprouting bean plant the connections to nature’s “big picture”? 

Do any of you regularly rely on videos as a way to stimulate students’ feeling of connection to the environment or to an environmental cause? Not only in science and geography, but in media literacy, reading, speaking, and writing, and the arts? Would you be willing to share successes (challenges too!)? Or simply send an email (eleanor.dudar@tdsb.on.ca) and say, “I’m too busy to write, but I’ll talk on the phone and you can write!”

The Ontario curriculum: loving the world

Almost all teachers love learning. Most love teaching as well, even though (and maybe also because!) it is one of the hardest and most important jobs in our society. Where in the curriculum is that love of learning sparked for each one of us?  Wilson would say the life sciences. But learning about the world through physics, chemistry, and geography can also provide moments of wonder at nature’s and humans’ ingenuity amid all the sheer hard work of remembering facts and connecting the pieces. Mathematics, language, and the arts each give us tools to interpret and communicate our appreciation, our concern, and our critical thinking about the world around us.

The EcoSchools PLC: loving our work

Our department’s professional learning community (PLC) meeting yesterday was probing where the entry points were in the curriculum for building ecological literacy skills. The discussion reached a peak with Erin’s “a-ha” moment as she suddenly threw up her arms and said, “you can start anywhere…everything can eventually touch the environment!”

That may be true—and easier to grasp and to make real for some than for others. After all, we live mostly enmeshed, not in nature, but in a highly technologized world where we think largely in fragments. So no wonder thinking ecologically or relationally does not “come naturally.”

One goal of our PLC is to uncover learning connections that cross grades and subject areas to help us interpret and respond to the world more holistically. At different levels. In different ways. Does that mean an environmental connection needs to be uncovered every time? No. Each of us will make different connections. But as the ecological thinking muscle develops, we will make those connections, and help our students make those connections, with greater ease—or, dare I say, more “naturally.” And love doing it!

Stay tuned.

                                                                           Eleanor Dudar
                                                                           TDSB EcoSchools Specialist

P.S.  For a sampling of these eloquent and charming educators and writers, see below:

E. O. Wilson’s TED talk, “Help Build the Encyclopedia of Life”  [25 minutes] Wilson makes a plea for “his constituents” (insects and other small life forms), numbering 10 to the 18th power!!

Richard Louv: Lecture at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, “The Abundant Childhood: Nature, Creativity and Health” [I hour 12 minutes]  (running script below the video allows you to click to where your interest lies)

And if you’re pressed for time: a 2 minute summation of Richard Louv’s new book, The Nature Principle

Ecological literacy, ecology, and the mysteries of life

The science of ecology is at the heart of ecological literacy as a new way of thinking about life. The study of life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries focussed on the substance of Nature’s parts: what is matter made of? What are its parts and how can we classify them to understand their characteristics? Ecology began to emerge as a new branch of science in the 1920s when scientists began studying the feeding relations among the parts—seeing them first as food chains, then food webs, then food cycles. It was here, Fritjof Capra reminds us in his seminal essay “Ecology and Community,” that biologists began to uncover the networks that these relationships consist of. This marked a shift in some quarters of scientific thinking: the focus turns to the form and pattern of life, where the subject of study becomes the dynamic network of interactions in an ecosystem. 

Capra’s essay is central to our pursuit of a deeper understanding of ecological literacy and why it matters. He reminds his readers that one of the reasons we study ecosystems is to learn how to build sustainable human communities. In nature there is no waste. “Nature is our teacher” is the first principle of schooling for sustainability, the subject of Smart by Nature (2009), case studies from the Center for Ecological Literacy compiled by Michael K. Stone.

Looking for ecological literacy connections in the curriculum
How does this work help busy classroom teachers wanting to interpret curriculum expectations through an ecological lens? Where do we ground this lovely theory in our day-to-day work? Some teachers see through this lens more readily than others. Words from ecosystem science that appear in curriculum expectations—words like relationships, interdependence, chains, webs, cycles, patterns, webs, networks –invite us to design a lesson thinking interconnectedly, thinking ecologically. Most of these words occur in many subject areas, not just science and geography. But that is something to pursue another day. Does anyone reading this have time to weigh in with your thoughts, great lesson ideas?

Teaching and learning about the mysteries of life
When I started this meditation, I was thinking about how and where our schools introduce students to the mysteries of life. The life sciences, of which ecology is an offshoot, are a source of endless mystery and wonder (recall Dayna Baumeister’s video “Life’s Operating Manual” where we wonder at nature’s innovations and adaptations). Places through the grades where the curriculum talks about soil, water, air, or food may allow a sideways mention of nature’s ecosystem pattern of networks. (Yes, these are “parts” also to be seen embedded in the large ecosystem whole. As my colleague Pam Miller puts it, “don’t just study one thing; tug on its connections to make it real!”)

Our February e-newsletter has become the school food garden issue partly because we’ve all been so seduced by our (til now) abnormally mild winter. I happened upon the curriculum resource Patterns through the Seasons: A Year of School Food Garden Activities while browsing the overwhelmingly rich Evergreen website and was instantly smitten by the sheer commonsensical links the writers make between an ecological way of thinking (one clue is in the title itself, isn’t it?) and what the curriculum asks us to teach. I stole a glance at “Planning the Garden” (Winter, Unit 2, page 47), and then leapt forward to “Mysteries of Life” (Spring, Unit 3, page 61). That lesson describes a beautifully simple activity (K-3 but easy to adapt) involving three opaque containers with lids, soil, and water. Perhaps many of you already use it. I will share it with my sister who is a kindergarten teacher; she’ll love it for its hands-on nature, its fragment of story that ends with a question, and the charming chant that will embed her students’ new knowledge about what plants need to grow. I was utterly charmed; I may even try it with my colleagues (not the chant part though)!

So growing things allows students to see nature at work in a very vivid way. Any curriculum that asks us to look at life itself—plants, animals, ecosystems, human body systems—seems to inspire some of the best curriculum writing I’ve seen. It is powered by the sense of wonder and the deep-down knowledge that life—what it is, and how it is organized—is something very important to teach and to learn about.

Nature’s design provides lessons for human communities who are learning how to live sustainably. That’s the pragmatic reason for nurturing ecological literacy. The other is the sheer joy of marvelling at the mysteries of the planet that we need to learn to live on more lightly. If it can enage us, won’t it engage our students?

                                                                                     – Eleanor Dudar
                                                                                     TDSB EcoSchools Specialist

Ingredients for ecological literacy: is a “good news diet” of hope and resilience essential?

Writers Paul Hawken and Frances Moore Lappe share a belief in the resilience of the human spirit and the power of human creativity to build a new world. They gather evidence pointing to the changes already underway. These are mostly out of the public eye because they are not hard news—the latest reports of destruction, conflict, machinations in the business and political realms. Hawken and Lappe are saying that if we are to persuade more and more people to see the world in eco-friendly terms, it is a mistake to focus mainly on the damage to people and earth’s systems.  We need a “good news diet” (Lappe) as a supplement to what we see on the TV or read in the paper or on the Internet. And also as a source of motivation.

Where do we find food for that good news diet? Some of the most vivid good news exists in nature itself. Nature’s resilience can sometimes counter the damage being wrought and thus is itself a source of hope. Here’s the best part: schools are uniquely placed to deliver this news on a regular basis! The wonders of nature need to take their rightful place in school curriculum alongside both the wonders of human ingenuity (some of which springs from nature as teacher) and news of the sorry results of human impact on the environment.

Jane Goodall’s web-based high school curriculum Lessons for Hope explores resilience in both humans and nature in Unit 4 of the Student Journal, linking people and the planet and describing her own way of getting through hard times.

We can deepen our ecological literacy by making the most of these learning opportunities. When nature is understood as made up of living systems that we interact with, and sometimes disrupt, it is a monumental story of design in action—and reaction. “How nature works” in our EcoSchools Certification Toolkit distills earth science principles. It’s really the science part of ecological literacy.

It’s a start, but it isn’t enough. What resources would be most helpful for busy teachers fulfilling the demands of a crowded curriculum? Short vignettes that delve into Nature’s big story? Is anyone currently using David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things series with good results? Which segments? What else? Can these resources animate more than science education?  Do visual resources as part of web-based learning have a special role in engaging students in becoming more ecologically literate? Share your thoughts and findings—write to us.                                                                                                 -E.D.

P.S.  David Suzuki and Holy Dressel teamed up a decade ago to write Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled World (2002) and a year later More Good News (2003). And these are only two of many such books.

P.P.S. For a heady analysis of resilience as the chief characteristic of sustainability, dip into David Orr’s short essay “Security, Resilience and Community.”

Ecological Literacy and A Sense of Wonder

“It’s a Wonderful World”

Two versions of Louis Armstrong’s famous song “It’s a Wonderful World” have been set to pictures in these very short videos. One soundtrack is Armstrong singing, the other the voice of Sir Richard Attenborough speaking the song’s words. Take 7 minutes and view them both. How could they be a useful starting point for having students inquire about what they want to learn ? Which of the two do you think they would choose, and why? Both are stunning; one’s choice may simply reflect one learning style preference over another. But there may be more to it than that!

Making comparisons helps to sharpen thinking. These might even be used as bookends at the beginning and end of a unit. What additional meaning might these images and words have after the study is complete?

As we build a foundation for ecological literacy, we need ways to cultivate a sense of wonder to go alongside the systems thinking, critical thinking, inquiry and problem-solving skills that help our students become thoughtful, capable citizens. 

Rachel Carson of Silent Spring fame said that “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”  Are videos like these one small piece of keeping that inborn sense alive? Try them out! Post a comment and tell us what you’ve learned.

- E.D.

“Life’s Operating Manual”: Why does ecological literacy matter? Where do we go to ignite the spark?

Dayna Baumeister is co-founder, with Janine Benyus, of the Biomimicry Institute and Biomimicry 3.8. Her half-hour presentation at the 2011 Bioneers conference, “Life’s Operating Manual,” is spell-binding and one of the most artful presentations I’ve seen in a long time. And very accessible to a wide age-range. She weaves together her 11-year old son’s passion for fantasy fiction (yes, he’s in the audience) with her own quest to understand where solutions lie to our person-planet dilemma. Her narrative takes the viewer on a condensed history of life on Earth; she imagines telescoping it into a single year, marking the major evolutionary breakthroughs as the “year” marches on.

In that imaginary year, which begins January 1st 4.5 billion years ago, life first emerges on February 25th…and human life appears…well, you’ll have to watch the video to find out. Baumeister communicates her fascination with nature’s design and her belief in the human potential to learn from nature so powerfully that it left me in a trance.

The video seems to me a wonderful gift of inspiration for teachers of environmental education—indeed for all teachers. It is about life and hope and curiosity and where we can find solutions to our unsustainable way of living.

Perhaps over the holidays you will find 31 minutes to pause long enough to have a look!

- E.D.

P.S. Do any of you see this video as a teaching tool? What age group could appreciate some or all of what she’s saying? What kind of context would you prepare?  Where might it help you to connect to curriculum as you energize your students’ learning? If you are inspired, please write back!

P.P.S. Danya is introduced by the Executive Director of the Biomimicry Institute. Be sure to get to Danya herself (4:33 minutes into the video) before deciding whether to keep watching.

Additional Resource: Janine Benyus is clearly the source for Baumeister’s inspired work, covering much of the same content that she makes so compelling in the video. The sidebar “food for thought” pieces are absolute gems! Check it out.

Paying attention: how important is it for learning? How can education in the environment help?

“Attention is the holy grail…everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.” says Professor David Strayer, a psychology prof at the University of Utah.  Strayer took four neuroscientist colleagues on a trip into the wilderness to talk about and feel the differences between the digitally-connected and -disconnected world. A central debate was about the value of uninterrupted time in nature as a way to rest and restore the information-overloaded brain. This debate is not new to environmental educators. Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods  has had a large influence on the movement to reconnect children and nature (like Evergreen in Toronto!). 

What are the elements that make up ecological literacy in the classroom? Through the year I will be on the lookout for answers to this beguiling question. This past week I observed a lesson on writing a Tanka poem.  What is the connection with the neuroscientists debate about nature’s ability to influence our brains?

The grade 6 students in Anne’s class had spent time the previous day in their school’s Nature Garden immersed in the plant world, with each student taking a picture of one tree or shrub. The picture was then pasted into their poetry books and became the focus for writing a Tanka poem (5 lines with 5-7-5-7-7 syllables). But first came the class co-creation of an example. Line 1 was a “Unicorn prancing.” When line 2 popped up as “Sasquatch dancing in the night,” the class was on the road to having fun with writing poetry. As the poem was completed and the hilarity subsided, the focus came back to the task, with the teacher having students remember the words they’d found to describe their experience in the Nature Garden’s grove of trees. The explosive imaginative power of the Sasquatch never disappeared, but it was gradually displaced by the photograph in each person’s poetry journal. For a while the room grew very quiet, with some students silently tapping out the rhythm of each trial line to see if it met the requirement of the form.

What are the ingredients of this lesson? First, it exists in the context of the child’s other personal experiences in nature and with words. Its rich classroom context is not only other lessons in language, writing, poetry, but likely some science classes as well—all somehow nestled within earlier experiences outdoors.  Another valuable addition was the students’ tapping, anchoring their learning in their own bodies. Who knows how much that one small integrated act can help the developing brain pay better attention?

And this brings me back to “attention” as the holy grail of learning, and to wander sideways to the debate about the role of nature vs technology in aiding or distracting the attention of the developing brain that was being debated by those five neuroscientists in the wilderness.

For almost all the students I observed, their attention was grabbed by the well-laid out task, and by their own photo. Would the quality of attention have been as high if instead they were gazing at their own photo of, let’s say, the CN Tower? Is it possible to argue, credibly, that the memory of that short time observing “their” chosen tree in their own school ground, and recollecting that quiet moment through the photo, helped these students’ brains to focus? And hence to better “hold on” to that complex piece of learning (as well as completing the task)?

Elements of ecological literacy in the classroom—a rich design!

Every classroom lesson has a “history” for the child and for the teacher. The pursuit of ecological literacy is one strand in the classroom web of teaching and learning. The teacher’s job is in part to make that history as richly woven with ideas and accompanying feelings as she can, to encourage ongoing connections that happen both consciously and unconsciously. This one has layers in abundance—the recent outdoor experience, the classroom mini-lesson on the form and function of the Tanka poem and the high-spirited fun with the Sasquatch model poem, the tree photograph as a prompt to memory, and the photo itself—a piece of ‘nature’ chosen by the child.

This poetry lesson was superb in its interweaving of the students’ contact with the natural world and the classroom experience that artlessly blended teacher-direction and student-focussed learning. The Sasquatch is an important reminder that we have to honour the other interests that our students have, that engagement and enthusiasm are preconditions for paying attention. Just like adults, students’ strong engagement is likely related to their having some choice in what they learn and even, sometimes, how a lesson proceeds.  Often, the richer the lesson in both content and pedagogical style, the richer the learning.

This is a much longer discussion, isn’t it? I haven’t even touched on the role of the school’s culture, influenced by the nature that is “right there,” and seen as part of the whole learning environment. Or the teacher’s long-standing practice of including the environment as part of students’ discovery of the world.

“Education in, about, and for the environment”

Education in, about, and for the environment is our short form for talking about different entry points into building ecological literacy. Writing a Tanka tree poem is clearly the fruit of education that has happened in the environment, but has blossomed into so much more within this classroom. Such a lesson may become a stepping stone to a science lesson about the environment—habitats in grade 4, diversity in grade 6, ecosystems in grade 7, and beyond! Or it might some day lead to an exploration and campaign—locally, education for looking after school ground trees by better mulching and watering, or on a bigger scale, for investigating how to become a protector of Ontario’s boreal forest.
                                                                        . . . . . . . .

What the five neuroscientists on the Utah wilderness trip agreed on is that becoming disconnected from the digital world did change their experience—and functioning—of their own minds. It seems possible that something similar can happen with small doses of nature, even right on the school grounds, or in a nearby park, or at an Outdoor Education Centre. Like a tonic, we need that contact with nature regularly. It is the accumulation of such experiences that can settle the mind and lead to paying better attention.

Thank you to Anne and her students for sharing their Nature Garden Tanka Poems. 
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Additional resources: Instructional Leaders Pam Miller and Annelies Groen highly recommend two books for teaching and learning outdoors,  Outdoor Inquiries by Patricia McGlashan, Kristen Gasser, and Peter Dow and Herbert W. Broda’s Schoolyard-Enhanced Learning.

- ED

Astonish Me!

This 7 minute video was created to celebrate WWF’s 50th anniversary.  It follows a young boy who gets the last ticket to an exhibit of new species, ending with a reminder of how important it is to also protect species we already know. Very English in tone, but the child’s hesitation in the face of the unknown and his wonder at what he’s shown is universal. A welcome shift away from making endangered species the explicit message even though it hovers as a powerful subtext. Multiple levels of meaning to tease out here. The last 90 seconds are subtitles—perhaps just the time to start a  class discussion!

The science behind the film