School's out (finally) for our son. Now the real education begins--stomping around outside in nature, meeting new kids, and quietly observing animals--out in Colorado. He's fortunate to hang out with a bunch of biologists all summer who love and respect nature. But what about those who aren't so lucky: what do we want our schools to teach them?
Charlie Saylan and I wrote about this in The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It) but the question is compelling. With "Race to the Top" teachers often "teach to the test" and peripheral issues are given short shrift.
California's Environmental Education Initiative is a good interdisciplinary start because it uses environmental issues as the scaffolding on which to teach disciplinary specialties like math, civics, and biology.
Discussion Questions
What do you think an environmentally literate citizen must know? How do we teach this? How do we evaluate its efficacy?
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