Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 25
Educating Teachers and Increasing
Environmental Literacy
RICK HALL AND CHERYL BAUER-ARMSTRONG
Earth Partnership for Schools (EPS) emerges from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison Arboretum's long involvement with ecological restoration and from Aldo
Leopold's land ethic, which sees human beings as “plain members and citizens” of
the ecological community. Along with its national outreach program, Restoration Ed-
ucation Science Training and Outreach for Regional Educators (RESTORE), EPS
creates partnerships with teachers, schools, natural resource agencies, environmental
organizations, nature centers, master gardeners, volunteers—in short, with anyone
willing to collaborate in restoring the natural ecology of school grounds and nearby
natural areas. In the process, respectful relationships are restored with other human
beings and “the land.” In this new education paradigm, children and adults are not
only learners but citizen-scientists actively investigating and restoring ecological func-
tions. They are caring for nature and becoming stewards of their own communities.
From a young person's perspective, this kind of experience is essential, as an EPS
teacher from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, noted: “Kids need to feel important, to care
about something, to feel that they make a difference in this world. . . . Earth Partner-
ship provides ways to give kids a sense of purpose and build competency.”
Earth Partnership Institutes are experience-based and use ecological restoration as
a context for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning
across discipline, age, learning style, culture, and place. Participants directly engage in
the multidisciplinary activities. Our research shows that teachers are more likely to
use activities they have experienced. Since 1991, EPS and RESTORE have helped
1,600 teachers in twenty states to incorporate ecological restoration into their curric-
ula, directly reaching more than 600 schools, 1,200 community partners, and 160,000
students.
Earth Partnership for Schools and Environmental Literacy
As children spend more time plugged into electronic media (Rideout, Foehr, and
Roberts 2010), concerns about their ecological literacy have increased, especially as
