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Environmental education in the schools - Creating a program that works! by Judy A. BRAUS DAVID WOOD LESLIE EICHNER LeFRANC Design NANCY MILLER Desktop Publishing PEACE CORPS Information Collection and Exchange August 1993 M0044 INFORMATION COLLECTION & EXCHANGE Peace Corps’ Information Collection & Exchange (ICE) was established so that the strategies and technologies developed by Peace Corps Volunteers, their co-workers, and their counterparts could be made available to the wide range of development organizations and individual workers who might find them useful. Training guides, curricula, lesson plans, project reports, manuals and other Peace Corps-generated materials developed in the field are collected and reviewed. Some are reprinted "as is"; others provide a source of field based information for the production of manuals or for research in particular program areas. Materials that you submit to the Information Collection & Exchange thus become part of the Peace Corps’ larger contribution to development. Information about ICE publications and services is available through: Peace Corps Information Collection & Exchange 1111 - 20th Street, NW Washington, DC 20526 USA Website: http://www.peacecorps.gov Telephone : 1-202-692-2640 Fax : 1-202- 692-2641 Add your experience to the ICE Resource Center. Send materials that you’ve prepared so that we can share them with others working in the development field. Your technical insights serve as the basis for the generation of ICE manuals, reprints and resource packets, and also ensure that ICE is providing the most updated, innovative problem-solving techniques and information available to you and your fellow development workers. Prepared for the Peace Corps by Judy Braus and David Wood under Contract No. PC-889- 2278. This manual may be reproduced and/or translated in part or in full without payment or royalty. Please give standard acknowledgment. Acknowledgments "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." -Theodore Roosevelt We’d like to thank the many friends and colleagues who helped us develop this environmental education manual for Peace Corps. Our first thanks goes to our creative designer Leslie Eichner LeFranc, who took a huge mess of a manuscript and turned it into a beautifully designed book. We’d also like to thank Nancy Miller, who worked with Leslie’s design and spent hours (and hours and hours) at the Mac expertly formatting the text, scanning art, and integrating the design to create the final draft. Without Leslie’s and Nancy’s dedication and skill, this book would not have been possible. We are especially grateful to the following colleagues who took the time to review the draft, discuss ideas, and offer comments about how to improve: Dr. Randy Champeau, Professor, Environmental Education, University of Wisconsin; Peggy Cowan, Education Specialist, Alaska Department of Education; Scott Eckert, Director of Interpretation, Dry Tortugas National Park, Dr. Sam Ham, Professor, School of Forestry, Wildlife, and Range Sciences, University of Idaho; Dr. Lou Iozzi, Dean of Science Education, Cook College, Rutgers University; Ed McCrea, Executive Director, North American Association for Environmental Education; Kathy McGlauflin, Vice President, Education, Project Learning Tree, Dr. Martha Monroe, Environmental Education Consultant; Dr. Bill Stapp, Professor, Natural Resources, University of Michigan, Diane Wood, Vice-President, Latin American and the Caribbean, World Wildlife Fund. Special thanks go to Jody Marshall, Robin D. Grove, Meryl Hall, Alma Lowry, Sara Lustbader, Lori Mann, and Barbara Pitman, who reviewed various drafts and offered advice and support along the way. We’d also like to thank Dr. Mary Schleppegrell, former Education Specialist with the Office of Training and Program Support (OTAPS); Drew Burnett, Environmental Education Specialist, OTAPS; Therese Glowacki, Natural Resource Specialist, OTAPS; Kathy Rulon, Education Specialist, OTAPS; Barbara Ferris, WID Coordinator, OTAPS; Mary Jo Larson, Education Specialist, OTAPS; Pete Coursey, Program and Training Officer for the PACEM Region of Peace Corps; Paul Vitale, Urban Coordinator, OTAPS; and Ana Rosa Ortiz, Associate Peace Corps Director, Honduras. All offered great comments and support throughout the development of the manual. A very special thanks go to David Wolfe, Director of Peace Corps’ Information and Collection Exchange (ICE), for his patience and support throughout the development of this manual and for his excellent editorial suggestions. We also appreciate everything Judy Benjamin and the other editorial experts on the ICE staff did to help get this manual printed. We’d also like to thank George Mahaffey, Manager of the Environment Sector, for his continuing support of environmental education activities around the world and for his commitment to maintaining high quality environmental programming in all regions. On a more personal note, David would like to thank Sidwell Friends School for supporting his international environmental education activities and providing so much guidance and on-going support. He would especially like to thank headmaster Earl Harrison, middle school principal Bob Williams, and teaching colleague Dan Bogan. And Judy would like to dedicate this book to the memory of her father, Harry Braus, who spent his life working for human rights, education, and everything the Peace Corps stands for. And finally, we’d like to acknowledge all the Peace Corps Volunteers and country staff from around the world who helped us, directly and indirectly, by sharing their views on environmental education and for the work they continually do on behalf of the environment to help make the world a better place for all of us. Judy Braus David Wood Tips for using this book "You can’t really understand other traditions if you don’t understand your own." -John Searle As you will see from the Table of Contents, we’ve divided Environmental Education in the Schools: Creating a Program That Works! into nine chapters, with an appendix that includes the bibliography and other information. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of developing and implementing an environmental education program. Although each chapter stands alone, you might want to skim the main subheads in each chapter to decide which parts are most appropriate for your needs. In general, we encourage you to follow a planning process that begins with looking at the local environmental problems in your community (Chapter 2) and the realities of the school system you will be working with, including the cultural issues that might influence your effectiveness (Chapter 3). We also feel it’s important to take the intellectual and moral development of your students into consideration as you develop your program (Chapter 4). As you develop goals and objectives for your environmental education activities, you will be more effective if what you suggest helps enhance the goals and objectives of your school’s curriculum (Chapter 5). In addition, we encourage you to try to incorporate innovative teaching strategies, such as creative and critical thinking skills, hands-on discovery, cooperative learning, and high level questioning (Chapter 6). We’ve also included a variety of sample environmental education activities that you can adapt to fit your needs (Chapter 7). And finally, we have included suggestions for ways to build support for your programming ideas (Chapter 8) and develop formal and informal techniques to evaluate your success (Chapter 9). The visual overview on the left summarizes our recommendations for developing an environmental education course, program, or curriculum. SUCCESS STORIES On the page opposite each Chapter, we’ve included a brief environmental education success story. Each focuses on the work Volunteers and educators from other organizations are doing around the world to make a difference. A WORD ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES Chapter 7 includes a variety of activities that have been reprinted from many sources. The activities are divided into 26 groupings that focus on different topics and different teaching techniques. Each of the 26 categories begins on a right hand page with an introduction that explains the category and the activities contained in the section. Each category is marked at the top with an animal symbol. All of the activities in that section are marked with a smaller version of the animal symbol. Many of the activities are accompanied by a ready-to copy activity page. Feel free to copy and use these specially marked activity pages. But please make sure to give credit to the source if you use the activity with students or other teachers. (All the credits are listed in the introduction for each activity section.) Each activity also includes a brief outline of objectives, ages, subjects, and materials. The ages listed vary from activity to activity, depending on their source. Don’t feel bound by the grade levels or ages suggested. You’ll be able to adapt many of the activities to fit your particular age group and needs. WHAT’S AT THE END? The Appendix, on page 461, includes lesson planning models, two sample environmental education frameworks, a sample list of core thinking skills, an overview of Bloom’s taxonomy, a sample scope and sequence for environmental ethics, and the goals of curriculum development for environmental education. The Bibliography provides an annotated list of materials that can help you as you develop your environmental education program. And the Index can help you find what you’re