Natural Influence: Ways to Get Schools Interested in Nature Outside and Within.

Since I had mentioned my research thesis in the previous blog post, I figured I should share it here. I will also share the bibliography page as well just in case anyone needed it, plus you will see why I chose that particular work in my work.

Natural Influence: Ways to Get Schools Interested in Nature Outside and Within.

Introduction

According to Richard Louv’s book entitled “Last Child in the Woods”, “Nearly 8 million children in the U.S. suffer from mental disorders, and ADHD is one of the more prevalent ones”. (p. 100) Louv also paints the picture of the increasing epidemic of childhood obesity by stating, “According to [Center for Disease Control] CDC data, the U.S. population of overweight children between ages two and five increased by almost 36 percent from 1989 to 1999. At that time, two out of ten of America’s children were clinically obese – four times the percentage of childhood obesity reported in the late 1960’s.” (p.46 & 47) Simultaneously, environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and The Boy and Girl Scouts of America are seeing a decline in interest.  Louv touches on this claim by stating, “The Sierra Club members’ average age is now pushing fifty, and climbing…” and “environmentalist look increasingly old and white” (p. 152 & 153). This is bolstered by a report of the Dallas Morning News that states “… some Boy Scout councils across the country were selling off wilderness camps to pay their bills.” (p.155) People are not showing an interest in the world outside of themselves and they are simultaneously starting to show a decline in interest in the world inside of themselves. While becoming withdrawn from nature—the very origins of humanity—the minds and bodies of our students and future students have become poisoned with increased bouts with ADD/ADHD and an epidemic of childhood obesity. Since we know, “The environment defines a template and the process of evolution by natural selection shapes organisms to fit that template.” (University of California – Riverside, 2010) We come to find, that if the state of our surroundings impacts our internal well-being, what measures are schools and parents, nationally and around the world, doing to educate and inspire students with nature and how effective are they?

To find the answers to this one problem we will look at many perspectives from people, authors, and researchers from all over the globe. To begin, we will explore the curriculum and instruction that schools use to inspire young students and get them involved in nature again. Secondly, one normally does not associate technology with nature, but here we look at grand ideas that bring the two opposing forces together and change the fabric of how we look at and interpret nature’s splendor. Third, we look at the standards that rule the landscape of how we shape the lessons. Fourth, we examine the policies that the public and people and organizations all over the world are using to get students outside, curious and active again. Fifth, diversity and inclusion are always hot topics when it concerns any facet of society; in this section we interpret how diverse nature education is seen in today’s schools and how they will look in the future. Finally, we interpret criticisms that we should consider if we are to free our children from the confines of the couch to the splendor of the nature outside and within. Here, we are not looking to point the finger or find who’s at fault for some of the issues within our current school system; here we are simply testing the waters into the multiple paths we can lead our students down. So, find a tree or any good spot outside and get comfortable as we go on this journey and see what the future of nature holds for you, me, and our future society.

Curriculum/Instruction – Perspective 1

        Think about it, what is your favorite story of all times? Can you remember the names of everyone in the story, their struggles, their triumphs, and the ending to it? Of course you can! It is your favorite story! Now think about anything from your high school experience in any of the sciences. Can you remember who discovered the actual age of the Earth, who discovered DNA polymerase and what is it for, or why Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin are some of the most important women to remember in the science field? Odds are if one is not a science major/professional then you may know a few of the aforementioned people, but for the most part we here in America are declining on how much we actually know about science. According to the documentary “Waiting for Superman” (Guggenheim, 2010) we may not place as much emphasis on science here in America as we would hope, “Since the 1970’s United States schools have failed to keep pace with the rest of the world. Among 30 developed countries, we rank 25th in math and 21st in science. Our very best of our students rank 23rd out of 29 countries.”

How can we approach science and teaching about the environment? Let’s look at two perspectives into how we learn and how we can form the curriculum and instruction around it. In teaching, one of the first things you learn about is finding your curriculum and the different ways in which to present it. Meaning, what basic ideas are used in every classroom, and what are the best ones for teaching your future students about (insert your subject here). To illustrate a way into one perspective into how we can intrigue students is by telling a story.

Once upon a time, there was a man from Serbia who would create many wonders of science including A/C power, X-ray machines, Radio wave transmission, and he even harnessed the kinetic energy of Niagara Falls. Nikola Tesla had some extraordinary abilities, and faults, just like any other man, but without these and several others of his ideas, the technology we see today may not have come into existence.

        What does Nikola Tesla have to do with how we educate our students about nature and the environment? For one, Tesla was an amazing scientist and inventor who had a distinct connection with how nature works, but most of his entire story is a remarkable one; whether you’re studying history, science, math, engineering, or medicine. The idea here is not to look at the achievements of one individual, or memorize the important dates behind them, but the story and the struggles that he had to face in order to accomplish those achievements are, in this perspective, more important.

        Even though our teachers have given us and our children their best (in most cases), the way some present the material may not be working so well as seen by the aforementioned statistic, but many teachers are turning to storytelling as a way to wet the students’ appetite for knowledge. At a TEDTalk – talks about the future of technology, education, and design – high school science teacher Tyler Dewitt exclaims that there is a “tyranny of precision” in the communication of science, and as a writer he was told that, “If a textbook seems to be too much fun, it is seen to be unscientific.” Dewitt thinks otherwise and proves it with a variety of YouTube videos that explain complex scientific ideas into simple ideas by telling a story. He relishes story telling because “Good storytelling is all about emotional connection. We have to convince our audience that what we are talking about matters. But, just as importantly, is knowing which details we should leave out, so that the main point still comes across.” (Dewitt, 2012)

        Dewitt is not alone in this thought either, in Kieran Egan’s book “The Future of Education: Reimagining Our Schools from the Ground Up” he discusses why stories should be used in education, “The ‘romantic’ perspective on reality is thronged with people, or rather with people who embody human emotions and extreme and exotic and wonderful characteristics – like courage, passion, ingenuity, envy, treachery, greed, and so on.” He elaborates by implying that how we teach our students should (in its own way) fool them into learning something and stating, “…the educational trick is to show the mathematics or the science or whatever as a product of some person’s ‘transcendent human qualities’ – that is, someone’s extraordinary ingenuity, courage, treachery, compassion, and so on.”

But, what about those textbooks, so far they are what a lot of teachers worldwide use to base their lessons on, how can we tell the story of how nature works from the jargon that we find in science? Some authors are looking into the idea of what young students like to read to teach about nature and its laws. With the advent of graphic novels like The Walking Dead and many from the world of Marvel and DC Comics some authors like Ian Flitcroft and Britt Spencer are choosing this media to tell their stories. In the graphic novel “Journey by Starlight” Flitcroft and Spencer send us on a well-illustrated journey with Albert Einstein through life, the cosmos, and everything we know, but in a way that is fun, exciting, and most of all a story.

        “Why go through all the work into making education fun and a story; why not just Google any information that you need?” This is one common assumption shared by all of us, and even practiced by some of us on a daily basis; that things like Google, Wikipedia, and pretty much anything on the internet and in the library is knowledge. As Egan points out to us that, “There is no knowledge in the library, nor on a computer’s hard drive…” He goes on by saying, “Knowledge exists only in living tissue in our bodies; what exists in libraries and computers are codes. People are only repositories of knowledge.” This being said, the stories that we are told can help tie our own lives and situations to them. As science writer Joshua Foer has stated at a TED conference in discussing a unique memorization technique, “…our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by losing ourselves in our Blackberrys our iPhones by not paying attention to the person across from us, who’s talking with us, by being so lazy that we are not willing to process deeply?” (Foer, 2012) So, why not tell the stories of science and the environment, they are paved with heroes and quarrels that we all can relate with and keep with us forever.

Curriculum/Instruction – Perspective 2

        How else can we change the curriculum and instruction to help tie it to the students’ emotions so they may get the most of learning about the world around them? It is simple, teach them in nature, and use a lifelong time killer that your parents always told you to go do, “go play outside!” Remember in school, if there was a window seat, which was usually the most sought-after seat in the room. There is good reason for that, Louv finds in a study conducted by Cornell University a panel of environmental psychologists in 2003 found, “…that a room with a view of nature can help protect children against stress, and that nature in or around the home appears to be a significant factor in protecting the psychological well-being of children in rural areas.” With this and many other studies on the calming effects of nature, it makes the case of adding it to any curriculum, but the question is how?

        Obviously, you are going to need some nature in and around the school. Louv gives us a direct quote from the State Education and Environmental Roundtable to give us a better idea on where a school may find their plot of nature, “’Since the ecosystems surrounding schools and their communities vary as dramatically as the nation’s landscape, the term ‘environment’ may mean different things at every school; it may be a river, a city park, or a garden carved out of an asphalt playground,’” After finding your natural plot or garden or whatever area you can find in nature, the question becomes, how to add it to the curriculum? The environment can be added to anything that a teacher teaches. In math you can measure out chemicals, amounts of water, sizes of plants, and so on. In science, you can conduct experiments with a variety of plants and fertilizers. In reading and literature, a teacher can find stories that relate with nature and students can read information on their selected plants. The list goes on and on. Louv highlighted this idea when interviewing a teacher at a Children’s School in La Jolla by the name of Mel Bartholomew. Bartholomew states in the interview, “’Our goal is to have gardening included in every school curriculum.’” In that classroom, Bartholomew teaches the kids the importance of nature and the environment in hands on lessons into growing and tending to their own plant. After reading this finding, one can see that the students not only get a one of kind experience and a sense of understanding and joy, but they also get some fresh fruits and vegetables that are all their own.

        Having a garden, planting trees, going to a nature reserve, and forming a few of your own lessons around those experience is nice, but how can a teacher have an approved curriculum around their subject matter? Is there a program that maps out being in nature while at the same time providing a lesson in the traditional sense? Since 1976, Project Learning Tree has been training educators in every state over materials on “how to think, not what to think, about complex environmental issues.” (Project Learning Tree, 2010) Also, Project Learning Tree provides ways to teach students of all ages and most of their programs are free of charge, all you need is access to the internet, and they state on their website that, “Project Learning Tree's award-winning curriculum resources help over half a million educators teach complex environmental issues. They can be integrated into lesson plans for all grades and subject areas to help students learn how to make sound choices about the environment.” Finally, the program offers training to individuals and educators looking to make environmental education a top priority in their classroom.

        One can assume that all this reformation around environmental studies may cost a lot of money, but this is nowhere near the truth. First, anyone looking to integrate environmental education into their classroom can apply for various grants including one from the aforementioned Project Learning Tree that offers a $2,000 dollar award to schools wishing to become a member of their GreenSchools! Also, there are companies out there that will not only create a natural playground, but they will sculpt it out of the very landscape around your school, getting rid of the “traditional” asphalt, one-game playground. For instance, a company called Natural Playgrounds based out of New Hampshire surveys the land around your school and makes a playground that fits your school’ needs and budget according to questionnaires provided to the principal, teachers, and students.

Technology – Perspective 1

        Technology and environment; two words that always seem like they try and contradict each other, but more and more they are achieving a symbiotic relationship and even relying on each other for their survival in this world. One way that technology is making an impact on the environment and the classroom is through not using books and worksheets, well in a traditional sense of course. Textbooks and worksheets are still widely used in the classroom and have become digitized, easy to search through, light-weight and less cumbersome, easier to grade, and able to be updated at the push of a button and a few clicks of the mouse. E-textbooks (as many call them) and digitized worksheets, are a great way to connect the child to the lesson, but how can an e-textbook and e-worksheets connecting them to nature? Simple, it lessens their impact on the use of natural resources and would lessen the costs of paper throughout the entire schools. In fact, Del Williams, a technical writer for softwareshelf.com, states in his article “How Much is Out-of-Control Printing Costing Your School?” he calculates on the costs of just printing in a school alone (not adding in print texts), “The average school of 1,000, or university department of equivalent size, in fact, spends about $3,000 to $4,000 a month on paper, ink, and toner, not counting printer wear-and-tear or technical support costs.” With the average school year being about 9 months that figure adds up to be $27,000 - $36,000, which could buy your school 3+ full natural playgrounds from the aforementioned Natural Playgrounds Company, it could buy all kinds of seeds and equipment for a school’s garden, or even new computer equipment to view their e-books and e-worksheets. As an added bonus, the school would simply be buying data and downloading it, also they would not have to pay for the manufacturing and shipping costs to the books and to the environment because the books would surely be shipped by some form of transportation that requires a fossil fuel.

        As great as money with our schools and saving the planet is though, there are some assumptions that can be drawn from this as well. The first assumption is that the costs of tablets can be staggering! With the cost of an iPad or tablet PC being in the range anywhere from $299.99 to $729.99 (depending on the model) and the cost of the content of a printed text costing only approximately $10.38 that lasts for about 5-7 years in the classroom on average (Wilson, 2012); no wonder some schools are opposed to the idea of going all digital. Plus, is the ease of use really that much better for the environment that we would hope? According to Daniel Golemand and Gregory Norris of The New York Times, “The e-reader’s manufacture, along a vast supply chain of consumer electronics, is relatively energy-hungry, using 100 kilowatt hours of fossil fuels and resulting in 66 pounds of carbon dioxide. For a single book, which, recycled or not, requires energy to form and dry the sheets, it’s just two kilowatt hours, and 100 times fewer greenhouse gases.” But, the pollution issue goes hand-in-hand in the e-reader versus textbook battle as Golemand and Norris continue by stating, “If you order a book online and have it shipped 500 miles by air, that creates roughly the same pollution and waste as making the book in the first place. Driving five miles to the bookstore and back causes about 10 times the pollution and resource depletion as producing it. You’d need to drive to a store 300 miles away to create the equivalent in toxic impacts on health of making one e-reader — but you might do that and more if you drive to the mall every time you buy a new book.” So, whether or not a school does decide to go fully digital, the real assumption should be to fully look at all costs, projections, and uses for each and use them to their fullest extent before having to upgrade or update.

Technology – Perspective 2

        Another perspective into looking at the very infrastructure of technology in the classroom to teach about the environment is, why even use it? The environment is right out your front door, in your park, even at the school. As mentioned earlier some schools have their own gardens and nature plots, so why even bother trying to integrate technology and nature together when we should just experience it in real life? In a study conducted by Maria C.R. Harrington of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh she tries to find out if a real field trip is just as good as one conducted on a virtual reality program. The study was conducted by taking 6 students on the real field trip first then the virtual reality one, and 6 students on the virtual reality trip first then the real field trip. The other significant aspect of the two trips is that they were conducted at the same place, on the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania. The software used in the study takes you along the same trail, but giving the user full movement (even flying) around the area to scope out all the different flora and fauna of the landscape. As an added bonus for the students, both trips have an expert guide from the Audubon Society to inform them of areas of interest. Upon conclusion of the study, it was found through surveys and interviews that students were given after both trips, that there was no statistical difference between learning experiences of the two field trips. Students found both to be engaging, fun, interactive, and having a sense of excitement toward the experiences. In the conclusion of the study Harrington does not completely favor the virtual over the real however, she states, “This finding supports the claim that a virtual experience could be used when a real one is not available, but clearly the virtual should not replace the real if it is available. The students reported that more learning occurred on the real trip, but that they would rather repeat the virtual one.”

        A couple of assumptions can be made here in the thoughts of using a virtual field trip as opposed to the “real deal”. One is that the virtual field trip does not give you as many of those teachable moments that we remember for a life time on those trips. Harrington touches on this as well when she talks about a situation in the real trip where a student claimed that there was no life in the stream, and the instructor quickly found a salamander living under a rock. This of course intrigued all the students, and allowed them to use all their senses when learning about the ecosystem of the trail; something that is not gained on a virtual program…well, not yet. Also, some may assume that the programs for these virtual trips are expensive and hard to find, but according to The Institute for Education Sciences, “Internet access was available for 93 percent of the computers located in the classroom every day and for 96 percent of the computers that could be brought into the classroom. The ratio of students to computers in the classroom every day was 5.3 to 1.” Since most classrooms have access to the internet all a teacher really needs to do to teach the world and the environment around them is to simply Google some of the key subjects they are looking for and taking the class with them. How about going to The Museum of Natural History, or learning about an arctic adventure and the depletion of the polar ice caps, or even venturing as far to the moon all at your fingertips, all for free, and all fun and educational?

Teachers and Standards – Perspective 1

        Standards are a way to guide teachers and the curriculum on the general core of what students should be able to do and accomplish by a certain point in the school year. Despite some criticisms into the standards many national and state organizations must maintain them in order to continue to get funding and to have a general guideline into what to teach. So, can environmental education still meet the rigorous state standards, and still be engaging to the future young minds? Project Learning Tree (PLT) has said yes to this claim by creating lessons that are focused around the environment and display the standard that it is meant to achieve. On their website a teacher that is interested in teaching about environmental education can not only download curriculum plans, as mentioned earlier, but they can also download the standard that meet those plans and have them ready for their lesson plans. The form displays the lesson that the interactive lesson in one column and the standard that it maintains in the next column, so there is no questioning if it meets the standard. Also, no one is left out in the cold for their programs. PLT maintains that these interactive lessons can be in any school, urban or rural, and they also cover the whole range of grade levels making the lessons never the same in one school or the other. One example that PLT provides on their website is in their module of “The Changing Forest: Forest Ecology” with activities entitled “Saga of the Gypsy Moth” and “Story of Succession” both of these touch on standards related to teaching of National Standard C in life sciences over evolution and equilibrium and independence of organisms.

        One assumption here is obvious, and after doing a little research, is obvious; is environmental education really necessary for the standards movement to progress? The answer is not only is it necessary it should be almost mandatory judging by the results of connecting students with nature. According to Louv, “In Portland, Environmental Middle School teachers employ a curriculum using local rivers, mountains, and forests; among other activities, they plant native species and study the Willamette River. At that school, 96 percent of students meet or exceed state standards for math problem-solving—compared to only 65 percent of eighth-graders at comparable middle schools.” The results do not end there, he goes on to add, “Environment-based education can amplify more typical school reform efforts. In North Carolina, raising standards produced a 15 percent increase in the proportion of fourth-graders scoring at the “proficient” level in statewide math scores. But fourth-graders at an environment-based school in Asheville, North Carolina, did even better—with a 31 percent increase in the number of students performing at the proficient level.” (Louv, 2008) These are not the only pros to implementing more environmental education to schools; the list goes on into better attendance records, more involved lessons, and overall senses of the joy of learning. But, one looks through the lens of a standards basis then environmental education can easily be implemented into any school and still follow all the standards in sight.

Teachers and Standards – Perspective 2

        To take on another perspective into the standards that can drive environmental education we reverse the assumption that was made in the previous paragraph: are standards necessary for environmental education? Are we too focused on education and not on the actual learning that goes on in the classroom? “Merely focusing on learning forgets that much of our life is spent on relationship: with our inner self, with colleagues, with nature and cosmos and with the university itself. As universities change their nature – reducing tenured positions, increasing teaching loads – health becomes an issue. Sick institutions can emerge quite quickly, unless there is a focus on creating ways to learn and heal, and to develop sustainable and transformative relationships.” (Kelly, 2008) This meaning that the overall health of the school, university, or learning institution is reflected by the learning that goes on there.

        Lindsey Burke and Jennifer Marshall of The Heritage Foundation (a think tank of individuals that research and educate on traditional American values) contests that, “National standards would force parents and taxpayers to surrender one of their most powerful tools for improving their schools: control of academic content, standards, and testing. Moreover, a national criterion-referenced test will inevitably lead to a national curriculum—a further misalignment of means and ends in education intended to equip self-governing citizens for liberty, and not a prospect most Americans would embrace.” Therefore, having national standards would mean if a teacher used anything in their curriculum that taught environmental education outside the standards, their entire school could suffer the ramifications of those decisions involving but not limited to termination, funding being taken away from the school, or closer altogether. In a recent TEDTalk author and educator Ken Robinson challenges the No Child Left Behind act by claiming that it “has be to narrow of the focus onto the so-called STEM disciplines.” He goes on in this funny and inspiring talk by stating, “Kids prosper best with a broad curriculum that celebrates their various talents, not just a small range of them. And by the way, the arts aren’t just important because they improve math scores. They’re important because they speak to parts of the children’s being which are otherwise untouched.”

        One can draw the assumption here that regardless of what a few people may think about the standards, we cannot have any school without them. This is a true statement when it comes down to the public sector of education, but it is not completely true when it comes to home schooling, privatized schooling, or even charter schools. Charter schools are unique because they are labeled as public schools, but they are held accountable for their actions when it comes to the curriculum they teach in regards to rigorous testing, but it is still unsure whether they need to abide by Common Core Standards or not. “Unfortunately, the spirit of charter schools -- their independence and ability to serve each child's unique needs -- has been paid little attention in the debate over the Common Core State Standards. Depending on whom you ask, these standards are either more rigorous national benchmarks for states or an unhealthy mix of new rules and curriculum requirements.” (Butcher, 2013)

Public Policy – Perspective 1

        Since we have seen that fun, interactive, outdoor, environment education can fit into the standards and curriculum of the classroom environment what policies has the public set about to encourage outdoor play and get our children’s bodies and minds active again. Also, what issues may a community have to face in the future when it comes to issuing these policies? To begin, when you think of a child playing outdoors today, what do you think about? Do you think of swing sets, plastic forts, sets of climbing bars, slides, and spring rockers? This is the way that most of us remember our school playgrounds and parks and what we have come to know and love. Despite the fact that these areas of outdoor play can be great for getting kids active and off the couch accidents do still happen though. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (US-CPSC) reports that there are over 200,000 estimated emergency room-treated injuries reported annually. Also, from 2001-2008 the CPSC reported that in playground equipment-related incidents that falls are the most prevalent of all the hazards that can occur. (US-CPSC, 2010)

        Despite these painful and sometimes tragic findings our young students still need to get out and play and use their time out on the playground to build their bodies and minds, but to do so in an environment that is safe and challenges them to climb higher and push harder. The CPSC has answered this call by rigorous amounts of tests and research to help find the perfect and safest way for playgrounds to be built and mapped out in their “Handbook for Public Playground Safety”. In it they discuss that “A playground should allow children to develop gradually and test their skills by providing a series of graduated challenges. The challenges presented should be appropriate for age-related abilities and should be ones that children can perceive and choose to undertake.” (US-CPSC, 2010) Also, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have raised concerns that some schools claiming that their physical education time also counts for time for recess by citing various sources and stating, “The replacement of physical education by recess threatens students’ instruction in and acquisition of new motor skills, exploration of sports and rules, and a concept of lifelong physical fitness.” So, not only do students need to build experiences on the playground, but they still need to do so in the gym as well.

        So, how much recess and play time do students need per say? Well, the book is still open on that one how much is the preferred amount for all schools, but according to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education the minimum length is 20 minutes. Each state varies, but many are advocating that recess happens before lunch. Again, according to the AAP, “When students have recess before lunch, more time is taken for lunch and less food is wasted. In addition, teachers and researchers noted an improvement in the student behavior at meal time, which carried into the classroom in the afternoon.” (AAP, 2012) So, not only do students get their break first they could also help reduce the amount of wasted food which means an A+ on helping the environment. Plus, this could also be due to the fact that children really just wanted to get outside, hang out with friends, and have a good time as long as they can before they were sent to drill away at the texts.

        What assumptions can possibly be made here? We all enjoyed recess; we all enjoyed being outside and having some social time, so what ill-will would anyone have against recess and playing on safe and fun playground equipment? Much playground equipment has too much structure and not enough imagination, and even organizing a kickball gave can be too structured for some kids that simply do not like kickball. Remember that kid that always got picked last? That was probably the reason why, she/he simply did not like what everyone else was doing and did not want to waste their recess time. “Pediatric health care providers, parents, and school officials should be cognizant, however, that in designing a structured recess, they will sacrifice the notion of recess as an unstructured but supervised break that belongs to the child; that is, a time for the child to make a personal choice between sedentary, physical, creative, or social options.” (AAP, 2012)

Public Policy – Perspective 2

        The previous assumption from above does raise a few questions though. Do students really even need structured play; better yet, does the playground of the future even need “structures” at all to have fun and get the physical fitness they need? Think of a calming area you would like to go right now. Does it involve palm trees, the beach, and the soothing sound of the ocean; does it involve the woods, the cool autumn breeze, and the various smells that come with it; or does it involve lying on the softest grass, looking up at the stars, and listening to a cacophony of crickets and bullfrogs singing you a lullaby? It may not be these images for everyone, but it is for many of us that remember going on “adventures” in their local park, country home, friend’s house, or even your own backyard. Were there merry-go-rounds, slides, climbing bars, or spring rockers there? Probably not, but the fact is you may remember these places vividly because they are tied to your memories. Believe it or not more and more schools, parents, and communities are looking for these types of natural spaces because they provide children with unstructured play; meaning no dodge ball, monkey bars, or organized sports whatsoever. Louv gives us many examples of areas where unstructured play has become a benefit for some communities when he states, “In Norway and Sweden, studies of preschool children show specific gains from playing in natural settings. The studies compared preschool children who played every day on typically flat playgrounds to children who played for the same amount of time among the trees, rocks, and uneven ground of natural play areas. Over a year’s time, the children who played in natural areas tested better for motor fitness, especially in balance and agility.”

        Granted, Louv and many others only use weight loss as a primer to the many benefits to unstructured time in the great outdoors including but not limited to an understanding of nature, a drive for discovery, and a more positive attitude on life. With all these benefits it is no wonder communities are starting to want the return of outdoor play to come about, but the difficult hurdle to get over is how they are regulated by public policies.  People tend to be a little leery when it comes to building something without regulations because of threats of being sued. With this being a known issue many groups have taken to the call to help keep children safe while enjoying being outdoors again. Kidsafe NSW Inc. out of Australia highlights important safety measures that anyone wanting to set up a natural playground should use to accommodate including:

·         Conforming to normal playground standards

·         Non-toxic, non-harmful plants should be used

·         Clear pathways

·         Exploratory stuff like, logs, sandpits, shallow creeks, and stepping stones should be employed

·         Most importantly, adult supervision. (Kidsafe NSW Inc., 2012)

Sometimes, all it takes to get proper approval for creating an outdoor, unstructured playground is simply discussing it with parents. A company out of the United Kingdom called Learning Through Landscapes (LTL) interviewed three schools that used the unstructured play approach, and shown in a short documentary titled “Natural Play in Schools” that discussing the plan with parents and developing a plan to keep the kids safe and even helping with keeping them clean works out for all parties involved. One teacher stated that, “We asked parents if they want kids to get changed into some outdoor clothes, and if they did they provided that. But, we wanted to give parents the option. So, if they asked, ‘do they have to buy X, Y, and Z’ the school would help in providing for them. But, to be honest, it’s not that big of deal, the sand comes off well, and they use a brush to clean themselves off.” (LTL, 2011) So, more or less, talk it out and do not be afraid to talk with parents and the community if this is something that your school would like to see.

        The assumption being that all parents would be on board with the idea. Some parents may be reluctant because of the cleanliness, some the risk of their child getting injured. But, for some schools the risk can be the school itself getting sued for damages. Louv talks in “Last Child in the Woods” about how Broward County schools had gone as far as putting “no running” signs, gotten rid of the merry-go-round, and even gotten rid of crawling tubes because of fear of legal repercussions. But, there is hope many advocacy groups are speaking on the part of common sense, and Louv puts out a call to action, “Confronting this perception requires action on several fronts: the introduction of “comparative risk” as a legal and social standard; new applications of insurance; and the design and legal protection of public play areas.”

Diversity – Perspective 1

        Is it not beautiful living in the world we live in today? No longer are we entrenched in a world where some are “more equal” than others. No longer do we judge someone for the color of their skin or prosecute them for what god they worship. Okay, some of these issues do still exist, and they are more prevalent in some areas of the world more than others, but with the advent of a wider range of communication mediums we are beginning to immerge in a world more diverse than we were just 50 years ago. But, the one area that many do not think about when ecology and diversity merge is the impact that a person’s socio-economic status has on theirs’ and the world’s over health and well-being. At TED 2013 Education Researcher Sugata Mitra addressed this issue and stated in his presentation, “Build a School in the Cloud” he talks about how he would find these gifted children that had access to computers because they had rich parents, he then states, “So I suddenly figured that, how come all the rich people are having these extraordinarily gifted children? What did the poor do wrong?” So, is everybody given an ineffable right to learn, and will there be no future stewards of the Earth simply because they cannot afford the best education?

        When someone thinks of getting a “proper” education you might think of a bunch of kids and teachers getting together and plugging away at problems, presentations, and lectures, but this is not what Sugata Mitra sees when he thinks of schools. He sees that a school does not need a building or too fancy/expensive of equipment to perform learning, and that all it takes is an encouraging mentors and some computer programs. In fact, Mitra even states that, “Schools as we know them are obsolete” because schools were originally designed to teach the wealthy (mostly) into doing bureaucratic administrative jobs. To prove this Mitra placed a computer in a wall on the border of a slum in New Delhi where children enjoy playing, and simply left them alone with it and giving no instruction. He found that not only were kids using the computer, but they also understood the programs and the browsing that they were running after investigation of the machine. Also, in one study he points out that the children were frustrated that the instructions were only in English, but they still wanted to learn about the machine, so they taught themselves English!

        So, what does this teach us about diversity and linking it to the overall health of the Earth? This means that our future stewards are out there, and willing to learn the ways of the world, and the information to learning these ways is out there waiting for them to grasp it and as educators it is our duty to make it available to all, not just the rich and wealthy. Can it be done? It has already begun. There are many websites out there that willing to provide anyone with education if one seeks it. Khan Academy, developed by Sal Khan a former manager of hedge funds, has developed lessons that students can follow along with and interact with any time of the day ranging from science, history, business, and their most prevalent subject math. Also, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers virtually all MIT course content (2150 to be exact) to anyone with an internet connection and the time to learn. But wait there’s more! Khan Academy and MIT offer all these courses in a variety of different languages and dialects to support a growingly diverse world.

        But, we make the assumption here that everyone has an internet connection. This is far, but not too far from the truth. Of the 7 billion people now on planet Earth almost 2.5 billion are capable of having internet connection, but this number has increased 566.4% since 2000. (Internet World Stats, 2012) So, this shows that we want to make the connection to our brothers and sisters across the lands and the oceans. Also, if access is an issue many local libraries offer internet for free, as long as you have a valid library card. Not only will the future stewards of the Earth, be connected to the internet, but they will better understand their cultures, customs, and ideas through this connection; therefore, creating a more diverse world than we see today.

Diversity – Perspective 2

        In 1954 Brown v. Board of Education came into law and it took a while for schools to fully integrate into desegregated classrooms, and some would argue that it still has yet to be fully integrated and this could mean an untapped potential for individuals that will help clean up the Earth. According to Dacia Toll in the powerful documentary “The Lottery”, which talks about considering charter schools as an option for poverty/segregation stricken areas, “The average black 12th grader performs as well as the average white 8th grader”. Also, Cindy Long from the magazine NEA Today points out that, “According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, 80 percent of Hispanic students and 74 percent of Black students are in schools where the majority of students are not White. At the same time, 43 percent of Hispanic students and 38 percent of Black students attend “intensely segregated schools” where White students comprise 10 percent or less of the student body.” (NEA Today, 2014) These figures draw a grim picture when it comes to achieving an understanding with the person in front of us. Even with the vast amounts of technology out there to connect individuals we still are barely connecting with the person right on our doorstep.

        Not only does Long touch on the subject of minorities being the majorities in some areas of the school environment, but that being a minority also means that you have a good chance of being in a low, socio-economic status and having that “label” could mean that not only will education be hindered, but a variety of other “symptoms” occur. In an interview with Fred Stichnoth of One Montgomery, an advocacy group for school equality, Long finds that there is a long list of side effects that can occur with poverty stricken individuals including: “Low birth weight, impaired neurological development, circumscribed vocabulary exposure, lesser familiarity with letters and numbers, lesser attention span in the classroom, more frequent health interruptions, stress, hunger, and increased mobility.” (NEA Today, 2014) It is sad to think that the health of a person’s wallet is also a reflection of their physical health, and that a person’s skin color (statistically) determines that wallet’s health. But, if we are to make progress, then the idea is to recognize these barriers and break them down, so that the untapped potential can be accessed and overall integration into learning can begin.

        The assumption here being that a desegregated school makes for a healthy school, and this of course could be nothing but the truth. Long sums this up perfectly by stating,

        “Desegregated schools provide students with opportunity to learn and work with children from a range of backgrounds, preparing them for our multiracial society and allowing them to understand a variety of perspectives. Integrated schools reduce the power of stereotypes and increase the ability to communicate and make friend across racial lines. And desegregation can have lasting effect across generations. Students of all races who attend integrated schools are more likely to seek out integrated colleges, workplaces, and neighborhoods later in life, which may in turn provide integrated educational opportunities for their own children.” (Long, 2014)

So, to ensure a better tomorrow, we must wash away our stereotypes and embrace everyone regardless of their culture and pocketbook.

Connections

        Here we have addressed many issues when it comes to the future of our educational system, but what can we say that they all have in common. In our environment we see that the Earth and even the Cosmos goes through many cycles. Water, nitrogen, air, the birth and death of a star, and some would argue that life and death is merely another cycle. Education and its system is simply another one of these cycles, and the five aforementioned topics are simply small parts of that cycle. The curriculum and instruction can change and be integrated with the technology available at the time. Then, new standards can come about when the technology has completely transformed what we know to be a classroom. Next, the policies that are in place nationwide and in the community will have to be altered to meet the initial problem of health and development and recognize the areas of improvement in order to serve the public better. Finally, those policies must include everyone, regardless of where they are from or the size of their bank accounts; no one is to be left behind anymore. Then, once everyone is involve the cycle begins anew, with new curriculum to meet the needs to sustain progress, new technologies to connect us even further, new standards or deletion of old, obsolete ones, new policies to keep the new public’s interest in mind, and continuing diversification so that we may no longer fear what we do not understand. No cycle runs in a linear fashion, these ideals can take other paths and lead into other directions, but as long as the goal is the same we will find that our surrounding will impact our overall well-being for a better tomorrow.

Criticisms

        Nothing is without its criticisms though, but this does not mean that this is a bad thing; no, criticisms help us all hone our facts to the perfect sharpness and help smooth away the errors that exist in any valid argument. Again, we only fear what we do not understand, and critically analyzing a situation only diminishes that fear and helps us understand one another’s views, ideas, hopes, dreams, and even fears. One criticism to the central problem would be, is there even any scientific evidence that environmental education can improve not only students’ achievement, but their overall sense of well-being or is it just a dream of environmental advocacy groups with their own agenda? The answer is that there has been research done by a number of different institutes on the subject with some rather remarkable empirical data. The American Institutes of Research published an article entitled “Effects of Outdoor Programs for Children in California” it focused on measuring increases and decreases in a variety of skills and concepts such as: social and personal skills (self-esteem, cooperation, conflict resolution, leadership, et cetera), stewardship of the environment, knowledge and understanding of science concepts, assisting English Language Learners (ELLs) with the aforementioned skills. Data in the study was collected by a variety of surveys and hands-on site visits. The methodology of the study was approached with, “…hands-on inquiry-based curriculum is designed to help students understand the environment and the role of humans as participants in ecosystems, as well as develop their skills, attitudes, knowledge and commitment concerning the natural world. While instructional activities vary somewhat across the outdoor education programs participating in the study, the content of the curricula is consistent, focusing primarily on ecology and earth science.” (American Institutes of Research, 2005)

        Others may criticize these findings because they are only centralized to one state’s city or area of education, but this is far from the truth. States across the country interested in the benefits that environmental education possesses. The No Child Left Inside Coalition has aligned itself with many different groups from around the country, and has won the support of 13 Senators and 42 House Representatives to reintroduce the No Child Left Inside Act to the 113th Congress according to their website. This act would help teachers get training to deliver effective environmental education lesson and have them fully integrated into the core curriculum, so all schools can benefit on a national scale and more studies like the aforementioned can be conducted to further our knowledge and reconnect us with the world around us.

Conclusion

        To conclude our journey into the future of environmental education let us reflect back on why it is so important that our future generations learn about the world around them. During the original Cosmos series Astrophysicist Carl Sagan and later Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson carried the reins of the series and together they revealed the importance of taking care of ourselves and our one and only home. Sagan emotionally punctuated this importance in the series in his explanation of the Pale Blue Dot, a picture of a tiny Earth from clear past Saturn taken by the Voyager 1 space probe and a book authored by him, the final quote from Sagan is one that transcends generations,

“The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Together we can teach and encourage our future generations into creating a world of peace, sustainability, equality, diversity, and reason. To accomplish this future we will look toward our teachers to develop curriculum and instruction that students can link to their emotions and bring home the importance of the life outside the classroom. Then, we will recognize that we have evolved around our technologies, and find ways to utilize their potential to educate effectively. Thirdly, we must evaluate the standards that we use to drive how we educate pupils about the environment and not be afraid to change them constantly with the coming world. Fourth, we will encourage the public to get involved with the policies within environmental education, and remember what it is like to get involved in the community and our neighbors again. Finally, while talking with those neighbors, we will teach our future generations that we are not different because of our skin, culture, or even pocketbook, but to welcome diversity with open arms to reach an understanding of one another. Once we reach an understanding of these and many other facets of our brief lives then the world may finally reach an understanding of itself amongst the vast sea stars that will become our future environment.