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Ecoliteracy and Sustainable Development
Ecological Literacy considers ecological systems and awareness of how society operates within natural aspects as an educational imperative. The basic principles of ecoliteracy are good starting points to explore fundamental lessons that can be learned from nature for the reform of society (Wahl, 2017).
Ecological literacy, as defined by Orr and Capra (1990), is the ability to understand the organization of natural systems and the processes that maintain the healthy functioning of living systems and sustain life 1 on Earth. It emphasizes the interdependence between natural processes and human ways of life (Orr, 1992).
By fostering ecological literacy, we can cultivate a mindset that values environmental sustainability. This knowledge empowers individuals to make informed decisions and take actions that promote a harmonious relationship with the planet.In essence, ecological literacy is a crucial step towards building a sustainable future where human well-being and ecological health are intertwined.
Ecologically Literate Person and Society
Ecologically Literate Person and Society
According to Wahl (2017), ecological literacy extends beyond individual understanding to influence societal well-being. An ecologically literate person can apply their knowledge to design sustainable communities and foster a regenerative culture. This translates to comprehending the principles that organize ecological communities and utilizing them to build human communities that minimize negative impacts and maximize contributions to collective well-being, both present and future. Furthermore, an ecologically literate society would prioritize sustainability.
This holistic approach positions ecological literacy as a powerful tool for tackling environmental challenges. Advocates see it as a cornerstone of educational reform, drawing on principles of holism, systems thinking, and sustainability. As Wahl (2017) suggests, nurturing ecological literacy in students of all ages has become a critical goal for sustainability education programs worldwide.
Ways to Develop Ecoliteracy in Schools
Ways to Develop Ecoliteracy in Schools
A growing number of educators feel the need to foster learning that genuinely prepares young people for the ecological challenges presented by this entirely unprecedented time in human history. Thus,the goal is to raise students with an important perspective called "socially and emotionally engaged ecoliteracy", which is a process that offers an antidote for fear, anger and hopelessness which result from inaction. Hence, the act of engaging in ecological challenges on whatever scale is possible or appropriate. It develops strength, hope and resiliency among young people.
In this case, ecoliteracy is founded on a new integration of emotional, social and ecological forms of intelligence. While social and emotional intelligence extend students' abilities to see from another's perspective, empathize, and show concern, ecological intelligence applies these capacities to understanding of natural systems and cognitive skills with empathy for all of life.
By weaving these forms of intelligence together, ecoliteracy builds on success from reduced behavioral problems to increased academic achievement to foster social and emotional learning.
To help educators foster socially and emotionally engaged ecoliteracy, the following are identified practices in age-appropriate ways for students, ranging from pre-kindergarten through adulthood, and help promote the cognitive and affective the abilities with the integration of emotional, social and ecological intelligences.
1. Develop empathy for all forms of life. By recognizing the common needs we share with all organisms, we can extend our empathy to consider the quality of life of other life forms, feel genuine concern about their well-being and act on that concern.
2. Embrace sustainability as a community practice. By learning the wondrous ways that plants, animals and other living things are interdependent, students are inspired to consider the role of interconnectedness within their communities and see the value in strengthening those relationships by thinking and acting cooperatively.
3. Make the invisible visible. If we strive to develop ways of living that are more life- affirming, we must find ways to make visible the things that seem invisible by using web-based tools, such as Google Earth, GoodGuide and Fooducate Apps.
4. Anticipate unintended consequences. Teachers can teach students strategies for anticipating unintended consequences. These include the precautionary principle, that when an activity threatens to have a damaging impact on the environment or human health, precautionary actions should be taken. Another strategy is to shift from analyzing a problem by reducing it to its isolated components, to adopting a systems thinking perspective that examines connections and relationships among various components of the problem.
5. Understand how nature sustains life. Ecoliterate people recognize that nature has sustained life for long that resulted to turning to nature when their teachers imbibe three crucial tenets to ecoliterate living: (1) ecoliterate people learn from nature that all living organisms are complex and interconnected that inhabit a particular place for survival; (2) ecoliterate people of scale; and (3) ecoliterate people collectively practice a way of life that fulfills the needs of the present generation while simultaneously supporting nature's inherent ability to sustain life in the future.
Seven Environmental Principles of Nature
Seven Environmental Principles of Nature
Considering the key to understanding environmental problems is to learn about ecosystem. Ecology can be best appreciated in schools through a more practical and more relatable perspective and manner of orientation and realization. The following are basic environmental principles of the ecosystem (Barry Commoner; cited in Butler, 2012).
1. Nature knows best. People need to understand nature and have to abide by the rules it imposes. In essence, one must not go against the natural processes if he/she would like to ensure a continuous and steady supply of resources.
2. All forms of life are important. Each organism plays a fundamental role in nature therefore, all living things must be considered as invaluable instruments in maintaining balance in the ecosystem.
3. Everything is connected to everything else. In an ecosystem, all components interact with each other to ensure that the system is sustainable, of which any outside interference may result in an imbalance and deterioration of the system.
4. Everything changes. People must rethink their relationship with the environment through relevant technologies for positive changes.
5. Everything must go somewhere. Since wastes may go back to one's own backyard in some other forms, it is important to become aware of the different types of waste, classify and segregate those that are toxic and potentially hazardous.
6. Ours is a finite earth. Awareness of the earth's limited resources leads to a conscious effort to change one's attitude and initiative to recycle them.
7. Nature is beautiful and we are stewards of God's creation. Being the most intelligent and being gifted with reason, humans are capable of controlling and taking care of the creation to their own advantage.
Towards a Green School and Education for Sustainable Development
Schools play a great role in the development of academics but also environmental ethics and care for nature among students.
The school environment, therefore, should encourage, support and nurture students' capacities in a green environment as integrated in the curriculum and instruction. This will allow them to connect with their surroundings and attend to their health and safety needs, while motivating them to learn and imbibe a sense of belongingness and sensitivity towards the school, society and even this planet.
Environmental issues and concerns can be effectively addressed when all efforts of staff and students are geared toward adopting environmentally sustainable principles at all levels, from planning and decision-making up to their execution in the school's functioning as part of the daily routine, such as creating a Green School.
Green School: The concept and background
The concept of Green School was introduced in Europe in the 1990s while the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 took cognizance of the need to take action in every area in which human impacts on the environment. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002 catalyzed the efforts to bring about a shift in educating about the environment' to 'educating for sustainability. This shift reflected the international climate of thinking about Sustainable Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations to meet their own needs.
Recognizing education as a critical means to achieve sustainability, the United Nations launched the 'Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) in 2005, to integrate principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning in order to encourage behavior that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society for present and future generations (UNESCO, 2005). A key objective of the UNDESD is to foster better quality teaching and learning for DESD. This calls for reorientation of thinking and practice of formal education, including teaching-learning approaches and assessment.
Green Schools and ESD. The Green School is visualized as a school guided by the principles of environmental sustainability. It seeks to create a conducive environment to fully utilize all resources and opportunities inside and outside the school and orient teachers and students on environmental sustainability through active involvement of the community. It demands on-going, continuous and synergistic efforts of all stakeholders toward improving the environment of the school and its surroundings.
Students' learning experiences outside school help them to consolidate and apply knowledge, gain understanding of environmental processes, interrelationships and issues, acquire life skills and help foster attitudes, values and sensitivity toward environmental concerns.
A "Green School" is identified with those elements and environmental sustainability through various environment-friendly environmental sensitivity to promote means and encourage judicious use of resources. It also caters to the physical, mental and emotional needs of a child by ensuring a school environment that is physically safe, emotionally secure and psychologically enabling.
Essential aspects of the Green School Environment. The 'greenness' of a school finds expression in various aspects of the environment. The Green School has clean, healthy, protective and green surroundings. It also promotes both the physical and the psycho- social health of learners and others in school; ensures a healthy (provision of health services, such as nutritional supplementation and counseling), hygienic (safe drinking water, neat and clean classrooms, playground and parks, etc.), safe learning environment with healthy practices (e.g. a school free of drugs, corporal punishment and harassment); and brings children closer to nature and involves them in taking care of it.
Thus, a Green School is a school that engages the school community, especially children, in critical thinking and learning by adopting participatory, practical and collaborative approaches to work together and make the school environment healthier for students and staff by involving the whole community to work towards a sustainable future.
A Green School adheres to the following precepts:
1. Learning about the environment. It focuses mainly on acquisition of knowledge and understanding of the surroundings and related issues.
2. Learning through the environment. It refers to the processes of learning while being engaged with environment inside and outside the classroom.
3. Learning for the environment aims at developing an informed response and responsibility towards the environment beyond acquisition of skills and knowledge.
Understanding Green Curriculum. For a curriculum to be 'Green', it must include the following aspects:
1. Environment is encompassing, multidisciplinary and dynamic, has scientific, social, economic, political and technological dimensions
2. Being holistic, a Green Curriculum views environment as all that is around and
aims to give a better understanding of the way the world functions its operations,
its alteration because of the actions of human race and its consequences.
3. It holistically addresses sustainability concerns, such as protection and
conservation of natural resources, traditions, culture and heritage, safety and
security, physical and emotional assurance, health and sanitation issues, concern for equity and justice and interconnection between and among natural, social, physical and cultural environments.
4. This requires a teaching-learning approach where students are provided time and
space to explore different facets of environment and interconnect them.
5. A Green Curriculum is a mutual concern of teachers and students.
Seven Environmental Principles of Nature
Ecological Living Practices
Sustainable ecological living is based on different sets of principles. To assess the impact of our choices and actions, we need criteria from studying the basic facts of life as follows (Capra, 2003): (1) Matter cycles continually through the web of life; (2) Most of the energy that drives the ecological cycles flow from the sun; (3) Diversity assures resilience; (4) One species' waste is another species food; and (5) Life does not take over the planet by combat but by networking.
The dimensions of sustainability describe the environmental impacts of our activities, the causes of which come from the socio-economic and political systems of the society. Sustainable development entails three dimensions: environmental, economic and Social.
Therefore, ecological living means to live in a way that it: (1) respects and replenishes the carrying capacity of our planet; (2) honors our interrelatedness with all expressions of life; (3) enhances the qualitative aspects of our relationships; and (4) brings forth the best of our human capacities for the co-creation of an ecologically sustainable and caring world.
Smitsman (2014) mentioned practical suggestions on how we can support the change for sustainability through ecological living. In order to sustain outer actions for ecological living, it is helpful to remember and draw inspiration from the inner or personal development dimensions of ecological living. The following are inner and outer ecological perspectives. To wit:
Inner ecology (Smitsman, 2014).
1. Become a catalyst of change to help co-create a better world and future.
2. Care for and relate with non-human beings while spending time with nature.
3. Make the most of sustainability crisis that forces us to learn, dream, think,
design, act and relate in new ways.
4. Join the rest around the world in becoming agents of sustainability.
5. Nurture nature by taking care of our body and become aware of our natural body rhythms.
6. Become more energy efficient and learn to recycle our own energy.
7. Learn to compost our own waste and no need to dump this unto others.
8. become aware of rights, needs and well-being of future generations and explore how we can support this in our actions.
Outer ecology (Smitsman, 2014).
1. Educate ourselves about the resources that we, our family and/or organizations utilize to fulfill and sustain our needs.
2. Reduce, reuse, repurpose and recycle.
3 Be aware of the real price of goods and services that we use. Cheap products often have hidden costs (e.g. the cost of child- labor, animal cruelty, or degradation of ecosystems).
4. Find out any child labor practices or natural resources that were sacrificed in the process of producing products and services.
5. Recycle grey-water.
6. Collect and use rainwater.
7. Create an organic vegetable garden
8. Compost organic waste and use the compost in the garden.
9. Create a garden (with a balance of endemic/indigenous plants) to support local
wildlife (animals, insects, trees and plants).
10. Create a roof garden (green roof) as a natural air-conditioning alternative to increase garden space.
11. Buy organic and local products as much as possible.
12. Support local businesses and organizations that care for our planet
Integrating Ecological Literacy into the Curriculum
The Center for Ecoliteracy (2015) promotes a variety of teaching strategies based on practices that are developmentally appropriate to students' level and are brain-based to foster knowledge, skills and values essential to sustainable living (Sly, 2015).
Students learn best when teaching strategies are varied that include hands- on activities, time for reflection, thoughtful discussion and combined indoor and outdoor environments, including interdisciplinary projects (Sly, 2015).
1. Place-based Learning. It is an experiential learning that engages students in their own environments and a strategy that captures their imagination and advances environmental stewardship and civic engagement. It adheres to the following principles:
1.1 Place-based projects are integrated back into classroom lessons.
1.2 Students want to learn in order to apply their knowledge to solving real problems.
1.3 Students play an active role in redefining and recreating projects.
1.4 Students collaborate with local citizens, organizations, agencies, businesses and government.
1.5 Students help make plans that shape the future of their social, physical and economic environments.
1.6 Students are encouraged to view their community as an ecosystem and to understand the relationships and processes necessary to support healthy living. Research reveals the benefits of place-based learning, such as: (1) higher test scores; (2) better grade-point averages; (3). improved classroom behavior; (4) increased self-esteem and problem-solving abilities; and (5)
higher-level thinking skills (Sly, 2015).
2. Project-based Learning. It is a strategy that involves students in projects that use a variety of resources, including the community, technology, outside experts, written resources, and the Web, while the teacher usually serves as facilitator of learning. Using this strategy, research shows its impact on learners, such as: (1) increased critical thinking skills of students; (2) fostered positive attitudes toward subjects (such as mathematics) and exemplary performance with conceptual questions and applied problems; and (3) Improved positive study and work habits, problem-solving capabilities and self-esteem. Likewise, project-based learning bears environmental impact, such as habitat restoration, modeling the evolution of agriculture, and changing food in schools.
3. Socratic Inquiry. This is named after the Greek philosopher Socrates, who believed that questions (not answers) stimulate learning. Therefore, rather than teaching facts and information, teachers encourage students to ask questions about their assumptions, values, and preconceptions. Therefore, the role of the teacher shifts from direct instruction to facilitating discussion. Through skilled questioning, the teacher asks students to clarify their statements, identify weaknesses in their arguments and provide evidence for their reasoning. In return, this strategy impacts student learning as evidenced by the following outcomes. (1) Students reveal their beliefs, misconceptions and values and eventually, clarify their thoughts related to the topic being discussed. (2) Students become more adept in critical thinking.(3) Students improve their listening skills and learn to better articulate their thoughts and ideas and become more tolerant of diverse opinions.
4. Experiential Learning. It promotes students' involvement in the real world and defines the teacher's role as a facilitator of learning. The process of learning leads to behavioral outcomes. It is based on the premise that learning is an active and a continuous process, with experience at its foundation. It goes along with principles of learning associated with environmental literacy.
4.1 Experiential learning is vital to schooling for sustainability.
4.2 Only through direct contact with the natural world will students develop an In-depth understanding of fundamental ecological principles.
4.3 By working with others to solve real-world problems, they also develop skills at the heart of sustainable living.
4.4 When students participate in experiential learning, they frequently follow the learning cycle.
4.5 This is a process that starts with unstructured exploration, followed by concept formation and application.
5. Interdisciplinary Learning. It emphasizes connections between traditionally discrete disciplines, such as math, science, history, and language arts, rather than limiting learning to one content area at a time. The following are advantages of interdisciplinary learning:
5.1 When teaching and learning are organized around themes, problems, or issues, students seek knowledge and skills from a variety of disciplines to provide an expanded and more complex understanding of the topics
5.2 When done well, interdisciplinary approach eliminates fragmentation and learning of isolated skills.
5.3 It allows students to access a particular theme from different entry points as they work with a range of sources of information and perspectives.
5.4 It also allows teachers to better differentiate instruction and create more interesting and rich methods of assessment.
5.5 It increases students' motivation for learning, as well as their level of active engagement.
5.6 Students recognize the value of their learning and become more involved in it.
5.7 Students learn more when they apply a variety of skills to what they are studying and when they interact with their classmates, teachers, and members of
the community.
5.8 Interdisciplinary teaching and learning adheres to the principles that help define sustainable living. (https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/teaching strategies).
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