An Expedition to Skomer was organised by the Wales Field Society to test the feasibility of using the jsland as a field station to develop Julian Huxley's educational idea of evolutionary humanism, linking culture with ecology through facilitated self learning.
Denis Bellamy, was appointed to the Chair of Zoology in the University of Wales in Cardiff. As research assistant to Sir Hans Krebs in the Department of Biochemistry in Oxford, became dissatisfied by the 'war of attrition' that followed the brilliant discoveries of the citric acid cycle, to which he had added the final proof of its operation in mitochondria. He saw that the next major problems were to be solved at a holistic level and would involve investigating what he defined as "cellular ecology" and the evolution of cellular interactions for human survival. Taking this approach to education he was influenced by the writings of Howard Parshley connecting zoology with human welfare and Julian Huxley on evolutionary humanism.
"The human race is a zoological species; it is one among the almost one million kinds of animals that have been scientifically studied; it is bound up with zoology as with no other science. The objective study of animals and the body of knowledge and doctrine derived from such study must therefore have peculiar importance for mankind, and we are here interested to see some of the ways in which zoology bears upon the phases of existence which we have distinguished as the necessary elements in human welfare. Zoology contributes to human health because the principles of hygiene and normal physiology are zoological and because many diseases are caused or carried by animals; to wealth because many animals are economically useful or injurious; to social relations because human reproduction and heredity are fundamentally animal in nature; to intellectual outlook because zoological theory forms an important part in our modern views of psychology, morals, and progress". (Parshley, 1931).
The Scope of Zoology was the title of Bellamy's inaugral lecture.
An idea from the Duke of Edinburgh, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, that the examination board should develop an interdisciplinary school subject dealing with world development, This was to be based on the Environmental Studies Honours degree which Bellamy had initiated in University College. Cardiff.
The new GCSE subject was launched internationally entitled, 'natural economy' with a curriculum and examination system validated by the university's Local Examination Syndicate.
The Islands of Skokholm and Skomer used by the Department of Zoology of the University of Wales in Cardiff for facilitated self learning.
To focus on the relationships between culture and the environment, 'natural economy' was rebranded as 'cultural ecology' and promoted as an online teaching model funded from the Life Environment Programme of the European Union.
The
cultural ecology website was receiving 1-2 million unique hits per year and registrations for the blog were running at a level of about 5-600 per week.
This wiki website is being developed by International Classrooms On Line as a work in progress to produce an on-line interpretation of Skomer for cross-curricular education in cultural ecology and an introduction to the practicalities of facilitating humanistic education for understanding and adapting to climate change. To this end the production of hyperbooks for individuals to assemble personal bodies of knowledge is being explored supported by the creation of a 360 degree virtual tour of the island.