"MD Eyes Environmental Education Graduation Mandate"
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/07/16/37environment.h29.html?tkn=WRNFBUbUAEUbXgwBgRVEqdY4jLWFofODiPA9&cmp=clp-sb-ascd
The article above is about a proposal in Maryland for the study of environmental education to become a requirement for all students graduating from the state's public high schools. If a law is passed, MD would be the first state to add a high school graduation requirement focused on environmental literacy. The proposal is for environmental literacy to be woven throughout the curriculum, but the original idea had been for schools to require courses on environmental literacy. Some argue that it will drain money from the small education budget to train teachers and will take away from the focus on student achievement in reading, writing and math, while others argue the importance of educating the next generation to become stewards of the environment.
After our last class where we looked at pieces of literacy tied to the environment, do you think it is a good idea for this proposal to be passed? Should students be required to have "environmental literacy"? What is environmental literacy? Do you want your students to have environmental literacy?
From my perspective - a high school chemistry teacher - I think environmental literacy should be part of a larger scientific literacy. I have witnessed several scientific debates in the popular media that leave out a good deal of the science. I think this happens as the popular media either believes that those who consume their product either wouldn't understand the science or wouldn't be interested in that part and thus focus on the sensationalistic side of the debate.
ReplyDeleteGlobal warming is a perfect example of this and relates to one possible driver for the environmental literacy law in MD. Let's all be honest with ourselves here - have we ever heard a balanced debate about global warming presented in a popular media outlet? We hear each side separately depending on the source. For example - listening to network news one could think that the science is certain that there is definitely global warming. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh or to some extent Fox News - you could think that global warming was invented by Al Gore or some other liberal politician. As is usually the case when here such diametrically opposed views presented in separate places - the truth probably lies somewhere in between.
I must admit - when I read many of the research articles in this class and others, I am always wondering how will I build this into a science class. A lot of times (Halliday being a very notable exception) the articles seem to be driven from a social studies or English/Language Arts perspective. When I was reading the pieces this week, while I wasn't sure I could connect the hip-hop pieces very effectively - I easily connected to the critical media literacy works. Science is presented in the media (as I mentioned earlier) in a very non-scientific manner. How many times have we heard stories on the news about researchers at some university have just developed a molecule that shows promise for curing cancer or diabetes or arthritis based on testing in rats or mice? This is usually then followed by "further testing is necessary to determine if this will work in humans.." or something of that nature. It is presented as if this "cure" is only a few months away or something. I can tell you having worked in pharmaceuticals and biotech for over fifteen years - they're not even close. People I used to work with would tell me - "I've cured diabetes in rats many times...." This is one way I would like my students to be critical of the media presentation of scientific information.
In summary - environmental literacy sounds good, but as a subset of general scientific literacy. If we then add a more robust critical literacy regarding economics and public policy - then I think we could be there.