The Environmental Education Divide
Latest issue of California Forests magazine looks at the state of environmental education in our schools.
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A Casualty of our Education Crisis
By Jim Aschwanden
One of the casualties of California's rush to fix the dismal performance of students in reading and math is that students are no longer learning what they need to know about agriculture, including forestry, and how to conserve and protect our natural resources. The singular emphasis on standardized test scores has effectively eliminated any "enrichment" curriculum from our public schools.
Class-time once devoted to investigating our natural world has been systematically replaced by "drill and kill" strategies that emphasize the rote memorization of facts. This phenomenon is likely to have devastating long-term consequences for our environment.
A decade ago, California's students were much more likely to be exposed to an education that was befitting a state with a large agricultural sector. Activities that connected students with the land that sustains them were more widely available, and what they were taught was less ideologically and politically driven than it is today.
But in our rush to shore up our failures in other subject areas, this vital realm of student learning has been left behind. And the need for such education is greater than ever. More than 90 percent of Californians live in urban environments and the vast majority of students essentially are disconnected from the natural resources they take for granted every day.
The danger in abandoning agriculture and environmental science in our schools is that the issues arising in these fields are increasingly complex, with far-reaching impacts. If we do not teach our youth the relationship between resources and consumption, on what foundation will they make decisions about how to sustain those resources?
When we abandon such vital subject matter in our schools, we not only offer students less information than they need - we also leave the field to those whose object is more politics than education. By the time students reach ninth grade, many are biased against resource management or applying agricultural technology. The seeds for this bias are sown in the cartoon character portrayal of trees, animals and farm life that kids are exposed to early on. A preservationist attitude that doesn't take into consideration the environmental benefits of forest management, for example, permeates many elementary school curriculums and further distances students from the realities of providing food, shelter and clothing for an ever-growing population.
Of course, high school students are more discerning, able to weigh more than one side of an argument, than environmental ideologues suspect. Should we not broach with these students the complex issues that surround the resources with which they will ultimately be entrusted? Shouldn't we be giving them more than one point of view?
A more balanced curriculum would prepare students for college and vocational opportunities. It would mean discussing the good and bad ramifications of our decisions, talking about past mistakes, and exploring new opportunities made possible by technological advances.
High school students are more astute at harvesting the truth than many people believe. Presented with well-rounded information, they can come to their own conclusions about the inevitable trade-offs associated with resource utilization choices.
Forestry and agriculture present some of the most complex issues of the day, including biotech crop development and sustained-yield timber harvesting. Yet they are the forgotten stepchildren of today's education system. Certainly our schools should teach children to read, write and perform mathematical exercises. But shouldn't they also prepare them to make responsible, adult decisions about the environment?
Besides, you might be surprised how much subject matter regarding our natural resources has to do with applied math. Landscape design and irrigation is really a math problem. Agricultural mechanics teaches ratios and measurement. Shouldn't we be looking for ways to increase the relevancy of mathematics for students by connecting math to real-life situations and issues?
The impact of agricultural and natural resource illiteracy on California's economic future may prove staggering. Our schools are failing to prepare the future consumers of our state's abundant natural resources to make decisions regarding those resources. When our children fly from Redding to Bakersfield in 2040, what will they see? Will we have open working landscapes with sustainable forests and agriculture, or will have vast tracts of pavement and get our produce from Peru, Chile, and Washington?
Our natural resources are too precious to overlook. And they will be overlooked if the current generation of young people receives no greater or more diverse education regarding our natural resources than it's getting now. Never before have so many been so far removed from the land that sustains them. If we do not address that chasm in our schools, our education system will ultimately fail not only our students, but also our forests and rangelands.
Our failures in reading and math are no excuse for allowing the next generation to be woefully ignorant when it comes to the world they must live in.
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Note: Jim Aschwanden is the Executive Director of the California Agricultural Teachers' Association, a position he has held since 1993. Prior to that, he taught Agricultural Education at the high school level for 17 years, and was the 1991 National AgriScience Teacher of the Year. This essay appears in the Winter 2005 issue of California Forests.