Environmental Literacy Council - the need of the hour
Lionel WIJESIRI
Acts of conservation without the requisite desires and skill are
futile. To create these desires and skills, and the community motive, is
the task of education.
Aldo Leopold, a renowned conservationist made this statement 64 years
ago. Today, more than any period in the history, his statement retains
its true validity. In the coming decades, the public will more
frequently be called upon to understand complex environmental issues,
assess risk, evaluate proposed environmental plans and understand how
individual decisions affect the environment at local and global scales.
Are we in Sri Lanka ready to face this reality?
Research shows that Sri Lankan adults, in general, know startlingly
little about the environment and even less about their personal
connections to the natural world. The average Sri Lankan adult,
regardless of age, income, or level of education, mostly fails to grasp
essential aspects of environmental science, important cause/effect
relationships, or even basic concepts such as runoff pollution, power
generation and fuel use, or water flow patterns.
Individual actions
Without knowledge and understanding of these issues, taking personal
action often seems overwhelming and pointless - yet individual actions
are at the helm of many environmental problems including high energy
consumption, water and air pollution and sprawl.
To address these problems, first of all, these concepts must be
clearly understood. If we incorporate environmental learning into
continued education, students develop an environmental literacy that
will help them make informed decisions to protect the environment at
home, at work and in their community.
Knowledge gap
The good news is that, since of late, the overall awareness of simple
environmental topics among our primary sector school children is
becoming reasonably high nationwide. Virtually all primary teachers are
teaching 'out of field.' The sad news is that only a relatively small
percentage of primary teachers have had higher-level coursework in
environmental science.
When considered in depth, for whatever reason, we have created an
'environmental knowledge gap' at the secondary school level. There is
enormous potential to close this gap by encouraging the development of
more secondary-school-based environmental education programs.
Educators should take the initiative now to channel secondary school
students' natural energy and optimism into positive action. Secondary
school students need to know how to address day-to-day environmental
problems and will need to be prepared for a workplace that expects
baseline environmental knowledge as a job prerequisite.
Integrating environmental education into the secondary school
curriculum supports many of the principles that education reform
advocates promote, including improving student-teacher relationships,
making lessons relevant to students' everyday lives, preparing students
for future careers and including technology in instruction.
Environmental learning isn't always about climate change or the
Earth's plight. Rather, teachers should plan to use the natural world as
a tool, like leading a study on an ordinary stream, which can include
language, math and social studies. A handful of studies show the
connection, that students exposed to a nature-based curriculum score
higher than students taught the same subjects in the classroom out of a
textbook.
As awareness about environmental issues evolves and become more
sophisticated, students move towards environmental literacy. Ultimately,
environmental education, as it develops environmental literacy, helps
foster an understanding of how everyday decisions, lifestyle choices and
activities impact the finite resources of this country.
Forestry Education
Of course, we do have the Forestry Education at the University of Sri
Jayewardenepura. M.Sc. Course in Forestry has been offered to 16 batches
of students since 1983, and 180 have obtained the M.Sc. degree. Many of
them are now employed in forestry and environmental sectors in Sri Lanka
and other countries. |
