Earth Education: A New Beginning

by Steve Van Matre, Jan Muir (Illustrator)

For over twenty years the public has been led to believe that there is a serious educational response underway regarding the environmental problems of the earth. It is not true. The environmental movement has been led + trivialized by mainstream education + diluted by those with other agendas + co-opted by the very agencies and industries that have contributed so much to the problems This book proposes another direction--an alternative that many environmental leaders and teachers around the world have already taken. It is called The Earth Education Path, and anyone can follow it in developing a genuine educational program made up of magical learning adventures. Earth education aims to accomplish what environmental education set out to do, but didn' to help people improve upon their cognitive and affective relationship with the earth's natural communities and life support systems, and begin crafting lifestyles that will lessen their impact upon those places and processes on behalf of all the earth's passengers. If you care about the health of our troubled planet, then you should read what this internationally known educator has to say about how we lost a whole generation of teachers and leaders and what you can do to help them find their way again.

Genres: Ecology, Education

317 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1990

Reviews

[Jennifer Wyld]

I was really inspired by this book and its' emphasis on getting kids actually out in nature. I have used stuff from Project Wild, which van Matre calls "project tame" because it does lots with simulations- where as his work has students out in nature, actually experiencing the things they are learning about. He also advocates more than just teaching about the Earth, but to live in a much more sustainable way- a long time before that word was in vogue.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was first becoming involved in the field of environmental education. It really helped shape my view, values, and teaching techniques.

[Fernleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book that was required for one of my classes a few years back. Environmental Education Curriculum or some such. It was a wonderful class, and although I didn't end up reading this particular book (there were two texts to choose from, pick one and read it) at the time I did hold on to it to look into later. This book takes the idea of Environmental Education and takes it one step further, calling the new idea Earth Education. The essential premise of this book is a critique of current EE execution and a layout for a new plan which is much more cohesive. Matre believes that EE is a bunch of unfocused 'activities' (which is true, there are few honest EE 'programs' out there) that are usually tacked on as extraneous material in a pre-existing curriculum. Many activities that are billed as EE are actually outdoor education (things like orienteering, most 'nature walk' types and anything more focused on health.) His argument is that we call these things EE even though they're not and very very few of them leave any lasting impact, much less any actual environmental knowledge with their subjects (aside from maybe a few disconnected factoids.) So to combat the growing environmental illiteracy in the world what we need is something much more structured, with actual learning goals, which teach students the basic principles of the environment, energy flow, cycles, interrelationships, and change. Just like there is a structured program for maths, English and history, so we need a program for learning about our world (aside from the reductionist bent that modern biology classes offer.) A very interesting read, have given me some good ideas.

[S Bowers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was paradigm shifting for me as an educator seeking to teach children about the perils of the environment. Indeed, how could we hurt what we love? Teaching empathy is a concept on its own, because it is something we assume we have or develop when we grow up-- clearly, this is not always the case. But directing learning towards teaching empathy to other living things changes the picture in a big way. How could we indiscriminately destroy the earth and its resources if we really cared about it? Let's stop scaring kids about the way of the world-- they become helpless victims. This book will help change that outlook. I wonder if the author does lectures -- it would make a great Ted Talk.