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Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World
Our efforts to build a sustainable world cannot succeed unless future generations learn how to partner with natural systems to our mutual benefit. In other words, children must become “ecologically literate.” The concept of ecological literacy advanced by this book’s creators, the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, goes beyond the discipline of environmental education. It aims, says David Orr in his foreword, “toward a deeper transformation of the substance, process, and scope of education at all levels”—familial, geographic, ecological, and political.
The reports and essays gathered here reveal the remarkable work being done by the Center’s network of partners. In one middle school, for example, culinary icon Alice Waters founded a program that not only gives students healthy meals but teaches them to garden—and thus to study life cycles and energy flows. Other hands-on student projects described here range from stream restoration and watershed exploration to confronting environmental justice issues at the neighborhood level.
With contributions from distinguished writers and educators, such as Fritjof Capra, Wendell Berry, and Michael Ableman, Ecological Literacy reflects the best thinking about how the world actually works and how learning occurs. Parents and educators everywhere will find it an invaluable resource.
The reports and essays gathered here reveal the remarkable work being done by the Center’s network of partners. In one middle school, for example, culinary icon Alice Waters founded a program that not only gives students healthy meals but teaches them to garden—and thus to study life cycles and energy flows. Other hands-on student projects described here range from stream restoration and watershed exploration to confronting environmental justice issues at the neighborhood level.
With contributions from distinguished writers and educators, such as Fritjof Capra, Wendell Berry, and Michael Ableman, Ecological Literacy reflects the best thinking about how the world actually works and how learning occurs. Parents and educators everywhere will find it an invaluable resource.
296 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
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929 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 3, 2008
This is an ecological literacy reader- full of excerpts from the best people in the field. This book is all about the aspects of education that should be a huge part of all schools- place-based education, garden classrooms, learning kitchens, farms-to-schools, bio-region study- except that unfortunately we are too obsessed with standardization to turn towards the real subject matter we should learn in school.
April 15, 2015
Advisory: Most of the reviews posted for this title appear to actually be for Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World by Michael K. Stone (Editor), David W. Orr (Editor), Fritjof Capra (Preface). The book with Orr as single author is a collection of his essays from the mid-'90s. At the time I initially read it, I would have given it 5 stars. Orr is a good human being and a brilliant thinker, committed and wise. It's just that I no longer already-agree with much of his perspective, so I find it less convincing than I did before.
Some of his interesting observations that are relevant to my current work:
"Education in the modern world was designed to further the conquest of nature and the industrialization of the planet. It tended to produce unbalanced, underdimensioned people tailored to fit the modern economy. Postmodern education must have a different agenda, one designed to heal, connect, liberate, empower, create, and celebrate. Postmodern education must be life-centered" (x). This is the kind of broad statement with which I would have wholeheartedly concurred at one time, and which strikes me as utterly absurd now. Certainly we have socioeconomic and environmental problems. But our culture *is* significantly focused on healing: life spans are increasing almost everywhere, and people survive illnesses that they simply didn't ten or fifty or a hundred years ago. Poverty is decreasing around the world, as is violence overall. No, things are not perfect. But to deny the good things modernity has brought now strikes me as incomprehensible.
This was interesting: "'Schooling' is what happens in school and colleges. 'Training,' the inculcation of rote habit, is how one instructs an animal. 'Learning' is what can happen throughout life for those willing to risk it . . . we have all observed the [anomaly of] the highly schooled and heavily degreed fool, and a person lacking intellectual pedigree who lives with dignity, skill, intelligence, and magnanimity. . . . Schooling has to do with the ability to master basic functions that can be measured by tests. Learning has to do with matters of judgment, and with living responsibly and artfully, which cannot be measured so easily" (xi).
Some of his interesting observations that are relevant to my current work:
"Education in the modern world was designed to further the conquest of nature and the industrialization of the planet. It tended to produce unbalanced, underdimensioned people tailored to fit the modern economy. Postmodern education must have a different agenda, one designed to heal, connect, liberate, empower, create, and celebrate. Postmodern education must be life-centered" (x). This is the kind of broad statement with which I would have wholeheartedly concurred at one time, and which strikes me as utterly absurd now. Certainly we have socioeconomic and environmental problems. But our culture *is* significantly focused on healing: life spans are increasing almost everywhere, and people survive illnesses that they simply didn't ten or fifty or a hundred years ago. Poverty is decreasing around the world, as is violence overall. No, things are not perfect. But to deny the good things modernity has brought now strikes me as incomprehensible.
This was interesting: "'Schooling' is what happens in school and colleges. 'Training,' the inculcation of rote habit, is how one instructs an animal. 'Learning' is what can happen throughout life for those willing to risk it . . . we have all observed the [anomaly of] the highly schooled and heavily degreed fool, and a person lacking intellectual pedigree who lives with dignity, skill, intelligence, and magnanimity. . . . Schooling has to do with the ability to master basic functions that can be measured by tests. Learning has to do with matters of judgment, and with living responsibly and artfully, which cannot be measured so easily" (xi).
June 4, 2008
Check out the chapter "Dancing with the Systems."
February 27, 2009
Learning how to raise my family green.
February 26, 2024
One of the primary reasons climate change in particular, and environmental degradation in general so confounds us is the mediocre state of our ecological literacy. Preoccupied with testing and related standards and overwhelmed by disciplinary struggles, we find it difficult to truly engage and excite our children. Yet teaching about the environment in which we live should seem, not just relevant, but fascinating and crucial to our very survival.
This book uses two dozen essays by respected environmental educators to make the case for such efforts and provide insights into how we might break the current mold to do so. And many of the essays impart valuable insights, even inspiration. Arizona State's David Orr emphasizes the importance of connecting students to the place they live, particularly in these times when we are so disconnected as a society. "Place is nebulous to educators because to a great extent we are a displaced people for whom our immediate places are no longer sources of food, water, livelihood, energy, materials, friends, recreation, or sacred inspiration."
Native American environmental educator Jeannette Armstrong believes that it's not just about teaching the science but instilling the related stewardship values, "The clear imperative that individuals within the community must cooperate willingly to demonstrate sustainability values ensures the survival and well-being of the whole. Community exists to be shared with, rather than to be competed against. The whole earth needs to be healthy for families to be healthy and for individuals to thrive."
Orr and Armstrong are joined by Fritjof Capra, Maurice Holt, Wendell Berry, Ernest Callenbach, Donella Meadows, and Peter Berg to provide insights and new ways to look at old problems. Their half of the book was refreshing and often inspirational.
The book, unfortunately, became preoccupied with incorporating the lunchroom into the environmental curriculum. While I agree with the value of school gardens and using lunch as a vehicle to teach nutrition the value of local resource management, a third of the essays focused on the topic. Meanwhile, I felt like they gave short shrift to methods and approaches which truly engage the kids in ways that would ignite the fires of enthusiasm and passion for learning. We need an environmental education revolution that will transform our youth into the agents for change we so desperately need at this point in time. Only half the book accomplishes that goal.
This book uses two dozen essays by respected environmental educators to make the case for such efforts and provide insights into how we might break the current mold to do so. And many of the essays impart valuable insights, even inspiration. Arizona State's David Orr emphasizes the importance of connecting students to the place they live, particularly in these times when we are so disconnected as a society. "Place is nebulous to educators because to a great extent we are a displaced people for whom our immediate places are no longer sources of food, water, livelihood, energy, materials, friends, recreation, or sacred inspiration."
Native American environmental educator Jeannette Armstrong believes that it's not just about teaching the science but instilling the related stewardship values, "The clear imperative that individuals within the community must cooperate willingly to demonstrate sustainability values ensures the survival and well-being of the whole. Community exists to be shared with, rather than to be competed against. The whole earth needs to be healthy for families to be healthy and for individuals to thrive."
Orr and Armstrong are joined by Fritjof Capra, Maurice Holt, Wendell Berry, Ernest Callenbach, Donella Meadows, and Peter Berg to provide insights and new ways to look at old problems. Their half of the book was refreshing and often inspirational.
The book, unfortunately, became preoccupied with incorporating the lunchroom into the environmental curriculum. While I agree with the value of school gardens and using lunch as a vehicle to teach nutrition the value of local resource management, a third of the essays focused on the topic. Meanwhile, I felt like they gave short shrift to methods and approaches which truly engage the kids in ways that would ignite the fires of enthusiasm and passion for learning. We need an environmental education revolution that will transform our youth into the agents for change we so desperately need at this point in time. Only half the book accomplishes that goal.
February 1, 2025
Pretty great book and comprehensive of the field. Orr writes like he has undiagnosed ADHD, though. He criticizes top-down processes and advocates for them (policy changes, economic levers) across chapters. He also claims that this past century has been one of unprecedented war which just is factually incorrect. We have more information dissemination than ever, but actually far less war. He sporadically calls out Judeo-Christian values for being the catalyst for our sustainability crisis (among other things) and then doesn't follow through on an argument for that, presuming that he is correct and the reader agrees, despite much evidence that the true Christian interpretation is not so much a "domination of nature" as a "stewardship" (an idea he praises endlessly). The section dedicated to education I think is very noteworthy, if hard to practically apply. Valuable read overall, thought provoking, but best to read with an air of skepticism.
July 6, 2017
Depressing and slightly outdated. I'm thinking a lot about his views on technology and science in society and having a lot of conflict. This is mainly because the science and technology that I'm familiar with is not militaristic or profit driven. Another theme is that there are always trade-offs; you can't get something for nothing.
April 8, 2018
A book full of good information and ideas and philosophy to make the reader (at least this reader) really think.
October 5, 2018
Inspiring, informational, well written and organized.
March 26, 2022
Ok
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 16, 2016
Orr's book offers an incredible challenge to the reader, and by extension to the world at large. In the process of addressing (describing, exposing) the social, political, and economic hurdles that humanity faces in the late 20th century and beyond, he asks his readers who they are ecologically, whether they have "stood up and been counted" in the struggle to save the already-mostly-failed integrity of Earth and the human race. The book reads not unlike an extremely coherent and eloquent litany of challenging and urgent survival alarms.
The uplift of the book happens in the section about education--particularly education at the university level--and its role in the ecological crisis. Education fails us, but there is vision, and perhaps even hope, for change. In this section Orr, who himself taught at the time at Oberlin College, offers numerous ideas. Again, his writing is an extreme challenge to the current system. Readers from university settings will find this section very valuable.
To say that humankind needs to change its ways, Orr makes us realize, is a lame and tragic understatement. What is needed is an enormous overhaul in how we view ourselves and the world. What is needed is the cultivation and realization of virtue among the people and communities of the world.
Orr wrote this book in the 1990's, and his message is no less (or much more) pertinent now. Read this book, even today, for a serious wake-up, a serious kick-in-the-pants, a challenge that you may or may not be able to handle.
The uplift of the book happens in the section about education--particularly education at the university level--and its role in the ecological crisis. Education fails us, but there is vision, and perhaps even hope, for change. In this section Orr, who himself taught at the time at Oberlin College, offers numerous ideas. Again, his writing is an extreme challenge to the current system. Readers from university settings will find this section very valuable.
To say that humankind needs to change its ways, Orr makes us realize, is a lame and tragic understatement. What is needed is an enormous overhaul in how we view ourselves and the world. What is needed is the cultivation and realization of virtue among the people and communities of the world.
Orr wrote this book in the 1990's, and his message is no less (or much more) pertinent now. Read this book, even today, for a serious wake-up, a serious kick-in-the-pants, a challenge that you may or may not be able to handle.
March 16, 2016
A barrage of different visionary viewpoints on education, not strictly from a stuffed "ecoliteracy" approach. A wide range of essays: indigenous education practices, the concept of slow food and the "slow school," grassroots environmental justice in ghettos of San Francisco, and lots about sustainability of food systems (in and out of the school system)... The book offers all of these, and many more approaches to the broad concept of ecoliteracy. It's a great book for varied, unorthodox, interesting, counter-cultural perspectives on learning and education..
July 7, 2014
I found these essays incredibly helpful as I thought through environmental education lesson plans, as well as my future in the environmental nonprofit field. I caught myself being reminded of students and learning situations as I read, wondering how I could have taught or handled a situation differently. Incredibly helpful theoretical book as I engaged the practical.
I particularly resonated with the systems thinking "dance" chapter.
I particularly resonated with the systems thinking "dance" chapter.
October 17, 2012
Some essays were better than others. However the overall topic is very interesting and the combination of essays made for a compelling read. It was especially fun to be able to personally relate to at least one of the essays, which was about Davis, CA, in part. It was inspiring and could potentially be used if one wanted to start something similar in other states such as Wisconsin.
August 7, 2009
I have made so many emphatic underlines and bookmarks on this book! It captures a lot of what I learned about in grad school. Not a textbook but quality information that is inspiring and educational.
March 2, 2008
Critical but creative ideas about where we're heading and where we should head...
August 9, 2008
I think I was inspired by every single program written up in this book. If you are interested in environmental or sustainable education- this book is a must!
November 2, 2008
this is one of my on-and-off dry geeky book, and I have to say- it's awesome. I read one section at a time, and there are a lot of wisdom here.
July 24, 2009
Very Inspiring for teaching young people!!!
Currently reading
July 31, 2009I'm writing proposals about teaching children about sustainability and social responsibility with a big view, so I look forward to this one. Fritjof Capra wrote the Preface.
June 16, 2010
Overly simplified with little theory. Okay for case studies, but not much else.
August 6, 2014
This book is SO IMPORTANT! Can't reccomend it enough. Plan to read it again and again as I pursue my career with educating children.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews