ecological literacy - basic for a sustainable future

Dr Sandra Wooltorton

Edith Cowan University

PO Box 1712

BUNBURY 6237

WESTERN AUSTRALIA Email: [email protected]

Ecological Literacy:

‘Basic’ for a Sustainable Future (Abridged Version)

January 2006, Brisbane

Sandra is a researcher in education for sustainability, an education lecturer with Edith Cowan University and a primary school teacher. She is also a research associate of the Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University.

S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 1

Ecological Literacy:

‘Basic’ for a Sustainable Future (Abridged Version)

Introduction

Capra (2005, p. 19) writes that the first step towards the goal of creating sustainable

communities is to understand the language of nature: the organisational principles by which

ecosystems sustain the web of life. These principles are the web of life, cycles of nature and

the flow of energy from the sun. According to Capra, (2005, p. xiv) through direct

experiences of the language of nature:

we become aware of how we ourselves are part of the web of life, and over time the experience of ecology and nature gives us a sense of place. We become aware of how we become embedded in an ecosystem, in a landscape with a particular flora and fauna; in a particular social system and culture.

An ecologically literate person, according to Orr (2005, p. xi) “would have at least a basic

comprehension of ecology, human ecology and the concepts of sustainability, as well as the

wherewithal to solve problems”.

Orr (2005, p. 92) writes that many of us are ‘residents’ who reside temporarily in places by

putting down few roots and knowing comparatively little about our places, rather than

‘inhabitants’ who dwell observantly, lovingly and caringly in place, in a mutually nourishing

relationship. To a great extent we are a deplaced people in that our food, water, livelihood,

energy, materials, friends, pastimes and sacred inspiration are no longer sourced from our

local places (Orr, 2005, p. 88). Rather, many of these elements come from planetary places

unknown to us, to which our toxic and radioactive wastes, garbage, sewage and industrial

wastes are consigned. In fact, we spend much time, effort and energy going elsewhere!

Ecological literacy develops through connection with place, and is necessary to address the

problems associated with deplacement and abstraction of thought which underpin our

unsustainable ‘business-as-usual’ societies.

What are the key connected elements of ecological literacy?

The key connected elements of ecological literacy that I describe below, are the ecological

self, with which I include ecological identity and spirituality, a sense of place and active


citizenship, systems thinking and relationship, the ecological paradigm, the pedagogy of

Education for Sustainability (EfS), and reading the world of nature and culture.

The Ecological Self

The ecological self experiences the sense of interconnectedness with the cycle of life on the

basis of care and compassion, expansiveness of soul and respect for other on the basis of

respect for difference (Wooltorton, 2004). Many people experience this interconnectedness in

a spiritual way.

An ecological self is also a relational self which develops in community, in particular a

participative democracy notion of community. We all have an ecological self which can be

repressed by ego-bound thinking. Mathews (1994) describes a world-directed love as the vital

attitude of the ecological self in its tasks of creating meaningfulness and reconnecting with

nature and each other. She writes:

Meaningfulness is to be found in our spiritual capacity to keep the ecocosm on course, by teaching our hearts to practise affirmation, and by awakening our faculty of active, outreaching, world-directed love. Though a tendency to 'tread lightly' on the earth, and to take practical steps to safeguard the particular manifestations of Nature will flow inevitably from such an attitude, the crucial contribution will be the attitude itself, a contribution of the heart and spirit. (1994, 160; emphasis given)

When we develop the ecological self, we enhance the capacity for ecological literacy.

A sense of place and active citizenship

Devall (1990, 58) says that place is the homeland of the ecological self. He writes, "the more

we know a mountain or a watershed for example, and feel it as our self, the more we can feel

its suffering" (1990, 52). People have always lived symbiotically with nature, weaving

religion, stories and culture into the sense of place. In Australia, this education is more than

50,000 years old. A strong sense of place implies an engagement in local culture, history and

organic community together with the ecosystem. Ecological literacy fosters a revitalised

sense of place, underpinned by a more direct contact with the natural elements, the soils,

wildlife and landscape of the place.

Orr (2005, p. 93) suggests that place-based education is partly remedial learning to undo the

old habits of dependency and wastefulness. A significant element of place-based education is

its action component. For example, the intention of a regional survey is to enable


interdisciplinary multi-level cooperative participation in identification, planning and action,

thereby opening up many opportunities for the development and demonstration of active

citizenship. Ecological literacy is an integral component of active citizenship.

Back to the basics: systems thinking and relationship

Jardine, Clifford and Friesen (2005) contend that the normal ‘basics-as-breakdown’ approach

teachers are expected to teach reduces ‘the basics’ to isolated, fragmented, quite meaningless

parts of the inheritances that comprise the living character of the disciplines. In fact, it is the

living character of the disciplines that is most basic to the disciplines (Jardine et al., 2005,

209). Jardine et al. ask:

Imagine if we treated these things as the basics of teaching and learning: relation, ancestry, commitment, participation, interdependence, belonging, desire, conversation, memory, place, topography, tradition, inheritance, experience, identity, difference, renewal, generativity, intergenerationality, discipline, care, strengthening, attention, devotion, transformation, character. (2005, xiii).

These elements are basic to each discipline in their fullness – and ecological literacy develops

through the systems thinking and sense of relationality that this living approach facilitates.

The living character of the disciplines approach is in line with the new way of thinking and

seeing the world in terms of relationships, connectedness and context that is called for by

Capra (2005, 20), Sterling (2005) and other sustainability educators. This is because living

systems are non-linear and comprise patterns of relationships, which is in contrast to

conventional western science and education. Capra (2005, 23 – 28) describes the core

concepts of ecology, which he says may be called the principles of sustainability, or even the

fundamental facts of life. These are: networks, nested systems, diversity, cycles, flows,

development and learning, and dynamic balance. The real basics of education therefore, are

these concepts which are inherent in each discipline and fundamental to a sustainable future.

Ecological literacy entails the development of a practical understanding of these concepts,

through each of the disciplines.

The ecological paradigm

The shifts of perception documented by Capra (2005, 20 – 21) which are necessary for

cultural transformation from conventional science and education towards the ecological

paradigm include: from the study of parts to the study of the whole, from the study of objects

to the study of relationships and networks, from a focus on objective knowledge to a focus on


contextual knowledge, from the measurement of quantity to a consideration of quality, from

attention to structure to attention to processes, and from the study of contents to the study of

patterns. In its full application, the ecological paradigm is the opposite of the economic

paradigm, in that it recognises broadly defined biological wealth as true gross national

product rather than commercially produced wealth (Callenback, 2005 p. 44). It is considered

that as a map for cultural transformation, the ecological paradigm would be the most

appropriate foundation for science and society to learn sustainability.

The education for sustainability (EfS) pedagogy When you teach someone something, you’ve robbed them of the experience of learning it (Margolin 2005, p. 68).

EfS is a pedagogy which facilitates a practical knowledge of sustainability. The pedagogy

uses an experiential, participatory and multidisciplinary approach, focusing on the learning

process.

Living things cannot be defined independently of their living systems, which means that

intelligence must be ecologically embedded (Bowers, 1995, 129). Thus, if a creature destroys

its environment, collaboratively or individually, it destroys itself which is insanity rather than

intelligence (Bowers, 1995, 131). Thus, ecological literacy requires competence in critical

literacy. The ecological notion of intelligence points to the compelling need for social

learning, and competence in communication together with a variety of methods of decision

making within a strong, participative notion of democracy in community. Ecological literacy,

as I see it, includes critical, social, cultural and political literacy.

Reading the ‘world’ of nature and culture: environmental management laws as part of ethics

Traditional ecological knowledge implies detailed knowledge of and interdependence with

species, their locations in a place, their populations and characteristics together with their

interconnections, relationships and cycles, so that a cultural and ethical framework regulates

usage to guarantee dynamic balance. Abram (1996 p. 176) suggests that almost all

indigenous, oral cultures intertwine earthly place with linguistic memory, and he proposes

that this is a spontaneous propensity of humans which is radically transformed by alphabetic

writing. There are many implications of this idea for educators. Perhaps the most significant

implication is the importance of children engaging deeply with nature as early in their lives as


possible, in order that they have a strong foundation for becoming bi-lingual – or at least have

the chance to become ‘bi-literate’, counting ecological literacy as an equal first literacy.

A short critique associated with ecological literacy

Much theoretical and practical work in schools has been completed by the Centre for

Ecoliteracy in California, therefore over the twenty or so years of development of the concept

of ecological literacy, most of the critiques have been addressed within the broad field of

ecological literacy. The critique of parochialism may be useful if place and local community

comprised the entire curriculum, but it does not. Ecological literacy has been critiqued for its

scientific orientation, implying that the field is the domain of science education, however this

is no longer relevant since the field now comprises a broad interdisciplinary field of views.

Further, the science component is non-reductionist systems science.

The critique that the field implies a narrow, ecological view of sustainability no longer

applies, since it is now reasonably well accepted in the EfS literature that for sustainability to

be possible, all four pillars of sustainability must be present: ecological, economic, socio-

cultural and political. Therefore, cultural, social, political and economic literacy are

necessarily within ecological literacy, and vice versa. The narrow environmental definition of

sustainability does not work within a critical perspective. Finally, the critique of the concept

of transformative education for its continual transforming away from cultural knowledge of

place, resulting in deplacement of peoples, is currently being addressed with recognition that

an important intention of transformation is to reconnect with place and each other

(Wooltorton, 2004).

A constraint in Australia is the systemic English literacy and numeracy testing – the

WALNA1 in Western Australia – which causes teachers to ‘teach to the test’ and spend too

much time on literacy and numeracy in isolation. The WALNA can function as structural

resistance to EfS, in that teachers find that they can not make the time to engage sufficiently

in experiential, participative, citizenship or other creative types of activities (Wooltorton,

2002 p. 8). In the USA, ecological literacy has been shown to function as a solution to this

constraint. Sobel (2004, pp. 24 – 32) reports that a wide range of high quality studies show

convincingly that using the environment as an integrating context (EIC) results in an across-

the-disciplines, whole of education improvement.

1 The Western Australian Literacy and Numeracy Assessment is a mandatory testing program in all Western Australian schools.


The meta-narratives such as consumerism, commercialisation, individualism and corporatism

comprise the remaining challenge, producing a serious constraint both to educators in

implementing EfS, and to the possibility of a sustainable future (Bowers, 2005). The problem

of transforming our culture away from these meta-narratives is a very difficult one to

overcome in schools, since these issues are hegemonic. Research to determine the effect of

ecological literacy against this constraint is needed.

What are the likely educational outcomes of ecological literacy?

The goal of ecological literacy will necessitate the reorientation of our schools and schooling

systems towards a sustainable future. In doing this, the purpose of schooling and each aspect

of education – what we do and how, as well as funding – will need to be reconsidered.

Schools landscapes will be planned for ecological learning, with areas set aside on campus

and in local places for the restoration of native ecosystems. School communities will model

ecological practices of waste minimisation and reuse, energy minimisation and renewable

energy generation, food growing and lunch production, as well as reflection and enjoyment in

nature. The local community will be closely involved in school activities, both on-campus,

helping with historical and cultural learning, and off-campus with students conducting

regional surveys of various kinds with the assistance of expert community members.

With a goal of ecological literacy, the focus of planning will be the ecological self of each

child. Arts, music, dance, crafts, physical education, society & environment and sciences will

be considered as important as literacy and numeracy. Schools will be for the dual purpose of

enabling children to achieve their potential and to prepare for a sustainable future.

Perhaps the most considerable curriculum outcome of the goal of ecological literacy will be

the acceptance of systems thinking and relationship as new basics for each discipline, and

interdisciplinary studies will form an important part of the curriculum. Systems thinking,

together with critical, creative and caring thinking, will be a cornerstone of all of our

planning for learning. Likewise, communicative competence and participative decision

making will be a feature of classroom and school organisation and practice. Finally,

performance at school will improve considerably across a range of indicators including

enthusiasm and willingness to learn, learning outcomes in all disciplines and standardised

literacy and numeracy tests.


The concepts, skills, values and practices of ecological literacy are ‘basics’ required for

addressing the great challenge of our time, of reorienting our communities toward

sustainability.

We cannot solve such deep problems quickly, but we can begin learning how to reinhabit our places, as Wendell Berry says, lovingly, knowingly, skilfully, reverently (cited in Orr, 2005, 94).

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