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CONSERVATION EDUCATION

• Education committee news

What is conservation biology education, and how does it differ from environmental education? Tackling this question is one of the tasks of the conservation literacy workgroup of the education committee. Based on some recent research and much experience in both fields, here is one take on the roots of the distinction. Conservation biology education is based on research in the natural sciences, while environmental education is a broad field, ranging in emphasis from science and psychology to history and literary criticism.

Twentieth-century environmental education evolved from a junior-naturalist approach. Rachel Carson's book for children, The Sense of Wonder, is a good example. Students of all ages were encouraged to appreciate and investigate the wonders of nature. This is still the most prevalent practice. However, as definitions of the problem changed--from focusing on proximate solutions like pollution abatement and restoring populations of rare species, to ultimate problems like ingrained patterns of consumerism--the disciplines feeding environmental education broadened from the natural sciences to psychology, sociology, humanities, and arts.

Michael Soulé and Daniel Press, in a 1998 article, decry the effects of multidisciplinary illiteracy' on college environmental studies programs. While they support interdisciplinary efforts, they warn that disciplines with broadly different backgrounds and assumptions can sometimes tear each other apart.

Ernst Mayr, in his wonderful life history of biology, presents the problem differently. He shows that disciplinary divisions are not so great, and that history and evolutionary biology are closer than physics and evolutionary biology. He does point to literary criticism as being so different as to not fit even the humanities mold. Literary critics are interested in interpreting text in order to infer reality that is subjective to the writer and the reader, rather than studying reality--nature--itself, arguing that human projections create definitions of nature. This, argues Soulé in another publication, threatens discourse on the definitions of biological values of public lands.

Literary criticism has gained inroads into environmental education. The effect has been creation of a division between science' and non-science.' Wendell Berry, an influential writer, has questioned whether science and technology should dominate the environmental debate.

This is where conservation biology education can make great contributions to public education. Conservation biology appeals to many in and outside of science. From a natural science base, it incorporates whatever discipline adds to the total understanding. But it does not give up its fundamental reliance on empirical evidence and sound, rational thinking.

It is not bad for environmental education to focus on spirituality in relationship to nature--but even these aspects will be stronger if they are based in science. It does no good to have large numbers of people believe that alpha diversity always is highest in old growth forests. Old growth forests have values other than alpha diversity, and science can help enumerate these. But when biological diversity is used as a catch-all term, the whole field becomes a public joke, as it has in the northern Maine towns where the idea of a new national park is being promoted for its ability to preserve biodiversity'--whereas southern Maine actually has more.

Some aspects of environmental education are salesmanship, rather than science. Conservation biology education, by contrast, attempts to provide complex information generated and discussed by a formerly exclusive cadre of highly-trained specialists to the general public, so that they will understand what it takes to conserve life on earth. In some cases, it involves opening up the scientific process to citizens, who have excellent ideas of their own. Making people care enough to ask the questions is environmental education.

Rob Baldwin, robert_baldwin@umenfa.maine.edu

Education committee news

Membership for 2000-2001 was established in September. The time to express interest in becoming a member in for 2001-2002 is before September 2001. There are now 41 members, including all but two from 1999-2000, and several new members. Work has been outlined in the following areas: undergraduate education, disseminating information to K-12 teachers, SCB publications, conservation literacy, SCB meetings, graduate education, workshops and short courses, and joining forces with education committees of other professional societies. Two committee members have submitted a proposal for an education symposium at the 2001 meeting.

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