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CONSERVATION EDUCATION: TEACHING POLICY AND BIOLOGY EXPERIENTIALLY USING CASE STUDIES

Teaching conservation policy and basic biology in a semester-long traveling program is not easy. There is limited academic structure for lectures, little time for students to read background material in the library. Yet, when you are out in the world, the landscape becomes a textbook.

For six years, the two of us taught in a traveling, semester-long environmental studies field program for undergraduate and graduate students. Typically, there were 12-15 students and two or three faculty per semester. We traveled, studied, and camped together on a converted school bus. After logging thousands of miles through the bioregions of North America, it became rather obvious to us that most sedentary higher educational programs do not prepare students to think systematically, or to solve environmental problems in an adaptive, holistic manner. One way to understand the complexity of ecology and human behavior is to touch, feel, hike, and sleep in various environments, while writing about and discussing policy issues within a group in which both faculty and students are learners. When combined with enough traditional learning to give it structure, a traveling program can be a powerful tool for teaching conservation policy in the context of real ecosystems. A teacher in this setting must be flexible, able to adapt to changing physical environments and experiences that belie prepared intellectual interpretation.

The rewards of teaching in a traveling learning community including watching students awaken to the complexities of ecosystem function and become motivated by the human impacts they witness. It can be frustrating to realize that direct experience necessarily carries with it a lack of traditional academic depth. However, it seems clear that both styles of teaching, direct immersion and reading / mathematical / analytical learning, are vital to the development of critically thinking, literate citizens--the lifeblood of the conservation movement.

A case study illustrates how we used multiple resource experiences to teach conservation policy and basic ecology. This experience demonstrated the many facets of environmental issues: academic politics, science, colliding cultures, and federal regulations. "We" refers to the faculty of the Audubon Expedition Institute, specifically to our own faculty team as field directors. A central experience for desert southwest semesters was an experiential investigation of Mt. Graham red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis) conservation status, Vatican and University of Arizona observatories, and Apache cultural beliefs and practices. For several years, we took our group of students to the Pinaleno mountains in southwestern Arizona. Students and faculty gave presentations on elevational zonation, biology of small populations, Apache cultural heritage, the National Environmental Policy Act, telescopes and astronomy, and the role of the Vatican and academic institutions in astronomy. The core of our trip was a visit to the summit of Mt. Graham, where two telescopes recently had been placed. We were given a tour by University of Arizona and Vatican researchers and the site manager; a biologist presented an overview of the research on red squirrel habitat use. On our approach to the summit, we noted the dramatic changes in vegetation. We hiked in red squirrel habitat and observed its insularity.

Communicating with Apache elders and cultural activists was a highlight of our trip to Mt. Graham. They invited us to their homes, where we ate and discussed the tradition that the summit is home to Crown dancers, as well as how tribal politics are affected by money and the history of exploitation of their lands. During one visit we were accompanied by a biologist from the local Audubon Society. He discussed the red squirrel, willow flycatchers, and other species-level issues related to use of Mt. Graham. Following this suite of experiences, we asked our students to reflect on each point of view. Because all of the people involved--astronomers, Apaches, biologists--were pleasant people doing what they believed in, we all were forced to look beyond personalities. Was the red squirrel likely to be driven extinct by the telescopes? To what extent does development of roads and other infrastructure serve as a vector for introduction of disease and predators? What was the historical evidence that the top of the mountain played a key role in the Apache's cultural heritage? What were the biological merits of efforts to protect the red squirrel?

Program participants seemed to become more circumspect after the Mt. Graham visit and exploration of similar issues surrounding forests in the Pacific Northwest and Maine, suburban sprawl around Tucson, agriculture in the Everglades, and tourism in the Bahamas. Direct contact with stakeholders taught us to evaluate data and illustrated the ethical views that influence our opinions. Meeting committed astronomers modified the black-and white environmental views of many. In each region, we made a concerted effort to find divergent views and to learn how biases affect presentation of information.

Robert Baldwin and Elizabeth Baldwin
Department of Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences and Department of Forest Management
University of Maine
rob_baldwin@umenfa.maine.edu

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