Daddy long legs are not spiders. They're harvestmen!
Why don't you just mine the iron from this rock?
There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth.
People will do it if it is fun.
Learners will teach, Teachers will learn.
Supernovas to Microbes
Humansarenotseparate
Climb to your summit.
Breathe Deep, Seek Peace
Ubuntu
Roald
Heare
Each line in the above duodeca-poem (in which the first line is 12 syllables, second is 11, and so on) describes an aspect of my personal philosophy towards environmental education. The piece describes a mixture of quotes, beliefs, and values that have ever so slowly led me toward this career.
Daddy long legs are not spiders. They're harvestmen!
12) One of my past opportunities was to teach at Camp Lutherlyn, located near Butler, Pennsylvania. In this particular case I was teaching a group of early elementary students about the forest when one of them jumped in terror yelling “It’s a spider!!!” I quickly came to the scene where a harvestmen, aka “Daddy long legs” was walking on a nearby log. Immediately I start talking about how “Daddy long legs” are not spiders but are actually called harvestmen. I went on to say we should not squish spiders or harvestmen because they are a very important part to the ecosystem. This whole interaction lasted under a minute and I promptly forgot about the exchange
The next Christmas Eve, months later, I was sitting in a pew when that little girl turned around and said “Daddy long legs are not spiders. They’re harvestmen! Oh! And we shouldn’t squish either of them because they are very important.” Her mother replied to that by saying “And she has been saying that every day since camp this summer.” Teaching the correct terminology and empathy at young ages is critical toward environmental education since everything you teach has the potential to make an impression on them.
Why don't you just mine the iron from this rock?
11) At the same camp, I was teaching about iron strands in sandstone to a group of fifth graders when one asked “why don’t you just mine the iron from this rock?” When I asked him how he replied, “you know, like in Minecraft.” A key component in this field is allowing all questions to be asked. To him it made logical sense to mine the ore since his only comparison was Minecraft. Even more important than allowing questions is allowing space for dialogue. Even though we were late to the next activity, the whole class was discussing how the real world is different than Minecraft based off of that one question.
There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth.
10) “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew” is a quote from Marshall Mcluhan inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. This earth is not owned and operated by the few but rather each one of us. Environmental education empowers its learners to take action to become crew for this little blue spaceship of ours.
People will do it if it is fun.
9) Volkswagen started an initiative in 2009 called the “Fun Theory." It was a challenge by the car company for designers to make better decisions for both human and environmental health fun. For example, one designer put motion sensors on a set of stairs next to an escalator in Stockholm. These sensors would make each stair a key on a piano, thus making music for each person who used them. The result was that “66% more people used the stairs than the escalator than normal." If we make learning about the environment fun and interactive then people are far more likely to protect it than get depressed by a “doom and gloom” mentality.
Learners will teach, Teachers will learn.
8) In Phil Collin’s song “Son of Man” from the Disney movie Tarzan, he uses the quote “by learning you will teach, and by teaching you will learn." That quote has stuck with me since the release of the movie. As a teacher, I will learn so much more through my students. This mentality makes teaching a dynamic relationship that empowers each party to both teach and learn.
Supernovas to Microbes
7) In the fall of 2015 while teaching Mountain School at the North Cascades Institute, one of the parents challenged me on place-based education. As a micro-biologist he asked “how come you don’t teach what is happening on a microscopic scale?” The microscope activity we do comes close but doesn’t show students how interesting the microbial world is. So what is the scale of place in place based education? Is it just as far as the eye can see? Does it have to be on a map? By broadening our sense of place to supernovas and microbes, and beyond in both directions, we show students that the universe is much more complicated, but much more wonder filled, than they ever imagined.
Humansarenotseparate
6) A key concept not taught enough in the field is that humans are not separate from the ecosystem. We are just as much a part of the natural world as salmon or cedars. By teaching that humans are a part, we can begin to show students how connected we are to all that is around us. That knowledge of connections fosters empathy for all of the learners’ natural neighbors, mammal or otherwise.
Climb to your summit.
5) When I was working in a Manchester Public School I saw firsthand how vast the challenges are for different learners. Some of my students were bored in school because it was too easy, while others could not read a word on the page. As environmental educators we need to challenge each student to climb to their own summit. If hiking a quarter mile in the dark is the scariest thought to a student, encourage them to just go that far. If a student thinks they can hike 11 miles that day, challenge them to 12. Environmental education should strive to personalize experiences so that each learner is learning at their own pace.
Breathe Deep, Seek Peace
4) “Breathe Deep, Seek Peace” is a quote from James Gurney’s book titled Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time in which humans and dinosaurs live peacefully together on an unchartered continent. The quote is a common saying used as a reminder to the whole society of its greatest value: peace. As we teach as environmental educators about the natural world we are seeking a world of balance. We are seeking a world where humans can live sustainably in and with the environment. We are seeking peace.
Ubuntu
3) Ubuntu is a philosophy originating in the South African region in which “a person is a person through other people." So much of environmental education is describing the connections between different parts in the ecosystems. But just as lines ten, seven and six discuss, humans are connected not only to one another but to the larger ecosystem around them. Teaching about how the natural world directly has a relationship to the learner, the learner can see themselves and gain a deeper understanding and bond with their natural neighbors.
Roald
2) In the fall of 2014 I had a student who was scared of school. He felt that he could only pass the tests if he cheated and asked someone for the answers. Because I was not legally allowed to stay with him during the test, I let him borrow a stuffed penguin that I had in my backpack. Since he would “cheat and ask the penguin for answers,” he passed the test since the answers were inside him all along. He was so happy that the penguin helped him out, but felt said since it did not have a name. We then looked online for an appropriate name, settling on the first Antarctic explorer: Roald Amundsen. He then asked when our Roald was going to go to the South Pole to visit his family. I said eventually, and promised him I would take pictures of all the neat places Roald went around the world, with his last stop being the South Pole.
Because of multiple social and economic barriers, this student could not explore the world but Roald could! Every time my student turned in homework or passed a test, I would bring in a different picture of where “Roald had explored.” Everything from local forests to mountain peaks. Exploration inspires students to reach for more than they ever thought was possible. Even the idea of exploration can lead to many small steps, until eventually someone can find themselves across the nation getting a graduate degree in a mountain range that they had never heard of growing up in the forests of Pennsylvania.
Heare
1) No, that is not a typo. Place-based education is a core part of teaching about the environment. We challenge our students to see what is right in front of them; to explore their natural neighbors. Being here can only happen by hearing. We all, teachers and learners, need to take the time in our studies to listen and experience what is around us. Without stopping and listening, we can never truly be here.