Editorial Issue 83, Spring 2008


General Editors Tim Grant, Gail Littlejohn


Regional Editors


Canada Gareth Thomson Bob Adamson Raissa Marks Craig White Steve Daniel Janet Barlow Ann Coffey


Susan Hawkins Tina Jory


Barbara Hanbridge Remy Rodden


United States Francine Hutchinson Karen Schedler Helen de la Maza Mary Lou Smith Phillip Smith Kim Bailey Pat Sullivan Cathy Meyer


Shelene Codner


Laura Downey-Skochdopole Yvonne Meichtry Melanie Spencer Sandra Ryack-Bell Kathy Kinzig Bob Coulter Emily Lin


Bob Zuber Lois Nixon


Jody Hochadel Susie Shields


Catherine Stephenson Anne DiMonti Cynthia Carlisle


Rosalyn McKeown-Ice Steve Spurger Tim Brown Jen Cirillo


Dennis Yockers


Alberta (403) 678-0079 Manitoba (204) 261-7795


New Brunswick (506) 855-4144 Newfoundland (709) 834-9806


Northwest Territories (867) 873-7675 Nova Scotia (902) 494-7644 Ontario (613) 746-8668 PEI (902) 566-4170


Québec (514) 633-9412


Saskatchewan (866) 254-3825 Yukon (867) 667-3675


Alabama (256) 236-7942 Arizona (602) 266-4417 California (714) 838-8990 Connecticut (860) 455-0707 Florida (850) 526-3226 Georgia (770) 888-2696 Illinois (217) 322-2865 Indiana (812) 349-2805 Iowa (319) 404-1942 Kansas (785) 532-3322 Kentucky (859) 572-6380 Maine (207) 991-1561


Massachusetts (508) 993-6492 Minnesota (651) 222-7691 Missouri (314) 577-0219 Nevada (702) 895-2960 New York (212) 662-6238


North Carolina (919) 467-6474 Ohio (330) 847-8743


Oklahoma (405) 702-5166 Pennsylvania (724) 357-5689 Rhode Island (401) 245-7500 South Carolina (864) 882-3052 Tennessee (865) 482-6535 Texas (972) 395-3449 Utah (801) 596-8500 Vermont (802) 985-0331 Wisconsin (715) 346-4943


Board of Directors Judith Benson (SK), Pat Clarke (BC), Cam Collyer (Ont.), Tim Grant (Ont.), Gail Littlejohn (Ont.), Monika Thoma-Petit (Qué.), Della Webster (NB)


Green Teacher is a nonprofit organization incorporated in Canada.


Design and Production Cover illustration by James Paterson; cover design by Michael Kelley; printing by General Printers, Oshawa, Ontario, on acid-free paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance.


This issue is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.


Mailing costs in Canada are supported by the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program.


Contact Us 95 Robert Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2K5, Canada Tel: (416) 960-1244


Fax: (416) 925-3474


info@greenteacher.com www.greenteacher.com U.S. address: PO Box 452, Niagara Falls, NY 14304


A


T A NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL education conference here in Ontario a few years back, one of the keynote speakers delivered a very sobering report card on sustainability. Complete


with graphs, tables and statistics, his thorough but depressing analysis revealed that most global environmental trends were downward. The following day, an inspiring workshop on dealing with despair, presented by British Columbia educator Rick Kool, drew the highest attendance of any session at the conference. The juxtaposition was telling. In the last few years, much has changed. While most analysts would


still paint a dire picture of environmental trends, such a picture would be incomplete. Today, everywhere one looks there is a surge of public discussion of green solutions and a broad undercur- rent of recognition that such solutions are needed. Urban planners are designing mixed-use, intensified neighborhoods to reduce the urban footprint and lessen the need for cars. City councils are voting for bike lanes and an end to lawn herbicides. Developers are putting up “green” condos and office buildings that make their own energy, treat their own waste, and even provide for food production. Engineers are mimicking designs and processes in nature to reduce the energy and material inputs in manufac- turing processes. Urban farmers’ markets and com- munity-supported agriculture programs are giving a boost to sustainable methods of farming. Here in our own backyard, a neighbor who drives an old gas-guzzling station wagon surprised us recently by asking whether, from a cradle-to-grave perspective,


she would be right to purchase a hybrid car, considering the eventual need to dispose of all those batteries. When terms like “carbon footprint,” “LEED-registered” and


“product life-cycle analysis” begin to be heard in everyday conversation and the popular media, you know our society has begun to change in fundamental ways. Whether or not we are already on the slope of the “Third Wave” of environmentalism, as Mike Weilbacher describes it in our lead article, we soon will be. And, as Weilbacher urges, it is an ideal time to step back from our routines and think about how best to take advantage of this growing environmental awareness to further the goals of environmental learning programs. A public that is hungry for knowl- edge and anxious for change is a public more likely to be supportive of environmental education for their kids. And kids who grow up in a milieu of environmental awareness and green innovation are kids who are more likely to become green problem-solvers themselves, adults who embrace the challenge of creating a society and economy in which environmental- ism is no longer a fringe idea and where sustainable living is the norm. There is no question that we have created huge and seemingly


insurmountable environmental problems, but we believe that the growing awareness of these problems is cause for optimism, not despair. As always, we hope you will find ideas in this issue that renew your own optimism for the future and your faith in the power of environmental education to help turn problems into realistic solutions.


Tim Grant and Gail Littlejohn, Editors


Page 2


GREEN TEACHER 83


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56