Environmental Education Standard - Conflict Essays - Free Essays

Environmental Education Standard - Conflict Essays - Free Essays Environmental Education Standard - Conflict The Key to Life or Death: An Environmental Education Standard Joe woke up one morning and looked out his window. What he saw startled him: a barren landscape, a desolate land for miles, and the absence of vegetation. He got up, rubbed his eyes, and thought what he witnessed was all part of a dream. Joe walked outside, only to be thrown back by the horrendous smell of toxic chemicals, heat generated from the greenhouse effect and gruesome after effects of acid rain. There are rusted and eroded cars lying around; millions of dead ants scour the baked topsoil. His final thought, before he radioactively melted, how did this all happen? Life on earth could possibly be like this if people do not change their ways in which they handle the environment. If people do not change their current treatment of the environment, a desolate uninhabitable earth will replace this pristine planet. The scientific facts are there to support that we have been destroying our environment, funding is out there to support groups to help the environment, and educational programs are in place to bring awareness. So why are humans still hurting the earth? One possibility is the teachers. It seems that the educators do not teach about conservation or how to save the environment. Their reasoning stems from the fact that the teaching materials are controversial and confusing. If it is not the teachers, then it must be the educational materials. In order to bring about changes to peoples treatment of the environment, universal standards in the curriculum and methodology of environmental education must be developed and implemented at the educational level. Governments throughout the globe fund projects to increase ecological awareness through environmental education; unfortunately, the education being taught is riddled with problems. The problem with people is that there is so much confusion and conflicting opinions about both environmental issues and environmentally responsible behavior (Smith-Se bato 33). The confusion arises because, on one hand, critics of environmental education say that people are being fed doomsday visions of the future and biased and incomplete scientific information about everything, while advocates have stated that the education that people receive are sensible and give a better understanding of human impacts on the environment (Schimdt 1828). These doomsday visions misinform people by telling them that one wrong action against the environment will lead to the earths destruction (Schimdt 1828). Granted that this information usually comes from extremist groups, it does lend to the clout in environmental education. The biased information stems from textbooks that make readers feel guilty about the way they live: In the United States, fuel is wasted and used carelessly. The United States has 6 percent of the worlds population but uses 35 percent of the energy available in the worldHeated pools and hot tubs are seen as necessities in some parts of the U nited States. This is not true for other countries. (Schimdt 1829)This is an example of bias in textbooks. From this, one gets the impression that U.S. citizens are the problem and if an American reader was to glance at this, he or she would feel guilty about the luxuries that he or she owns. The guilt factor, while it is one way for allowing people to realize that their actions and comforts are damaging the environment, also hinders progress and productivity. Critics say that education should not make people feel awful for their actions, but let them realize that they need to change their habits and treatment of the environment. Advocates would see the example as fact, and it should make people realize, specifically U.S. citizens, that their living habits are the only contributors to the deterioration of the environment. Change should come to the U.S. citizens, because it is proven that their actions hurt the environment. These two opposing sides provide a problem in environmental education because they are always arguing what should and should not be taught to people. The solution would be to organize the information in a complete, unquestionable manner, so that people will be aware of the environmental problem and stop their destructive actions. Once the education materials and practices are set in place, teaching it to