Abstract
Salt of the Earth: Creating a Culture of Environmental Respect and Sustainability was a special national conference of environmental educators, researchers and policy-makers sponsored by a partnership of the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication (EECOM), Interpretation Canada and the Nova Scotia Environmental Network in October 2006. It was a diverse gathering of more than 300 people. These proceedings represent a selection of the peer-reviewed academic papers that were presented at the conference, which are now made available on line for all participants and the academic and practitioner communities at large.
"Salt of the Earth" was chosen as the theme to harken back to the local working people who have lived close to the land with commonsense and a respect for each other and the natural world. Traditionally they are indigenous peoples, farmers, fishers, parents, elders, craftspeople, shopkeepers. They are people working in their communities for a healthy world. Today the circle must be expanded to include young people, immigrants from other cultures and regions, interpreters and teachers, to name a few. We must combine traditional knowledge and values with new ideas and practices to bring about greater respect for each other and the earth.
The vision and purpose of the conference was to explore how we can use education to inspire and transform our human and ecological communities for the benefit of future generations, nature and ourselves. It is not surprising that this diverse group of papers is tied together by this vision and makes a very positive contribution to it.
We have organized the proceedings from those that are more theoretically oriented to those that have a more applied focus. The Elshof article, entitled Interdisciplinarity and Worldview Work to Foster Environmental Education is a philosophical and conceptual call to action to revolutionize and address environmental education at a practical level in teacher training and public school classrooms. There is tremendous urgency to do this given the state of the world environmental crisis, and Elshof provides conceptual prescriptions for action. Paul Heintzman follows with a description of how the philosophy of Bill Mason can be a model for renewed environmental education efforts in classrooms and communities, in keeping with a new interdisciplinary and grass roots approach.
The Conrad paper on the development of a community based environmental monitoring network and Courthoy's contribution on the interpretive possibilities of storytelling place in communities argue for tools that link the research expertise of the university with the practical, commonsense expertise of local citizens. They are tools through which the "salt of the earth" can inform knowledge and environmental program design and action. Bushell et. al describe a similar process in a challenging international context, linking the resources of a university in Japan with community environmental education in Nepal. Mrazek in turn examines how the environmental education resources of the university can attempt to promote a "pedagogy of place" and action within the university community
Finally, the Macleod article examines the roles and challenges of community members, specifically organic farmers, as environmental educators in themselves. Clearly they would value additional resources from universities and government to assist them in an educational role that is somewhat beyond what would be expected of farmers.
The message is clear from these papers. Community members have a lot to contribute to environmental education and their expertise needs to be recognized. There are numerous ways that they can and need to be supported by the theory, research and knowledge base of the university. Time is short to accomplish the major social changes required with respect to moving toward sustainability.
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Copyright © Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE) ISSN 1205-5352 Published in cooperation with the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication (EECOM) and Lakehead University |
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