Monday, August 6, 2007: 10:00 AM-11:30 AM
B1&2, San Jose McEnery Convention Center
SS 5 - ESA Vice President's Summit on Ecological Literacy
If not now, when? If not us, who? It is time for our community - ecologists - to advance a vision for ecological literacy that will inspire and guide the urgent work ahead of us in fostering environmental citizenship among all Americans. Building on the Vice President Symposium in 2000 on Ecological Thinking, the Vice President's Emerging Issues Education Forum at the 2005 meeting on Ecology Teaching in K-12 Schools - Status and Vision, and the 2006 “What every citizen should know about ecology” workshop, this Summit will provide input, impetus, and direction to the current effort to define and promote ecological literacy. The goal is not a static list of standards, but rather a diverse set of compelling and dynamic frameworks and concepts comprising the tools people need to think, understand, choose, and act in the environment. In addition, we will begin to identify the resources – human, material, programmatic and intellectual – that are needed to give all citizens these tools. This winter a call for ecologists and educators to identify the most important ecological understandings needed for environmental citizenship will be published in Frontiers. People registering for the Summit will receive a summary of the results of this effort, along with advanced readings and specific topics or questions to focus the discussion during the Summit. The ideas generated at the Summit will provide input for work over the following year of work leading up to session(s) at the 2008 meeting where the theme of Ecological Literacy is under consideration. An informal open discussion will follow the session into the lunch break.
Organizer:	Alan Berkowitz, Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Co-organizers:	Carol Brewer, University of Montana Margaret Lowman, New College of Florida

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