Ecological value and environmental education

Background/Question/Methods Our ecological or environmental values are traditional values that predate the “value-free” economic values formed at the beginning of the twentieth century out of a naïve mix of utilitarianism, positivism, and pragmatism. Ecological values have arisen out a set of disciplines in the sciences and the humanities including natural history science, biology, geology, and botany, poetry and prose natural writing, landscape gardening, and landscape painting and photography. These values can generally be found in the purpose statements of environmental laws. For example, the Endangered Species Act is supposed to promote “aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value” in order to inhibit “economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and Conservation.” Tying ecological value education to the values to be promoted in environmental law and teaching them in the context of the history of ideas out of which they originally developed is one way to overcome opposition from opponents, for example, in the Culture War in the United States. Because these environmental values developed within a specific cultural context, educators from other cultures should start with the history of ideas behind the values in their own culture rather than borrowing Western values which may appear colonial and imperialistic outside of their original historical contexts. Countries with indigenous populations could and should incorporate a multicultural perspective to help promote better understanding between major cultural groups within the society.

Results/Conclusions The aim of this approach is to produce environmental education materials that will be as uncontroversial as possible within a given society and will clarify and build on existing ideas and intuitions within that society. Unlike the relativism of the value clarification approach of the past, aimed at avoiding the charge of indoctrination, this social value clarification approach can be presented as a way of helping citizens understand the evolution of their collective values within their specific society.