Beyond Ecophobia

Presents a collection of essays combining anecdotal and theoretical insights into environmental ethics and human ecology to help foster environmentally responsible students.

Beyond Ecophobia speaks to teachers, parents, and others interested in nurturing in children the ability to understand and care for nature. This expanded version of one of Orion Magazine's most popular articles includes descriptions of developmentally appropriate environmental education activities and a list of related children's books.

This book offers the term 'ecophobia' as a way of understanding and organizing representations of contempt for the natural world. Estok argues that this vocabulary is both necessary to the developing area of ecocritical studies and for our understandings of the representations of 'Nature' in Shakespeare.

The author details and celebrates an approach to teaching that emphasizes connections among school, community, and environment.

The Ecophobia Hypothesis grows out of the sense that while the theory of biophilia has productively addressed ideal human affinities with nature, the capacity of “the biophilia hypothesis” as an explanatory model of human/ environment relations is limited. The biophilia hypothesis cannot adequately account for the kinds of things that are going on in the world, things so extraordinary that we are increasingly coming to understand the current age as “the Anthropocene.” Building on the usefulness of the biophilia hypothesis, this book argues that biophilia exists on a broader spectrum that has not been adequately theorized. The Ecophobia Hypothesis claims that in order to contextualize biophilia (literally, the “love of life”) and the spectrum on which it sits, it is necessary to theorize how very un-philic human uses of the natural world are. This volume offers a rich tapestry of connected, comparative discussions about the new material turn and the urgent need to address the agency of genes, about the complexities of 21st century representations of ecophobia, and about how imagining terror interpenetrates the imagining of an increasingly oppositional natural environment. Furthermore, this book proposes that ecophobia is one root cause that explains why ecomedia—a veritably thriving industry—is having so little measurable impact in transforming our adaptive capacities. The ecophobia hypothesis offers an equation that determines the variable spectrums of the Anthropocene by measuring the ecophobic implications and inequalities of speciesism and the entanglement of environmental ethics with the writing of literary madness and pain. This work also investigates how current ecophobic perspectives systemically institutionalize the infrastructures of industrial agriculture and waste management. This is a book about revealing ecophobia and prompting transformational change.

"The National Wildlife Federation's GreenHour.org is a website devoted to giving parents and caregivers the information, tools, and inspiration they need to get their kids and themselves outside. The NWF recommends that parents give their kids a Green Hour every day a time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world, which can take place in a garden, a backyard, the park down the street, or any place that provides safe and accessible green space where children can learn and play. With the same goal of offering families fun ways to explore nature, the book is a field guide to outdoor adventure offering activities, fun facts, science lessons, and practical advice for engaging children in outdoor nature play that presents teachable moments and open-ended exploration of the natural world. Here are a range of starting points for nature-themed outdoor activities and explorations, beginning in your own backyard and progressively moving farther afield, all of them adaptable for children of different ages, abilities, and learning styles"

An examination of the secret world of children that shows how important special places are to a child's development.