Environmental Literacy

A network of educational reformers reports on projects that are equipping today's children with the tools of ecological consciousness and systems thinking that will help humankind live more sustainably on the Earth tomorrow.

Integrating environmental education throughout the curriculum.

This text presents the key concepts of environmental science for those who are not natural scientists. It offers a way to improve environmental literacy - the capacity to understand the connections between humans and their environment. There are reading lists for each topic covered.

A comprehensive review and analysis of environmental literacy within the context of environmental science and sustainable development. Approaching the topic from multiple perspectives, the book explores the development of human understanding of the environment and human-environment interactions in the fields of biology, psychology, sociology, economics and industrial ecology.

Environmental literacy and education is not simply a top-down process of disseminating correct attitudes, values and beliefs. Rather, it is one that incorporates and facilitates a dialogue with audiences of different persuasions and at all levels of engagement, to help highlight and co-produce consensual solutions to the major eco-challenges of our time. Exploring the growing power and influence of media formats and outlets like YouTube and gaming, alongside fictional and documentary film, this book considers new modes of environmental literacy to ascertain the effectiveness of digital and filmic stimuli on an audience’s perception of environmental issues, and its specific impact on environmental action. Drawing on extensive research across a broad range of media formats, Brereton establishes how environmental narratives and meanings are created and being received by contemporary audiences. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental communication and media, eco-criticism and environmental humanities more broadly.

To prepare today's students to meet growing global environmental challenges, colleges and universities must make environmental literacy a core learning goal for all students, in all disciplines. But what should an environmentally literate citizen know? What teaching and learning strategies are most effective in helping students think critically about human-environment interactions and sustainability, and integrate what they have learned in diverse settings? Educators from the natural and social sciences and the humanities discuss the critical content, skills, and affective qualities essential to environmental literacy. This volume is an invaluable resource for developing integrated, campus-wide programs to prepare students to think critically about, and to work to create, a sustainable society.

This book explores various and distinct aspects of environmental health literacy (EHL) from the perspective of investigators working in this emerging field and their community partners in research. Chapters aim to distinguish EHL from health literacy and environmental health education in order to classify it as a unique field with its own purposes and outcomes. Contributions in this book represent the key aspects of communication, dissemination and implementation, and social scientific research related to environmental health sciences and the range of expertise and interest in EHL. Readers will learn about the conceptual framework and underlying philosophical tenets of EHL, and its relation to health literacy and communications research. Special attention is given to topics like dissemination and implementation of culturally relevant environmental risk messaging, and promotion of EHL through visual technologies. Authoritative entries by experts also focus on important approaches to advancing EHL through community-engaged research and by engaging teachers and students at an early age through developing innovative STEM curriculum. The significance of theater is highlighted by describing the use of an interactive theater experience as an approach that enables community residents to express themselves in non-verbal ways.

Resources for Environmental Literacy offers a fresh way to enhance your classroom productivity. The environmental context it provides can improve students' science learning. The modules offer appropriate teaching strategies plus high-quality resources to deepen your students' understanding of key environmental topics.