Resources For Environmental Literacy

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.

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.

Integrating environmental education throughout the curriculum.

Most scientists believe that Earth's climate is changing and in fact heating up. However, they don't all agree about the rate of change, the extent of the impact on our environment, or what can or should be done about it. This module is based on the premise that understanding what influences Earth's energy balance is necessary (though not sufficient) to make sound decisions about climate change. Among the key concepts: how weather and climate relate to transfer of energy in and out of Earth's atmosphere, and how human activities have changed Earth's land, oceans, and atmosphere.

Scientists have discovered that a large number of species are becoming extinct. What are the consequences of this decreasing biodiversity for us humans and for our planet? This module examines biodiversity through key concepts such as how relationships among species influence an overall system, what affects the extinction has had on Earth through its history, and how to use fossil records to study species that are now extinct.

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.