In this timely book, curriculum expert Gerald A. Lieberman provides an innovative guide to creating and implementing a new type of environmental education that combines standards-based lessons on English language arts, math, history, and science with community investigations and service learning projects.
By connecting academic content with local investigations, environmental study becomes not simply another thing added to the classroom schedule but an engaging, thought-provoking context for learning multiple subjects.
The projects outlined in the book further students’ understanding of the way human and natural “systems” interact locally and globally, and provide the next generation with the knowledge necessary for making decisions that will be critical to their future—and ours.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi INTRODUCTION 1
PART ONE: Introducing Environment-Based Education 9 1: Why the Environment Belongs in Today’s Classrooms 11 2: Standards and the Making of EBE 27 3: The Benefits of EBE 45 4: Implementing EBE in a School, District, or State 63
PART TWO: Creating and Implementing an EBE Program 93 5: Planning for Success 95 6: Choosing an Environmental Context 123 7: Connecting Standards to an Environmental Context 147 8: EBE Instructional Materials and Resources 169 9: Student Assessment and Program Evaluation 189
APPENDIX A: California’s Environmental Principles and Concepts 207
APPENDIX B: Summary of the EBE Research Data 211
APPENDIX C: Types of Support That Stakeholders and Partners Can Provide 221
APPENDIX D: Examples of EBE Community Partners 223
NOTES 229 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 239 INDEX 241
Gerald A. Lieberman is the founding director of the State Education and Environment Roundtable, a cooperative endeavour of sixteen state departments of education, which developed the EIC (Environment as an Integrating Context) Model for environmental study. He also served as the principal consultant for the development of California’s Education and the Environment Initiative, a curriculum now in use by K–12 classrooms throughout the state.