"Any ideas?" the teacher asks the class and adds "the answer was in the story."

"The bird brought the seed!" exclaims another child.

But the first child persists, "Seeds can't grow without soil!"

"You are right!" interjects the teacher. "So where does the soil come from?" she asks and reminds them again that the answer is in the story. A light bulb goes off in another child. He quickly raises his hand as he announces. "From the rocks, and that takes a long time." The bell rings, the moment is over, but for some of the children, it was a powerful moment -- one that might help define their future interest in protecting this planet.

"All education is environmental education. By what is included or excluded, students are taught that they are part of or apart from the natural world," says Professor David Orr, Chair of Environmental Studies program at Oberlin College, author of Earth in Mind, a prescriptive book on Education, Environment and the Human Prospect.

For the past seven years, Charlottesville-Virginia based Environmental Education Center ("EEC") has been awakening the love of the environment in students and assisting teachers in applying local environmental issues to science lessons in the classroom. The incorporation of such issues as the deteriorating air quality in Shenandoah National Park, the effects of floods on Sugar Hollow, illegal dumping in the storm drains in Charlottesville and land use decisions which are resulting in local habitats being fragmented has made the relevance of science knowledge apparent to students and has helped to answer the often asked question: 'What do we need to know this for anyhow?"

EEC's mission, simply stated, "is to develop a locally-oriented program of environmental education for the Charlottesville/Albemarle community and its schools that encourages informed participation in the issues, decision and projects that shape our environment."

• to develop environmental curricula that provide a local context for learning;
• to establish a network of accessible natural areas available for study and hands- on projects; and
• to coordinate positive programs and projects with a focus on school/community partnerships.

One important tool utilized by the EEC in accomplishing these objectives is holding teacher workshops. A group of 15 science teachers from four area schools are currently attending four workshops this Spring to form the nucleus of the Schoolyard Habitat Network. Previous EEC teacher workshops have focused on building the local environmental literacy of both public and independent school teachers. Did they know which watershed their school resided? Did they know what animals and plants were on the school grounds? Were they aware of and using local restoration projects as a means of meeting Science SOLs? Did they incorporate historical information and stories about the Charlottesville region into their lesson plans?

The Schoolyard Habitat Project addresses a very real need for teachers. How can they teach about the environment without much of a natural environment within which to work? This issue is raised and addressed by the National Research Council in its National Science Education Standards. "...The classroom is a limited environment. The school science program must extend beyond the walls of the school to the resources of the community...the physical environment in and around the school can be used as a living laboratory for the study of natural phenomena." The project is predicated on the belief that a school science program extends beyond the limited classroom environment, beyond the walls of the school, to the resources of the community and the physical environment around the school. Whether the school is located in a densely populated urban area, a sprawling suburb, a small town or a rural area, the environment can and should be used as a resource for science study." ( NSEA, pg. 45)

• help teachers establish habitats on school ground or nearby property;
• review with teachers science concepts and processes relevant to habitat studies;
• assist teachers in using these habitats to enhance their teaching of science (and other related subjects), and address many of the new Virginia Science Standards Of Learnings (SOLs) ; and to
• develop a Habitat Technology Network that will link local students and teachers through the Internet

• Exploring environmental science and habitat studies information on the Internet
• Developing Habitat Home Pages
• Creating data sharing opportunities through the EEC Habitat Network to allow students to understand the importance of scientific studies in making community decisions
• Developing baseline studies of stream health, animal and plant diversity, soil conditions, weather and the effects of humans.

The Schoolyard Habitat Project is geared toward teachers in grades K-8. This project is in its second year and has brought teachers together at the host school sites to develop plans for developing school ground habitats, implement parts of the habitat plans, share curricular ideas and develop web applications of the project. Content issues have stressed a greater understanding of the biological and chemical processes that take place in the natural world around students, as well as the personal and societal issues involved in habitat protection, use and destruction.

Bringing teachers together during a workshop is just the beginning of the networking. The EEC hopes the computer will continue to link these teachers in an on-going effort to improve habitats on their school grounds and to share their successes and frustrations.

This will be done through EEC's Habitat Home pages which can be seen at http://avenue.gen.va.us/Community/Environ/EnvironEdCenter/. The Web site will both serve as a resource for teachers and students involved in this project and as a repository of data collected by students, teacher and citizens at the Schoolyard and community habitats. Similar successful web efforts have been launched in other communities.

Three sites of particular interest are:

• Nature Mapping in Washington State at http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/nm/wildlife;

   

• Cornell University's Bird Site at http://www.ornith.cornell.edu/cs/main.html and

   

• George Mason University's River monitoring site at http://www.gmu.edu/bios/potomac/jpp.

Like these other sites, the EEC Web site will provide teachers with practical curricular ideas and develop simple protocols for the data collection. The importance of standardizing the collection methods, so that comparisons can be made and quality control can be maintained are being stressed as this site is being developed. The site will also contain suggested follow-up projects for the students that will help them apply the science they learn in the classroom to a better understanding of the issues facing the community's environment. Examples of those issues include the effects of the fertilizer and pesticide runoff from farms on stream quality, plant diversity on the grounds of rural versus urban schools, land use near the schools and its affects on Schoolyard habitats and stream health.

The Habitat Project takes students out of the classroom into the real world where the studies they conduct can have some impact on their own community. For example, if students at Cale Elementary School notice a decline in bird species nesting on their property, they might the causes and how they can reverse the trend? They might also look at EEC's Web site to see if the problem is as apparent at a school in the Western part of the Albemarle County as it is in the urban ring? These are the types of questions which could be answered by students and teachers involved in the Schoolyard Habitat Project. The EEC is hoping the students' data that is collected on a regular basis can be continuously updated on the web. The site would become a useful tool not only for educators, but also for government agencies and others interested in monitoring the progress of Charlottesville and Albemarle toward reaching its environmental goals.

The technological component of this project would not have been possible without the support of U.Va. Professor Glen Bull and the work of many U.Va. Curry School of Education Instructional Technology Graduate Students, who have been involved with all aspects of development from designing web pages, to developing interactive games for the Habitat Network to weeding out impractical web ideas. There have been several successful ideas like the "Hanging in the Habitat Urban Animal Game," developed by the team of Elizabeth Evans, Ann Kovalchick and Laura Byrd, designed for elementary school children to learn more about urban animals' methods for surviving. What does a snake eat, where does it live and find water in the city? Students learn by playing this interactive game.

Other ideas have been a bit too successful! An effort to have children write questions to a technological pen pal called Professor Pawprint has been a nightmare to manage. Since this writer is Professor Pawprint whose expertise is in environmental issues, not animals, the questions asked by children and adults from all over the country have required hours of research and many times long delays in responding. A sampling of the kinds of questions posed to Professor Pawprint follows: "Is the yellow fin tuna a warm-blooded fish?" "How do I scare away Chicken Hawks which are destroying the top of the local church?" Other unusual questions included: " I rescued a bird. How much should I feed it and what should I feed it?" To this person, Professor Pawprint responded, that a limited experience with bird rescues ended in disaster in second grade when the itty, bitty bird was overfed and ended up dying from a burst stomach. Why not call a local veterinarian or animal rescue agency was the response. Another question still has Professor Pawprint baffled? "What do the gophers do with all that dirt they dig out of their holes? You never see a pile at either end." Anyone want to take a guess at that one! A man who has his own Homepage on Birds wrote asking why he never sees squirrel scat on his bird feeder. A tenth grade student doing a report on alligators want an encyclopedic response to this question. "I am a tenth grade student doing a report on alligators. Can you tell me about their respiratory, excretory, transport, reproductive and nervous systems?" First of all, even if Professor Pawprint were an expert on all of these subjects, should a faceless, nameless person be answering a questions like these? No doubt they are entertaining, but is there any educational value of this activity? If children can find answers to their questions so easily, are they losing their abilities to conduct research through the library or through direct experience? Will cyberspace chats replace real learning?

Rather than abandon this idea, the EEC is hoping to improve this interactive program in several ways. For one thing, students will be asked to search three other sources first and list them before asking their question. The site may issue a disclaimer that Professor Pawprint is more knowledgeable about issues concerning Central Virginia plant, animals and habitats than those that occur in the Arctic, and lastly, many of these questions will be shared with interested local teachers and students through the Habitat Network who might want to research the questions and post the answers on line.

The next technological design challenge involves the creation of the interactive data collection forms. While many of these issues are technical in nature, such as will the forms be simple enough for all grade levels, will the teachers be able to utilize the new interactive programming with older versions of Netscape and how will the EEC maintain this information with limited staff and time. There are even more troubling issues such as will the web curriculum supplement or supplant the activities of the students outside in their habitats?

What is the legitimate role of technology in environmental education? Some people within the field believe technology is to blame for the environmental mess that faces our children. Chet Bowers, Professor of Education at Portland State University, has written extensively on education, modernity and the ecological crisis.

The primary relationship essential to long-term sustainability requires conserving and renewing knowledge rather than embracing every new technology...The problem of a computer centered culture is that it leads to treating the ecological crisis as further evidence that more systematic planning and efficient technologies are needed. (Bowers, pg. 88)

Do computers "de-place" students, creating what Bowers calls a "mass, rootless society?" (Bowers, 1987) David Orr believes the modern society has left people without "a deep concept of place as a repository of meaning, history, livelihood, healing, recreation, and sacred memory and as a source of materials, energy, food and collective action." (Orr, pg. 163) One of the most respected conservationists of modern times, Wendell Berry, puts it another way: "Without a complex knowledge of one's place, and without the faithfulness to one's place on which such knowledge depends, it is inevitable that the place will be used carelessly, and eventually destroyed." (Berry, 1972) This issue is particularly troubling to the EEC, which since its founding in 1990 has pushed strongly for locally-based education that gives children a sense of place in their community. Computers have made us all part of the global community, but not it the way that encourages true passion and a sense of connection. Perhaps the most important question -- will the knowledge generated by computers lead to a more sustainable future for our children?

These questions and issues are begging for answers, but the time for reflection is short as the technological wave carries us along. The EEC has decided that failure to acknowledge the important role of technology in modern society might result in the organization not be taken seriously by educational institutions. And Center staff recognize in order to keep the environmental message out front, all forms of communication, particularly those methods that have current appeal -- among them computers-- must be utilized. Perhaps the greatest issue, will the virtual habitat replace the natural one. Will seeing nature on the television or on the computer address human's need to connect with the natural world. Edwin O Wilson, a world renowned Biologist and Professor at Harvard University says most definitely no. In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Biophilia, Wilson points out that the artificial world, while it can be designed to mimic the natural world, will be unable to replace it .

Visualize a beautiful and peaceful world, where the horizon is rimmed by snowy peaks reaching into a perfect sky. In the central valley, waterfalls tumble down the faces of steep cliffs into crystalline lake. On the crest of the terminal bluff sites a house containing food and every technological convenience. ..The setting is the most visually pleasing that human imagination can devise. Except for one thing -- it contains no life whatever. ..Where are we? It is a tomb built on a lunar landscape with air and elaborate contrivances added. This is a world (and more than a theoretical possibility in the age of space travel) where people would find their sanity at risk....Artifacts are incomparably poorer than the life they are designed to mimic. To dwell on them exclusively is to fold inwardly over and over, losing detail at each translation, shrinking with each cycle, finally merging into the lifeless facade of which they are composed. People react more quickly and fully to organisms than to machines. They will walk into nature to explore hunt and garden if given the chance. ..." (Wilson, pg. 115- 116)

American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1990). Science for all Americans: Project 2061. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bowers, C.A.(1995) Educating for an Ecologically Sustainable Culture: Rethinking Moral Education, Creativity, Intelligence and Other Modern Orthodoxies. State University of New York Press.

National Science Board (1994, November) Draft: National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

National Science Teachers Association. (1993). Scope, sequence, and coordination of secondary school science, Vol. 1: The content core, a guide for curriculum designers. Washington, DC: National Science Teachers Association

Orr, David W.( 1994) Earth In Mind. Washington, D.C. and Covelo, California. Island Press.

Wilson, Edward O. (1984) Biolphilia. Cambridge, Massachussettes. Harvard University Press.

Andrea Trank, M.Ed. Science Education, is Projects Director of the Environmental Education Center. She has operated environmental programs for seven years. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Curriculum. She hopes to be finished by the time she is 40 in 1998. She is a former television and radio journalist and has also been a lobbyist. She can be reached via email at: atrank@virginia.edu