Kindergarten Through Twelfth-Grade Education for Sustainability

February 2003
Citation:
33
ELR 10117
Issue
2
Author
Carmela M. Federico, Jaimie P. Cloud, Jack Byrne, Keith Wheeler

The worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival—the issues now looming so large before us in the 21st century. It is not education, but education of a certain kind, that will save us.1

—David Orr

Seen from the lofty perspective of life in these United States, the current world seems to function pretty well. The Cato Institute recently published a book, It's Getting Better All the Time, in which they detail a vast array of statistics that point to increasing human well-being.2 Air and water in the United States are increasingly clean, and the cost of many goods (food, clothing, electronics, telecommunications) continue to decline as their quality increases. Why, then, do we need to think about changing our ways and our educational practices in order to assure a good life for future generations?

The reasons for doing so are accumulating, globally and regionally. Even in this country, if you scratch a little deeper, different truths emerge; other indicators paint a grimmer picture of contemporary American life. Many Americans are caught in a consumption treadmill—during the 1990s, economists and the media constantly bewailed our low savings rate, high personal bankruptcy rate, and historically high rate of credit card debt. Gallup polls and educators both provide evidence of the remarkable, and unprecedented, pessimism of our youth with regard to the future and to their future; this pessimism seems bleakest amongst inner-city, at-risk youth, but many American youth from all classes and all places seem to feel this way.3 The costs of such despairing views are high: many youth never reach their full potential and don't contribute their full talents and energy to the growth and development of our society.

[Editors' Note: In June 1992, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, the nations of the world formally endorsed the concept of sustainable development and agreed to a plan of action for achieving it. One of those nations was the United States. In August 2002, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, these nations gathered in Johannesburg to review progress in the 10-year period since UNCED and to identify steps that need to be taken next. Prof. John C. Dernbach has edited a book, Stumbling Toward Sustainability, that assesses progress made by the United States on sustainable development in the past 10 years and recommends next steps. The book, published by the Environmental Law Institute in July 2002, is comprised of chapters on various subjects by experts from around the country. This Article appears as a chapter in that book. Further information on Stumbling Toward Sustainability is available at www.eli.org or by calling 1-800-433-5120 or 202-939-3844.]

Carmela M. Federico is Associate Director of the Sustainability Education Center, Jaimie P. Cloud is President of the Sustainability Education Center. The Sustainability Education Center, in New York, New York, educates teachers, school administrators, youth, and communities about sustainability through workshops, projects, and curriculum materials. Jack Byrne is Project Director of the Center for a Sustainable Future, located in Shelburne, Vermont; Keith Wheeler is Director of the Center for a Sustainable Future. The Center's mission is to educate learners of all ages to act sustainably at a personal, family, community, and global scale.

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