Toward Better Environmental Education Jane…

        Toward Better
   Environmental Education
                 Jane S. Shaw




        Economic Policy Lecture

                   Series 2

                 March 2003




ISEE
Institute for
Study of Economics
and the Environment
A unit of Lindenwood University's
Center for the Study of American
Culture and Values
    This publication is a more thorough discussion of
the principles outlined in a November 7, 2002 pres-
entation in Lindenwood University's Economic
Policy Lecture Series. The Lecture Series is designed
to engage students, faculty and off-campus guests of
Lindenwood University in discussion of the interplay
of our private enterprise economy with environmen-
tal protection. These lectures are published in order to
afford a variety of audiences across the nation the
opportunity to benefit from the careful scholarship
that undergirds these presentations.
    The Institute for Study of Economics and the
Environment (ISEE) directs the lecture series, often
partnering with a division of the University to host
the lecture. ISEE is a program of teaching and
research at Lindenwood University. Its mission is "to
improve student and public understanding of the
basic economic concepts that can be used to guide
effective and efficient environmental policy making."
The Institute operates within the National Center for
the Study of American Culture and Values at
Lindenwood.
    Funding for ISEE is unrestricted, ensuring unbi-
ased and independent research. The Institute is an
integral part of Lindenwood University, which has
been granted tax-exempt status under section 501(c)
(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
    Donations can be made to the Institute for Study
of Economics and the Environment at the following
address:

Institute for Study of Economics
and the Environment
Lindenwood University
209 South Kingshighway
St. Charles, MO 63301



Copyright (c) 2003 by the Institute for Study of
Economics and the Environment, Lindenwood
University, St. Charles, MO.
All rights reserved.
        Toward Better
   Environmental Education
                   Jane S. Shaw
    Tom Furrer, a science teacher at Casa Grande
High School near San Francisco, remembered a creek
that he used to visit as a child. To help his suburban
students appreciate the outdoors, he wanted to bring
them there. But when he rediscovered Adobe Creek
after so many years, he found it to be a mere trickle,
with treeless banks of hard dirt. What little water
remained was full of washing machines, box springs,
and other junk. It looked dead.
    It wasn't utterly dead, however. Someone had
protected a few pools where steelhead trout could still
spawn and somehow make their way to the ocean.
Furrer challenged his students to build on that effort
and restore the creek. The future of the steelheads
"belongs to your generation, not mine," he told them.
"You'll be leading this battle" (McConnell 1999, 81).
    His students formed a club, the United Anglers of
Casa Grande High School. First, they pulled the junk
out of the stream and carried it away in their pickups.
Then they planted willow tree cuttings along the
stream to end the erosion. Eventually, they started a
hatchery that would nurture trout and salmon hatch-
lings for Adobe Creek and other streams.
    It took more than ten years. Some of those stu-
dents were well into adulthood--and some of them
biologists--by the time a dam was removed and the
steelhead trout could flow freely. By then, they had
created a tradition and learned a lot about ecosystems,
fish, and human nature.
                            ***
    Jack Stauder, a cultural anthropologist, teaches an
environmental course at the University of
Massachusetts at Dartmouth. One holiday he visited
his sister, a fan of the radio talk show host Rush

Jane S. Shaw is a senior associate at the Political
Economy Research Center in Bozeman, Montana.
She is co-author of Facts not Fear: A Parents' Guide
to Teaching Children About the Environment (1999).

                          1
Limbaugh.
     Hearing Limbaugh talk about environmental
issues, Stauder was "both fascinated and scandal-
ized." Limbaugh minimized the severity of environ-
mental problems-- "flying in the face of what I knew
about the threats to our environment," says Stauder
(Stauder 1999, 15). He decided that when he got back
to his university he would write an article refuting
Limbaugh's claims.
     But once Stauder became engaged in this
research, he was stunned. It turned out that Limbaugh
wasn't so off base, after all. Reputable scientists, in
some cases, backed up Limbaugh's positions. This
forced Stauder to rethink his teaching. "I changed my
environmental course from a lecture format to one
emphasizing research and discussion," he says
(Stauder 1999, 21). Students took on specific issues
such as acid rain and global warming and examined
them critically. "Students enjoyed it, especially the
fact that they were hearing both sides of the issue
fully and fairly presented," he said (Stauder 1999,
21).
                           ***
     Until her retirement a few years ago from a school
district near Denver, Kathryn Ratté used environmen-
tal issues to help her students think critically. But it
was hard to find good materials. She wrote in an
essay:
      I don't want exercises in programmed learn-
   ing. I want experiential activities, with supple-
   mental background readings and data, in which
   students must process information and observa-
   tions and draw and support conclusions. The
   best way to do this is to offer real problems in
   real contexts, with real, identified people.
      Give me a case study of an identifiable Amazon
   basin family making the choice between slash-
   and-burn agriculture and letting the rain forest
   remain as it is. Or present an interview with a
   Brazilian rancher deciding between clearing
   timber for gazing land and letting the rain forest
   remain. Give me the history of an African village
   where crops are destroyed by elephants and
   poachers can be put to death (Ratté 1999, 11).
     Ratté found such cases. Instead of treating envi-
ronmental issues as a morality tale, in which good
                             2
environmentalist "cops" assail bad polluting "rob-
bers," her students learned about choices and trade-
offs.
    Three teachers. Three illustrations of outstanding
environmental education. If this were the way that
most high school and college students learned about
the environment, education about the natural world
would be rewarding for teacher, student, and parent ­
and non-controversial as well.

         Environmental Education Today

    All too often, this is not the case. Frequently,
instead of science, there is advocacy. Instead of
understanding, there is simplistic morality. Instead of
analysis, there is "group think."
    Evidence that environmental education has gone
awry has been accumulating since the early 1990s,
when parents began to notice their children coming
home with strange ideas about the natural world.
Parents were even condemned for working for the oil
or chemical industry or for driving cars. As one par-
ent wrote a letter to the New York Times around Earth
Day, 1997, "I have noticed a disturbing trend. With
each passing school year, my children are more con-
vinced that humans and technology are bad for the
planet ..." (Maxwell 1997, A28).
    Some of the examples were so striking that even
environmental magazines (such as Audubon) pub-
lished articles suggesting that the schools were going
too far, distorting environmental issues and disturbing
children. In one article, the mother of a six-year-old
child noticed that her daughter seemed sad as she was
about to go to bed and asked why. "They killed trees
to make my bed," was the reply (Cardozo 1994, 112).

"With each passing school year, my children are more
convinced that humans and technology are bad for
the planet . . . "

    Mounting numbers of anecdotes were followed by
more comprehensive attempts to identify whether
there is a serious problem or not. Because the
American school system is decentralized, it is impos-
sible to make sweeping claims about a subject like
environmental science. In some places, the subject is
                         3
not taught at all; where it is taught, it is usually inte-
grated into science or social science classes. There is
no standardized test for environmental knowledge.
    However, several reviews have confirmed that
many widely used textbooks treat environmental top-
ics with inaccurate science, an emphasis on advocacy,
and unbalanced descriptions. Facts, Not Fear, a book
that I had the privilege of co-authoring with Michael
Sanera in 1996, describes how popular middle school
and high school textbooks treated fourteen environ-
mental issues such as acid rain, global warming, and
water pollution at that time. We found that environ-
mental education skips the basics, pushing students
into complex and controversial topics such as endan-
gered species preservation and global warming with-
out establishing a sufficient scientific basis. In short,
education can play second fiddle to emotionalism and
political activism (Sanera and Shaw 1999, 1).
    To illustrate the dangers of global warming, sev-
eral textbooks published pictures of how flooded
cities might look if the ice caps melted ­ including
drawings of New York with all but the tallest build-
ings submerged. The reality is that even if global
warming predictions for the 21st century were to
come to pass, scientists anticipate that sea levels
might rise by between 6 and 40 inches ­ not hundreds
of feet!
    One textbook after another had graphs showing
world population climbing inexorably upward. Yet
actual growth rates of population have been declining
since the mid-1960s. The United Nations Population
Division predicts that the world's population will
level off in the 10 billion to 12 billion range at the end
of this century. Some demographers doubt that popu-
lation will reach even those levels.
    In book after book ­ textbooks and also books
found in school and public libraries ­ environmental
depictions tilted toward exaggeration and gloom,
often in contrast to well-accepted science. One book
said that petroleum might run out in 20 to 30 years
and natural gas in 20 years. Another told children that
there would be mineral shortages "in your lifetime."
A third forecast that oil, tin, copper and aluminum
might be "used up within your lifetime." These
gloomy forecasts are widely accepted by the public
but largely are refuted by the facts. Other books
                            4
ignored environmental improvements that have taken
place in the United States, from improved air quality
to resurgence of eastern forests and wildlife popula-
tions.
     Soon after Michael Sanera and I completed Facts,
Not Fear, the Independent Commission on
Environmental Education (which later became the
Environmental Literacy Council), issued a report
based on its study of environmental books and curric-
ula that were "widely used or recommended by
authoritative sources" (ICEE 1997, 1). The commis-
sion was headed by Robert L. Sproull, Emeritus
President and Professor of Physics at the University
of Rochester. It included nine other eminent scientists
and economists such as Daniel S. Simberloff, a biol-
ogist known for his research in endangered and inva-
sive species, and Thomas G. Moore, a former mem-
ber of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
     "Many high school environmental science text-
books have serious flaws," the commission wrote in
its report. "Some provide superficial coverage of sci-
ence. Others mix science with advocacy"(ICEE 1997,
3). The commission warned, "Recommendations by
even the most respected professional organizations
are no guarantee of the accuracy or quality of the
environmental education materials." For example,
they noted that a manual on environmental education
funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, EE
Toolbox, recommended a textbook that the commis-
sion had singled out as "one of the most troubling
examples of the tendency to mix advocacy with sci-
ence" (ICEE 1997, 42).
     Sadly, the state of environmental education for K-
12 students has not improved very much in the past
five to six years. Children continue to receive infor-
mation with a "tilt."
     In 2001, John Stossel, a reporter for ABC News,
presented a television special on environmental issues
called "Tampering With Nature." His crew filmed
children taking part in Earth Day events. Stossel
found that children in Los Angeles were "bused in to
hear speeches from activists during the school day."
The event was supposed to be "nonpartisan," but the
children were invited to sign a petition against White
House environmental policies. One child said,
"President Bush is polluting the country so he can
                          5
make millions for his friends" (Stossel 2002).
    As part of the ABC News special, Stossel asked
children if the air is getting more polluted. The chil-
dren said ­ virtually with one voice -- "yes." When he
said that the government reports that the air has been
getting cleaner, they responded by saying that who-
ever said that must be "lying" (Stossel 2001).

             The Source of the Problem

    Exaggerations regarding environmental problems
do not begin at school. Schools transmit to children
and youth messages about the environment that have
been percolating throughout our society and, indeed,
throughout the world.
    Bjørn Lomborg, a statistician and political science
professor in Denmark, used to embrace such ideas.
Visiting in the United States, he happened to read a
magazine article interviewing the late Julian Simon,
an economist who argued that environmental condi-
tions have improved. Lomborg thought that he should
rebut this clearly mistaken opinion. Back at Aarhus
University, he and his students set out to challenge
Simon's views.
    "Honestly," Lomborg, a former member of
Greenpeace, recalls, "we expected to show that most
of Simon's talk was simple American right-wing
propaganda. And yes, not everything he said was cor-
rect, but ­ contrary to our expectations ­ it turned out
that a surprisingly large amount of his points stood up
to scrutiny and conflicted with what we believed our-
selves to know" (Lomborg 2001, xix).
    Lomborg was soon writing a 515-page book that
supports much of what Simon had argued. He begins
the book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, with a quo-
tation from Julian Simon, stating that "the material
conditions of life will continue to get better. . . . I also
speculate, however, that many people will continue to
think and say that the conditions of life are getting
worse" (Lomborg 2001, vii).
    Lomborg contends that there is a "litany" of
assumptions that nearly every educated person
accepts ­ but never examines. These include the idea
that we are running out of natural resources, that air
and water pollution are worsening, that one hundred
species go extinct every day. "We are [told that we
                             6
are] defiling our Earth, the fertile topsoil is disap-
pearing, we are paving over Nature. . . ." But this
view " does not seem to be backed up by the available
evidence," he adds (Lomborg, 4).
    With such ideas widely accepted and shared, it is
not surprising that our school systems reflect the
same opinions. Additionally, a variety of factors spe-
cific to schools help explain why they may perpetuate
and even magnify myths about the environment. Here
are some explanatory factors:
   · Because attendance is mandatory, schools draw
   the attention of special interests that want to influ-
   ence the adults of the future. As former Education
   Commissioner Francis Keppel said in 1976,
   "Sooner or later, many social reformers get around
   to trying to influence what is taught and how"
   (Aspen Institute 1976, 1).
   · Activist environmental advocates have entered
   the field of environmental education on the univer-
   sity level and have created centers of environmen-
   tal education. Although these centers develop cur-
   ricula, some also campaign to make environmental
   education mandatory.
   · The Environmental Protection Agency has an
   Office of Environmental Education that provides
   funds for educational materials, many of them
   written by advocacy groups.
   · Because publishers must provide what their pur-
   chasers want, it appears that the consumers of text-
   books (teachers and school administrators) are not
   demanding more balanced information.

               What Should Be Done

    The three examples of quality environmental edu-
cation offered at the outset of this essay suggest ways
to improve environmental education. Let us review
them more closely.
Motivation
    High school science teacher Tom Furrer's chal-
lenge to restore Adobe Creek motivated the Casa
Grande students. Experiencing nature can capture the
imagination and focus the attention of students.
    Although Furrer's high school students started
with the straightforward job of cleaning up a stream,
the project became a passion that taxed their talents
                           7
and creativity as they tried to determine how to keep
those steelhead swimming. Students had to learn
about biology, ultimately creating their own fish
hatchery. They became involved in civic action when
they examined whether the dam blocking the flow of
Adobe Creek was really necessary. A particularly
interesting fact was that their activities (which merit-
ed a cover story in Reader's Digest) took place entire-
ly outside the classroom.
    Experiencing the outdoors motivates many chil-
dren to explore and develop their scientific curiosity.
"Even if the child comes away with nothing more
than the idea that the outdoors is a neat place to spend
some time for a while, that can be enough to generate
some interest and concern for environmental issues
later in life," says Michael Reiter, a professor of nat-
ural resources at Delaware State University (personal
communication).

"Most children have a bug period; I never grew out
of mine."
Harvard Biologist E. O. Wilson

This experience does not have to be provided by the
schools. Centers for environmental education offer a
way to combine enjoyment of the outdoors with
learning about nature. For example, the Schlitz
Audubon Nature Center on the shore of Lake
Michigan in Milwaukee offers summer camps
(including a "Bug Camp") for children. During the
school year, Schlitz welcomes children from local
schools, many of them from the inner city of
Milwaukee. "It's hands-on touching, feeling,
smelling, or anything that puts kids in direct contact
with nature," says Jim Hyatt, an environmental edu-
cator there. "If you pique their interest, then they
continue learning on their own. So we provide the
spark" (quoted in Kloor 2002, 36).
    For young children, nature education is entirely
appropriate as a foundation for science. The famed
biologist E. O. Wilson has said, "Most children have
a bug period; I never grew out of mine" (quoted in
ICEE 1997, 4). Reflecting that spirit, the Independent
Commission on Environmental Education observes
that "the natural world offers a rich addition to class-
room study." Because children have "an immediate
                           8
interest in trees, insects, rivers, clouds, and animals,
environmental studies may hold students' attention to
a greater degree than other topics." Thus, the com-
mission recommends "the lower elementary grades
should begin the study of science with the study of the
natural world."

Accurate Information
    The lesson from University of Massachusetts
(Dartmouth) cultural anthropologist Jack Stauder's
research is that opinions and assumptions should be
subject to scrutiny. Just as scientists themselves
rethink their interpretations of the facts, teachers and
students--and the public--should do the same, espe-
cially about issues that arouse controversy and emo-
tional reactions. However, materials that encourage
critical thinking are rare. Most of the conventional
materials that teachers and students come across, both
in the classroom and at newsstands and on television,
emphasize exaggerated "doomsday" ways of looking
at problems.
    Because of the complexity of these issues ­ even
renowned scientists are still trying to sort out the facts
about many of them ­ controversial topics on which
the science is unsettled should generally be avoided
with young children. As students reach middle school
and high school, however, controversial issues pro-
vide an opportunity for grasping the scientific method
and for developing arguments based on facts. Debate
and discussion can help students recognize that sci-
ence progresses through continual reexamination of
the facts and their interpretation.
    The example of acid rain will illustrate the diffi-
culty of knowing the "right" answer about environ-
mental problems. In the late 1970s and early 1980s,
broad public concern developed about the effects of
acid rain. Although the term "acid rain" sounds like
water that resembles the acid of a car battery, actual-
ly it is a term applied to rain that has a higher-than-
normal concentration of hydrogen ions. Clouds or
raindrops may pick up nitrogen oxides or sulfur diox-
ide from power plant emissions or car exhaust. When
the water falls as rain, often many hundreds of miles
away, that rain may be acidic. (Rain is slightly acidic
by its nature, because of natural carbon dioxide and
nitrogen oxides in the air, but "acid rain" refers to rain
                            9
that is acidic due to man-made air emissions.)
    There were two major worries. One was that acid
rain caused by emissions of sulfur dioxide from mid-
western electric utility plants was falling on lakes in
New York and New England, making them so acidic
that fish could not survive. The other worry was that
forests were dying because of acid rain.
    The federal government conducted a $500 million
study to determine how serious the acid rain problem
was. The conclusions from ten years of research by
the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program
(NAPAP) were surprising. Although electric power
plants and cars do contribute to acid rain, the
researchers found that this rain had only a small
impact. Fewer than 5 percent of the lakes around the
country are "chronically acidic," and some of this
acidity is natural. In the Adirondack Mountains, one
focus of the study, up to 30 per cent of the small lakes
(between two and ten acres) are acidic, but some of
these are naturally acidic, too.
    As for the forests, the study found that acid rain
might have contributed some harm to high-altitude
red spruce trees in the Appalachian Mountains, but
only in connection with other factors, such as the
stress of cold winters. These forests represent less
than one percent of the forests in the eastern United
States (NAPAP 1990, 4-7).
    This balanced view, which would lead one to be
less alarmed about acid rain, was largely ignored or
misinterpreted. So the term "acid rain" still conjures
up a frightful problem when presented in textbooks
and classrooms.
    Fortunately, today there are some accurate, read-
able, and accessible materials on environmental
issues. These materials include: The Skeptical
Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg, Facts, Not Fear
by Michael Sanera and Jane Shaw, and No Turning
Back by Wallace Kaufman. Kaufman is a former
environmental activist who began to question envi-
ronmental propositions he previously assumed to be
true. In addition, a new series of books for school
libraries, published by Greenhaven Press, Critical
Thinking about Environmental Issues, reviews the
controversies involved with global warming, pesti-
cides, and endangered species protection.

                          10
Realism
    One of Kathryn Ratté's goals as a high school
educator was to help her students understand that
environmental problems are not morality tales, even
though they may appear that way in the newspapers.
For the most part, they are not stories about bad peo-
ple who must be punished. More often, they are sto-
ries of how people just like you and me face difficult
choices. In Kenya, a family may have to decide
between protecting elephants or allowing poachers to
kill them. Yet the elephants may endanger their chil-
dren and tear up their grain storage bins at night and
eat the whole year's crop. Economic principles help
us understand how people make such choices.
    Indeed, in recent years many environmentalists
have come to realize that in order to protect animals
like elephants and tigers, they must secure the coop-
eration of the people who live near the animals ­
those who bear the costs of having them around. In
the United States, the elephant is considered to be a
magnificent emblematic figure. In Africa, those who
suffer from its marauding, consider the elephant a
very big pest. In some parts of Zimbabwe and South
Africa, however, local villagers have come to accept
the elephant and to protect them from poachers. The
reason for this positive attitude is that they receive
payments from elephant hunters. Thus, recognition
of the costs and benefits of environmental decisions
can improve environmental success.
    The lesson from Kathryn Ratté's experience is
that economics offers a more constructive alternative
to simplistic moralizing. Ratte' has written her own
curriculum on water resources entitled, "Are We All
Wet?" Her materials educate students about econom-
ics while introducing them to some of the problems of
water allocation and use. Other materials that apply
economics to the topic of environmental issues
include "Economics and the Environment: Eco-
Detectives," and the Environmental Examiner, a
newsletter published by the Political Economy
Research Center (PERC) ­ my home base.
[Information about these and other curricula can be
found on PERC's Web site (www.perc.org).]




                         11
                    What To Do?

Motivation, respect for the facts, and realism--these
are the principles that need to be applied to produce
good environmental education. But how can we
infuse environmental education with these attributes?

Motivation, respect for the facts, and realism ­ these
are the principles that need to be applied to produce
good environmental education.

    Because of our decentralized education system,
there is no "silver bullet" ­ no single curriculum,
book, Web site, teacher training program, lobbying
plan, or any other activity ­ that will ensure that envi-
ronmental education is well conceptualized and accu-
rately presented. Each group of concerned partici-
pants can take appropriate actions that improve on the
status quo, however here are some suggestions.

College Professors and Students
    The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn
Lomborg and The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon
are eye-opening books that should be read by anyone
interested in environmental problems and availability
of resources. Reading these books will help open the
door to a broader perspective. For those who teach
environmental science, the experiences of Jack
Stauder and Bjørn Lomborg should be invigorating.
Debates over environmental issues, if based on sound
research, can be exciting and engaging.
    Like their professors, college students should be
skeptical and should read materials that challenge
their thinking. [Some of the Web sites that will help
students do this are www.perc.org, www.co2sci-
ence.org, and www.healthfactsandfears.com, and
www.techcentralstation.com.] Faculty teaching envi-
ronmental science have sometimes become too nar-
row, relying on materials from environmental groups
that may not pass scientific muster.

K-12 Teachers
    No person can be an expert on all the environ-
mental issues. Yet teachers sometimes feel pressured
to teach young students on topics about which even
experts disagree. Elementary education teachers need
                         12
to resist this pressure and concentrate on science-
based nature education. Love of nature will motivate
children and help them absorb established scientific
facts. Older students can begin to tackle the contro-
versial subjects, and educators should encourage
them to seek out additional sources of information.
    Teachers who want to better understand the trade-
offs involved in environmental choices should con-
sider obtaining some economics training. The
Foundation for Teaching Economics (at www.fte.org)
sponsors teacher workshops around the country that
introduce economic concepts, many of them using
environmental and pollution-related topics.

Parents
     Parents sounded the initial alarm about distorted
environmental education. Parents should be alert to
what their children are learning and become aware of
alternative books and videos that offer more balanced
information. If environmental education begins to
resemble indoctrination, parents should be prepared
to inform teachers about different viewpoints. Many
teachers are unaware that these perspectives even
exist and have no idea about their scientific support.
     Sometimes schools bring in speakers who repre-
sent a narrow viewpoint. If this is the case, parents
can encourage their schools to invite speakers with
differing views. These might include representatives
of a local land trust or environmental organization
actually working in the field, rather than the more
typical environmental spokesperson promoting polit-
ical action.
     Education, of course, begins with oneself. It is
imperative that parents be skeptical about environ-
mental "crises." They should recognize that an event
or problem becomes "news" because it has an ele-
ment of sensationalism, but that sensationalism may
not be supported by the facts. There is an adage
(sometimes attributed to Mark Twain) that reminds
us, "It isn't what you know that get's you into trouble;
it's what you know that ain't so."

Business Executives
   Business leaders have many strikes against them
when they attempt to enter into the world of environ-
mental education. Some companies produce manuals
                          13
stressing their environmental awareness (forest prod-
ucts firms point out that trees are a renewable
resource, for example). Others feature the efforts they
are making to remove waste from their production
processes or to recycle their products or product
packaging. Frequently, environmental advocates
attack such company literature, often for trivial rea-
sons. A brochure by Shell Oil Company was criticized
for promoting the joys of driving; a Dow Chemical
video was criticized for "promoting the idea that
everything is `made up of chemicals' (thereby imply-
ing that all chemicals are natural and safe)" (Manilov
and Schwarz). Instructional materials produced by
businesses are looked upon with a jaundiced eye.
    Although the criticisms of these materials are
often unfair, Karl Kamena, who was Director of
Government Affairs and Public Issues for Dow
Plastics during the 1980s, admits that sometimes the
companies went too far in trying to convey a positive
image. "What do you do when school children are
demanding the removal of your products and your
customers' products from restaurant counters and
grocery shelves? You do just about anything," he says
(Kamena 1997, 7). In Kamena's view, some of those
initiatives were legitimate, but others were propagan-
da. "Environmental education in K-12 schools should
not be driven by issues management, whatever the
position. Education is not advocacy" (Kamena 1997,
7).

School Board Members and Other Elected Officials
    Members of school boards must respond to many
pressures from special interests while tackling prob-
lems ranging from ensuring adequate budgets to
keeping the schools safe. Like other elected officials,
they cannot get into the details of what is being taught
in every classroom. At the same time, they should be
skeptical of special interests, including well-inten-
tioned environmental advocates who may highjack
traditional educational goals. School board members
and other officials should make explicit their expecta-
tion that school administrators meet a high standard
of fairness and balance in all materials, including
environmental materials.


                          14
Environmental Advocates
    Most Americans rightly consider themselves
"environmentalists." They want natural areas to be
conserved and the environment to be clean and
healthy for humans and other living things.
    Environmental advocates are more focused on
carrying out activities to achieve these goals. They
should recognize that the cause of environmentalism
is hurt by poor education, by exaggeration, by exces-
sive pessimism, and by overemphasis on action. As is
evident from the conclusion of the Council on
Environmental Literacy's finding that the field of
environmental education has become "needlessly
controversial," this reality is not always accepted
(ICEE, 3).
    Environmentalists themselves should be skeptical
of what they read and should be aware of alternative
interpretations of environmental conditions.
Magazines published by environmental groups can be
misleading, and the fund-raising literature can out-
propagandize business offerings. For example, the
National Audubon Society once wrote in a fund rais-
ing brochure: "We can project with some accuracy the
eventual end of the natural world as we know it. That
is, no trees. No wildlife. Climate changes so radical
the tropics have migrated to the North Pole" (Beyea
1994). Such a ludicrous claim should be outside the
bounds of acceptable environmental communication.
Environmental advocates who want the respect of the
American people should be wary of apocalyptic state-
ments that have little grounding in fact.

                     Conclusion

    In summary, America's classrooms sometimes
provide a forum for distorted views of environmental
problems, but there are bright spots as well. All those
involved in education, from kindergarten to the grad-
uate level, should be concerned about the distortions.
Those directly involved in environmental education,
whether as teachers, school board members, parents,
or students, should look for ways to improve on this
process. Fortunately, a growing number of balanced
and accurate resources are being produced that can
make environmental education a valued part of grow-
ing up in America.
                          15
                        References
Aspen Institute. 1976. Educational Policy in the Next
Decade. Aspen, CO: Program on Education for a
Changing Society, Aspen Institute, 1.
Beyea, Jan. Fund-raising letter. New York, New York:
National Audubon Society, 1994.
Cardozo, Nancy Bray. "Reading, Writin' & Ruin."
Audubon. January/February, 1994. 112.
Independent Commission on Environmental Education
(ICEE). Are We Building Environmental Literacy?
Washington, DC, April, 1997.
Kamena, Karl. "What Role for Business?" PERC Reports,
December 7-8, 1997
Kaufman, Wallace. 1994. No Turning Back. Lincoln, NE:
iUniverse.com, Inc.
Kloor, Keith. "Hand to Hand." Audubon. September 2002,
34-39.
Lomborg, Bjørn. The Skeptical Environmentalist. 2001.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Manilov, Marianne, and Tamara Schwartz.
"The Assault on Eco-Education." Earth Island Journal,
December/February, 1996-1997, 36-37.
Maxwell, M.A. Letter, New York Times, April 24, 1997, A28.
McConnell, Malcolm. "Miracle at Adobe Creek."
Reader's Digest, April, 1999, 79-84.
NAPAP (National Acid Precipitation Assessment
Program). Assessment Highlights. Washington, DC:
NAPAP, September 5, 1990.
Ratté, Kathryn. 1999. "What a Teacher Wants." In A
Blueprint for Environmental Education, ed. Jane S. Shaw.
Bozeman, MT: PERC, 7-13.
Sanera, Michael, and Jane S. Shaw. 1999. Facts, Not
Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment (2nd edi-
tion). Washington, DC: Regnery.
Simon, Julian. 1981. The Ultimate Resource. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Stauder, Jack. 1999. "Changing Course." In A Blueprint
for Environmental Education, ed. Jane S. Shaw. Bozeman,
MT: PERC, 15-24.
Stossel, John. "Tampering with Nature." ABC News
Television Special. June 29, 2001.
Stossel, John. 2002. "A Message from John Stossel."
Online:http://www.savejohnstossel.org/tampering_email.htm
                           16
    Jane S. Shaw is a sen-
ior associate at the
Political         Economy
Research Center (PERC).
She        directs       its
Environmental Education
Program which provides
balanced curriculum mate-
rials to educators and oth-
ers. Shaw is co-author
(with Michael Sanera) of
Facts, Not Fear: A
Parents' Guide to Teaching
Children About the Environment (1999). She is the
editor of A Blueprint for Environmental Education
(1999).
    Before joining PERC, Shaw was an associate eco-
nomics editor of Business Week. From 1977 to 1981,
she was a Washington correspondent for McGraw-
Hill Publications, where she wrote for Business Week
and other McGraw-Hill magazines.
    Jane Shaw received her B.A. degree from
Wellesley College. Shaw is a member of the Editorial
Advisory Panel of Regulation, a senior editor of
Liberty, and a member of the Editorial Advisory
Council of the Institute of Economic Affairs
(London).
Additional copies are available from:

Institute for Study of Economics
and the Environment
Lindenwood University
209 South Kingshighway
St. Charles, MO 63301
Phone: 636.949.4742