Strategies
My students have learned the dire environmental consequences they are facing. Images of extinct animals, deforested land, overflowing landfills and contaminated waterways overwhelm them and result in learned helplessness and worse, hopelessness. I must approach environmental education carefully, teaching students to respect their environment. Dr. Brad Smith, Director of the Environmental Education Division of the EPA in 1993, understood the need to guide the students toward responsibility instead of terrifying them into action.
It's important that students learn about the environment through respect, empowerment and concern - not doomsday issues. Respect, empowerment and concern are issues that transcend the environment, that go deeper than recycling aluminum cans! 39
Knowledge is not the end all and be all of education. Advances in technology allow access to any fact or opinion anytime, anywhere at the flick of a finger. Students must learn to acquire knowledge, evaluate it, apply it in a variety of ways, and synthesize new understandings and approaches. Constructivism and, closely related, problem-based learning teach students to be doers and thinkers and not repositories of knowledge.
Constructivism
The constructivist approach recognizes that learning is not just an active process, but also a social process. Students work in groups, combining their thoughts and expertise to formulate a common solution. For the final assessment, students work individually because our education system needs a summative grade for each student, but students assimilate ideas from each other while forming their understanding. Not only will they learn by performing experiments, but also by collaborating with one another and by arguing the relevancy of their approach. They compare and examine other students' methods and results. Furthermore, they investigate errors and discuss how to fix them. In order to do all these things, I will present my students with problems with no right answers.
Problem-based Learning
Open-ended questions are the linchpin of the problem-based method. Students are encouraged to use all relevant knowledge and resources to come up with their own solution. In this manner, students become critical thinkers and doers. They "design and conduct investigations with controlled variables to test hypotheses, accurately collect data through the selection and use of tools and techniques appropriate to the investigation, construct tables, diagrams and graphs, showing relationships between two variables, to display and facilitate analysis of data, and form explanations based on accurate and logical analysis of evidence." 40 The last step is the most important: self-evaluation. After the student reaches a solution to the problem, the process is only partially complete. The student must determine if the process and solution were effective, and evaluate the knowledge gained through the experience.
Students may stumble. Problem-based learning is a beautiful, seemingly disorganized mess, but it teaches students to learn. They may get the answer wrong or come up with a ridiculous solution, but protecting students from failure does not empower them, it robs them of their ability to learn from their mistakes and see that a failure is only a failure if they lose hope. "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." 41
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