Rationale
I teach at a public school in the city of Richmond, Virginia. Each year, my students are asked to draw a picture of an ecosystem as a pre-survey to my unit. The illustrations show a diversity of organisms from trees and flowers to birds and bees, all commonly found in parks or urban neighborhoods where my students live. However, rarely do my students include themselves or other humans in their representations of an ecosystem. Despite the abundance of green spaces and public parks within city limits, it is clear my students do not see themselves as part of the ecosystem they live within.
Public education is constantly trying to better adopt its standards for more modern classrooms. New curricula is designed to better reflect current events and global issues our students will face as they grow older. However, I rarely see elementary science curriculum units highlighting the true extent of human impact on the environment. In addition, Virginia’s science standards changed, removing the subcategory “human impact on ecosystems.” Without this substandard, I fear the misconception that students believe they exist outside of their surrounding ecosystem will only grow.
Due to the fact that human presence has spread to every corner of the globe, students cannot be educated on ecosystems in isolation from humans. Sadly, that separation no longer exists. I believe it is vital that the human role in the recent mass extinction of species and increasing list of endangered species must be discussed in the classroom if we are to create a community of ecosystem caregivers, rather than future exploiters.
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