Ecology: The Future Of Education

 

As the evidence for climate change becomes more compelling so does the case for lifelong learning

centred on the science of ecology for the management of cultural adaptations to global warming.  In

this connection, the many specialties within the science of ecology provide information to better

understand the world around us. Also, this information can help improve the environment, manage

our natural resources, and protect human health. 

The educational role of ecologists is to provide an understanding of how our behaviour affects the environment to modify and sustain the interaction between humans and nature.  Professional ecologists are well aware of this. Through its ‘connecting schools with nature project’ the British Ecological Society inspires over 10,000 pupils from 50 schools and provides training to more than 350 teachers.   The objective is the green transformation of participating schools through a series of workshops where pupils and teachers will be introduced to the fascinating world of ecology and learn all about their local wildlife. Supported by the development of an engaging digital learning hub, the project will also enable pupils and teachers to act as a network of citizen scientists to record the wildlife they see in and around the community served by the school.  Hopefully this will lead to action plans to make plans to conserve local wildlife habitats under threat of extinction.  

Conservation is the area of applied ecology that aims to protect species from extinction by managing habitats and ecosystems under threat from humans or natural events, such as floods, droughts or deforestation.  It is a subset of ecology with the role of evaluating and protecting the rare features of ecosystems.  It also provides access to information and skills that will support decision making through an evidence-based framework of "what works" to support and protect the environment. Planning for sustainable development is an application of conservation management in its widest social context.  In particular, integrating the worlds of ‘education’ and ‘planning for sustainability’ cannot be beaten as an example of ‘education to a purpose’.

The UK Conservation Management System Consortium (CMSC), is an international NGO consisting of UK and European government conservation agencies and the big players in the voluntary sector.  Its focus is the production and promotion of a computer programme called the Conservation Management System (CMS), which is a database for making and recording conservation plans for all kinds of sites and organisations. The provision of educational toolkits for making and operating plans for local sustainability is an important but neglected area in school curricula and community capacity building.  

In 2006 the CMSC began promoting the CMS as a learning model for assembling toolkits to help schools and communities collaborate in making local plans for sustainability.  impacts on the everyday lives of people, and a basic right of citizenship that allows an autonomous grass roots input The problem is that there is a disjuncture and a structural hiatus between the role of government in promoting citizen-driven development and the capacity of ordinary people to participate in this process with their own action plans.   

‘LEAP stands for ‘learning, evaluation and planning’, which is the title of a community  framework document designed by the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) to  support a partnership approach to achieving change and improvement in the quality of  community life.

‘LEAP’ for Wales’ is a development of the Scottish initiative as a community  planning/recording procedure, which incorporates the feedback logic of the conservation  management system (CMS) software, used by UK Environment Agencies and Wildlife Trusts  to produce conservation management plans for nature sites.

https://sites.google.com/view/leapfforwales/home

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