1 Advancing Environmental Literacy at Smith College: the best route to an informed student body Lauren Rizzo 5/10/2007 EVS300 Environmental Science and Policy Seminar David Smith2 “… After 12 or 16 or 20 years of education, most students graduate without any broad, integrated sense of the unity of things.” “… we routinely produce economists who lack the most rudimentary understanding of ecology or thermodynamics” (pg 11). “Now more than ever . . . we need people who think broadly and who understand systems, connections, patterns and root causes” (23). INTRODUCTION David Orr’s 1994 book, Earth in Mind, takes a focused and deep look at the intricacies of the higher education system and the effects of academic schooling on the environment and ecology. His clear insight and profound questioning indicate a fundamental flaw in today’s college education system. The flaw is that of division and departmentalization. Orr’s astute observations determined that today’s education system is obsessed with compartmentalizing subjects, creating students who have little interest or knowledge outside their specialty and almost no knowledge of important aspects that will later affect all humans on the planet. Orr describes his ideal curriculum to include the basic principles of ecology, carrying capacity, appropriate scale and environmental ethics among others (14). Ideally, creating students with understandings in these fields would create an environmentally savvy population, one which could institute change and create new policies to preserve and better what resources they have left. Schools should seize every opportunity to educate students about Earth and the mechanisms that drive it. These opportunities include campus-wide initiatives as well as course-offerings and educational programs. Colleges and Universities around the U.S. have begun incorporating a variety of programs and initiatives to begin building a greener student body that is more likely to strive for the ecological welfare of the planet. Many institutions such as NYU and St. Olaf College are investing in wind energy either through the purchase of the kilowatt hours of energy required to sustain the campus or by building their own wind turbine (http://www.worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/458?page=1). Schools such as Macalester and3 Oberlin are attempting to raise environmental awareness through implementation of green competitions such as “Dorm Wars” to decrease consumption by student housing. The Dorm War competition at Oberlin resulted in a 56% drop in energy consumption by the winning dorm. Still other schools are instituting major changes within the curriculum. Aquinas College is the first undergraduate institution to offer a degree in sustainable business and American University is educating students about environmental issues with a series of lectures and events held around the Washington D.C. area. Despite colleges’ best intentions, the majority of institutions seem to focus more on creating green buildings and green policies and programs that do not educate the students directly. Ultimately, the students’ deeper understanding of ecology and the environment is unaffected. Since the inception of Smith College’s Environmental Science and Policy minor in 1996 (and probably even before that), the Smith College administration has worked to introduce green habits to the campus and encourage students to develop their environmental knowledge and understanding. Similar to many of the previously mentioned institutions, the initiatives to form Smith into a “greener” campus have been focused mainly upon buildings and campus-wide changes, such as recycling programs, MassPIRG fees, and designing more ecologically friendly buildings when adding to campus. While these developments are important and go a long way towards developing a more sustainable campus, the initiatives do little to motivate and encourage students to get involved or learn more about the environmental issues which affect them now and in the future. At present, fewer than 10 student orgs (out of approximately 100) have a focus on the environment or do any environmental or ecological work at all (http://www.smith.edu/stud_clubs.php). Despite heightened awareness of important environmental issues, the majority of students do not involve themselves in these organizations.4 With only 20 students graduating from the ES&P minor this year (with a total of 61 in the past decade), Smith College should consider taking further steps to interest and involve the student body in environmental campaigns, issues and education. Smith’s academic program includes a choice of more than 30 majors for prospective students. The online description of academics at Smith boasts that the course offerings are diverse; “more than 1,000 course offerings in more than 50 areas of study”. Despite the large number of academic choices a student can make, few courses encourage the deeper understanding of environmental knowledge and literacy that Orr advocates. Of the courses available, students in Division III majors were more likely to have a greater exposure (through required classes) to environmental and ecological education. The information necessary to become ecologically literate is easily available to students completing courses of study in Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Geology, and even some Mathematics. The availability of minors such as Environmental and Marine Science and Policy and Public Policy increase the number of individuals educated in environmentalism. But these programs are not enough. Many students are either unaware of or do not have the time for environmental education. If the administration of Smith College wants to create a more ecologically aware student population, they must create academic programs that appeal to a greater number of students or integrate environmental education into more departments. In an attempt to learn more about the possibilities of implementing changes to the current curriculum in various departments at Smith, professors and students were surveyed and interviewed to determine the level of acceptance of such programs.5 METHODS This study had two separate portions: a professor survey and a student survey. Using the 2006-2007 Smith College course catalogue, 2 Division I (Arts and Humanities) and 2 Division II (Social Sciences) major departments were chosen based on the