360°: Ecological Literacy: Economics, Education, English
Ecological Literacy seeks to understand the natural systems that make life on earth possible, and to put that understanding into practice. It goes beyond the mastery of facts about the natural world and human impact on the environment, beyond an appreciation of the science of earth systems. At its heart, it addresses the infamous “values-action gap,” by inviting students to learn about how complex systems work, and to explore the possibilities of their resilience and sustainability--with the goals of conveying their understanding to others, and acting thoughtfully themselves for the well-being of the world. In this 360, we will explore three different disciplinary languages of ecological literacy--those of economics, education, and literary expression--to prepare students for engaging in broader conversations and actions. For further information, see the cluster website.
Ecological Literacy Courses:
Economics 138: Working with Economic Data
Economists treat nature as providing environmental services that contribute to the production of goods and services that address human needs and desires. Taught by David Ross, “Working with Economic Data” will focus on the measurement and valuation of those services as part of quantifying market outcomes. Within the discipline, environmental harm is seen as a failure of the market. We will consider how economists measure the magnitude of this deviation from the ideal, and assess efforts to ameliorate the failure.
Education 285: Ecologies of Minds and Communities
Taught by Jody Cohen. Environmental education is too often split off not only from its felt source, but also from matters of social justice, thus reifying a divide between “human society and culture” on the one hand and “nature” or “the environment” on the other. “Ecologies of Minds and Communities” weaves these strands together: In order to elicit and develop diverse students’ ecological literacy, we will attend to “the distinctive features of students’ emotional and imaginative lives” (Judson), as well as to their community and cultural lives, including the raced, gendered, and classed dimensions of students’ experiences, concerns, and desires.
English 213: Ecological Expression: Re-creating our World
To this shared project, the discipline of English literary studies, led by Anne Dalke, will contribute an awareness of the limits and possibilities of representation, asking what is foregrounded, and what omitted, in each verbal, visual, aural or tactile re-presentation of the world. Asking, too, what might be imagined that has not yet been experienced, “Ecological Expressions: Re-creating Our World” will invite students both to create their own multi-modal representations of the spaces they occupy, and to re-create, in some way, the space that is Bryn Mawr.
