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Facts Not Fear
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| Facts Not Fear |
Too Much Fear, Too Few Facts
by Michael Sanera, Ph.D.
This article is adapted from Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children About the Environment (1999, Regnery Publishing), by Michael Sanera and Jane S. Shaw.
Michael Sanera is director of CEI's Center for Environmental Education Research. Jane S. Shaw is a senior associate at the Political Economy Research Center.
In schools today, it is typical to see walls covered with posters depicting endangered animals. Students hold tee-shirt sales to raise money to save the rain forest. Children write pleading letters to government officials to save the planet. In math class, students may solve word problems about deforestation or air pollution as well as multiply fractions. Environmental issues are part and parcel of children's education.
This emphasis could be a good thing. When taught well, environmental education can be informative and absorbing. It can bring to life the scientific principles and information that underlie ecology, for example. Children can learn about how plants grow and how different kinds of vegetation foster different ecological communities. And making children aware of environmental problems can encourage them to think critically and creatively.
Too often, however, environmental education skips the basics, pushing students into complex and controversial topics such as endangered species and global warming without establishing a scientific basis of knowledge. Education can play second fiddle to emotionalism and political activism.
Saving the Planet without Scaring Kids
How can parents and teachers give students a balanced view of environmental problems? One way is to expand the information they receive. Facts, Not Fear contains the facts that are not covered in textbooks and the scientific controversies that are not explained.
Simply learning that reputable scientists often disagree with the claims of imminent catastrophe will keep children from blindly fearing the future. Such information will also help them see that environmental science is a discipline that reflects scientific uncertainty and is open to continual discovery. Students can learn about environmental issues and develop their critical thinking skills at the same time. As scientists do, they can collect the facts and see whether the theories that have been advanced actually fit the facts.
With this greater objectivity, students can begin to think critically about why we have environmental problems and can become more aware of human nature. They won't be so quick to accept the simplistic claims of catastrophic global destruction. Children will probably stop pestering parents to take up the cause of the day, or at least they will be willing to consider that their crusade may not be for everyone.
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