Exposure of the Environment

Alice Landry

April 18, 2004

For PHI 3033, UCF- Cocoa Campus

Term Paper

Forethoughts

Frustration and impatience are two of my characteristics that usually lead me in a wrong direction. This class, I can say, motivated and impassioned me about what was happening; it gave me initiative to do something. Every week I would be pulled towards class because of the importance of the information but also would feel discouraged. The problem is so large, so global, and many have all lost sight of the earth in our daily lives. Instead, we suffocate in our air-conditioned offices and lend ourselves for a paycheck in order to take care of our mortgage, our families and ourselves. We traipse around crowded malls to find that all-important item that will help make us, or someone else happy. Every day we hear about threats from terrorists or people around us as we tighten our locks to keep the outside from getting in. We seldom hear how we encroach upon our mother earth. She does not have the option of a door to lock us out. She has given humanity her hospitality and we humans have become kleptomaniacs. We need massive amounts of therapy and information to help us stop.

The way to do this is through education and ending the denial. No one wants to hear about the problems that are burdening much of our environment. It is so much easier to turn a blind eye until we are forced into seeing the happenings to our mother earth. We are all culprits in this environmental attack and it is especially difficult when the finger is pointing at humanity. Our natural instinct is to point the finger back at someone else, but there is no one left to blame. Learning to take responsibility for what we have done and continue to do is mandatory in the environmental learning process.

Our children do not have such strong roots in this denial as do we adults. This is not what they created but were born into. Their responsibility and guilt for environmental destruction is not felt at the same level as adults because they have innocently been brought into this habitual flow of environmental ruin. Adults have watched the changes occur and many of us do nothing. It is time that we all do something.

Pursuing the venture to educate students about the environment gave me the satisfaction of knowing that, in a modest way, I was enabling people for change. Instead of just reiterating environmental problems to adults over the dinner table where it would most likely be dismissed, Don Respess and I taught five classes of children who heard and participated in dialogue about the environment. About one hundred twenty students were reached in one day. Some parents and friends will hear the information as students continue the education progression. Education is a powerful tool and I am proud to have been able to enlighten.

Process

As Don and I sat down to begin the outline, we knew there were issues that were pertinent to discuss among middle school students. Two topics that were of particular importance were population and the environmental impact of being an American. We discussed how we would handle both topics, given that they could easily misconstrue the topics relayed. Of course, we would just give them the facts. The discussion and how far we would pursue these two topics would be left up to the students and teacher.

Population is a topic that usually does not go hand in hand with the environment. I viewed population before as a problem individual countries attempted to get a grip on, but never viewed it as an environmental issue nor something that should concern me. I never looked at it for what it was, is, and is becoming: A struggle to exist with Earth’s limited supplies.

The global repercussions of being an American is a subject that I became acutely aware of through traveling. It is our daily living as Americans that we constantly take for granted. The blind way many of us do this is an issue with which I constantly struggle. Traveling and living extensively in Europe and Asia, I was able to see what being an American really means to the rest of our global community. I observed the decisions that our country made on the front page of every newspaper abroad and the numerous repercussions worldwide, which are not widely known among our citizens. Environmentally, being an American is also startling. As only five percent of the population, Americans wreak havoc on the ecosystems worldwide. We send fumes into the air that do not just sit over the United States but affect the rest of the world. A strong contributing factor to our environmental problems is the spending habits of Americans and our inability to recognize the difference between needing and wanting. We take our materialism and run with it. Our wants overrun our necessities and blind us to the big picture: There are people living in the world outside of our family, friends and selves that are just as much a part of the world community as we.

Ultimately, we wanted students to recognize this place in the environmental world community. We thought the way to implement this would be to start small and move into a larger scale. We asked the students about their immediate community within their school, followed by the city of Cocoa, and then progressed to the world community. Our purpose was not only to draw their attention to the environment but to facilitate thought about how we have lost sight of other people in America. I wanted to make them realize that if we as humans are going to survive we need to have a sense of community and abandon our “I can take care of myself” attitude. Truly, we must strive towards a “We can all take care of mother earth” mind-set.

Schools

Don and I decided to try teaching at two schools. He had connections to both schools so our chances were quite high of actually receiving an appointment to explain our outline and thoughts. First, we met with Mr. Blake at Clearlake Middle School in Cocoa. He was enthusiastic, curious, and excited about the prospect of us coming to talk with his students. Mr. Blake teaches Social Studies and I was interested in the fact that the environment would be addressed in this class because usually environmental problems are within the “hard” science classes. Actually, a Social Studies classroom was a more appropriate atmosphere to address this because, in fact, it is a social, community and worldwide-based problem. There is no problem in the way that nature is working. It lies in the way humans are.

Mr. Blake told us that he was always very honest with the students and that any topic could be addressed. “Make them think!” he told us and I hoped we would. He let us know that he planned to show the outline to the principal and he thought he would also be excited about the presentation. We made an appointment to come in the following week to teach.

The second school that we attempted to pursue was James Madison Middle School in Titusville. This school was very formal as we were asked to meet with the principal. As we talked with him that morning, he went through the outline and emphasized that there could be no “questionable” material. He was referring to the pentagon’s release of environmental concerns. Although I put to rest that this was published material in The Observer, the principal still said he would not allow it. He assured us that population control and our other topics were covered in the science classes. This was positive information, at least, but I sensed a brush off. His polite way of telling us “no thanks,” was that he would show this to his science teachers and if anyone showed an interest he would contact us. Basically, we were dismissed, but at least we tried, and according to him, these topics are being taught. As I left, I was thinking that reinforcement of important information never hurts.

As the date was set for Tuesday 13 April to teach at Clearlake Middle School, I was excited to bring our outline to life. I began transforming it into a colorful and hopefully attention-grabbing presentation. As I have substitute taught before, I knew the presentation would either be utterly dismissed or work to our advantage because of the novelty of two strangers standing in front of them. Most of the class revolved around discussion and I was curious to see where eighth graders would stand on environmental issues. Would they care? Did they worry and feel discouraged by the state the earth is in? Did they not know many of the issues? The teaching day would tell and prove to be fantastic!

Teaching

Every class we taught that day was different. Each student had so many different perspectives and agendas, which determined how far along in our presentation we could ultimately go. We actually only made it through the first six or seven questions in one of the classes because there was so much discussion. Even if we did not get through the entire slide show, we still were able to give the students environmental problems to think about as they realized these problems could in fact be a reality in their future. Their brains were ticking and they were thinking.

The classes began as we were introduced by Mr. Blake. After this, I gave a short introduction. I felt it important to relate to them, and show them, we were not here to lecture. I let the students know that we had been taking an environmental philosophy class and that I had been entirely unaware of what was happening to mother earth. I explained that the topics we would be covering would have to do with population, what it means to be an American, and our environmental community.

As we started the class, the first question we planned to begin with was “what do you think about the environment?” This was of course to get their minds geared towards the rest of the class, but I was interested to see if their initial response to the environment was positive or negative. Some of the students would be too shy to speak up, but the ones that did were split. Many said trees, animals or green and then others said pollution or animal extinction. The negatives could have been biased, since they knew we were there to address environmental problems. When asked what are the top concerns in the environment almost all of the classes said pollution or recycling.

Next, we thought we would put the problem in their own ballpark. “Do you think environmental problems already do or will in the future affect you?” Mostly, the students did not think that it affected them at the moment but almost all knew that it would be a problem in their future. Discussing the extinction of species bothered most of them, but when asked if it would affect them as humans, they said no. We now had the opportunity to explain the role of ecosystems and that this abuse of the world would eventually kill so many species that there will not be enough of our world’s ecosystem to sustain us. “A whale or plankton?” we asked. Many realized the importance of plankton (once they knew what it was) over a whale and the balance that it holds within the ecosystem. So many chose plankton but one student had the most conclusive answer when he explained that a whale and plankton are equal in the ecosystem and its cycle.

We engaged the students initially with a movie that showed population growth over thousands of years. The movie had a profound impact on the students as within the final one hundred years the population of the world exploded and always evoked vocal responses from the students. Throughout the class would be “whoa” or “oh, my gosh,” as the unbelievable increase took hold of the planet. The movie showed population growth through 2030. They realized this would be a problem within their lifetime: These students knew they would be near forty around 2030. The movie added great dramatic effect as an introduction to the population discussion.

Don and I used a bacteria [growth] analogy, and we made it into a quiz to grab the student’s attention. It illustrated bacteria (human population) doubling and running out of space (earth). There was always a student (after repeating it logically) in each class that would figure out the correct answer. Luckily, students understood the bacteria analogy. Right now, there is plenty of free land but at some point, it will all be overrun.

The discussions always flowed and we allowed the students to run with their thoughts and to feel free to ask any questions. In one class, we actually addressed the immigration issue, which is a very touchy subject, even for adults. We were explaining how America is at replacement level but because of immigration, we are not stable at that place. We were about to switch to another subject but Mr. Blake prompted us to continue. Don and I explained that the increasing numbers of immigrants is constantly adding to the population in America. America needs to lower the numbers of immigrants we allow or soon we will have a population problem. As we are accepting immigrants, we are actually taking away resources from the origin country. People are leaving other countries for a better life in America. Foreign countries’ educated professionals come here too, and by allowing more immigrants into the United States, we are robbing other countries of their potential. If immigrants were to remain in their native land there would be more educated “left” in the country. As we explained this, we told them that we were not against total immigration; we were just highlighting the benefits for controlled immigration.

One student, even before we tended to any of the problems dealing with population, had this insight when asked how population could possibly be harmful to us. “The larger the population the less food,” he stated. I must say, I was impressed to hear this from an eighth grader. As this generation is being raised in a technological age, I would assume that their thinking would be along the lines of the contrarians, thinking technology can be used to fix anything, even nature’s (human’s) problems. The fact that we do need the capabilities of nature, I thought, would be an abstraction. This was not so. This student could deduce that with more people, and even with advanced technologically, still there would be a shortage of food.

Pregnancy is a very hot topic for these students. They are at an age that sex is beginning to pop into their minds more and more. There was actually a girl in a class who had given birth a month ago. When asked what is important to them a couple boys yelled out, “girls.” I thought so. This answer obviously has implications towards population growth. The way we decided to tackle this was to just explain about family planning and reinforce that this is the responsible way to bring life into the world. The way to bring this around to the environment was to emphasize that not only was this better for the individual but for the environment. If one doesn’t have enough reasons to avoid conceiving, here was another one for them to chew on—the environment.

They had sufficient answers when asked about population growth and the environment in Central Florida. They brought up the increasing traffic and buildings that were going up. One girl raised her hand and wondered why they were building apartments when there were already empty apartments standing. The increasing garbage that comes with a rise in population (quite literally) hit home for some of the students. As there is a dump nearby some of their homes, the smell sometimes permeates their yards. They did not like the thought of this dump getting overflowed or larger.

When we asked what is important to the students, besides girls the other answer was money. Talking to teenagers about materialism and being an American is a difficult issue. This is a time that looking good and wearing the right clothes along with having the right things seem to make you popular. When we read off the statistics there was a shock value to it. None realized that this was how much influence they had on the environment by just being born an American. I explained that, like them, I was contributing just as much as everyone in the class. An example I used was how, overseas, driving across the street to run an errand was a crazy idea. Here in America to drive across the street, or a little ways down the street, is nothing we would think twice about. Everyone here does it. We told the students just to keep it in mind.

The first class was the only class that there was so much discussion that we were unable to get to the Pentagon’s release about the environment. I thought that this would be a hard hitter and I was right. When reading aloud the quotes, the class was actually silent. They really ingested the fact that the pentagon was telling us that environmental factors are more important than terrorism. They took this seriously, as it was not from some liberal environmental group. This was from the Pentagon. Next, I would ask how many times they would see broadcasts about terrorism and how many times did they see anything about the environment. There was an explanation of exactly what the Pentagon was warning about. The future holds countries hoarding resources and people dying because no one is willing to help or share.

Mr. Blake’s classes were very aware of the reality in this country, that money is power. This is not the view I would have taken at their age. I was still being fooled about “idealistic” governments. It was encouraging that Mr. Blake gave them real world truths. When talking about fuel they were aware that gas prices had shot up. They were also in tune with the fact that Iraq has oil and that this was a significant motivation for the United States going to war. One boy even raised his hand and stated, “Exxon was hypocritical because they still pollute yet they come across with this great image.” Interestingly enough we had just talked about Exxon in my last Environmental Philosophy class and I was able to inform him about the fishermen and others in the town that Exxon refused to help as these people were drowning in poverty because of the company’s oil spill. The fact that Mr. Blake teaches so openly and honestly enabled us to be very candid with our teaching as well.

Lastly, we concentrated on the environmental community. At this point they were somewhat overwhelmed, so we talked about their school community and Cocoa community. They probably felt a little embarrassed at that age raising their hand and talking about something such as community. Mr. Blake helped to begin the conversation by raising his hand and telling us his thoughts on community. To converge community with the students, I explained that it is okay to feel as if the environment is a big problem. We explained we were not telling them to run out and change the world, awareness was the first step. We gave them options about how to get involved and reiterated their progress just by awareness. This was how we ended the presentation.

Final Thoughts

This course was filled with ideas and issues I had always dismissed before. The most influential chapter I read in this class dealt with denial. It was absolutely the state I had been in for a long time. There are so many people out there like me. The only way to stop the destruction of this planet is to be honest with ourselves about what is happening to mother earth. We are reaching the point that we should no longer have the option to be in denial. Education must happen and I am proud to have done just a little to help that process.

My awareness now is my possession. I am able to pass this along to others. My knowledge is my power and this has been the largest impact from this class. Just by being aware, I am able to take a big step forward with others like myself. Eventually, instead of feeling overwhelmed and overpowered by the damage and denial from other Americans we will all stand together and make a difference in our environment. One day I will not be in the minority.