Dr Sandra Wooltorton

Edith Cowan University

PO Box 1712
BUNBURY 6237
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Email: s.wooltorton@ecu.edu.au



Ecological Literacy:
Basic for a Sustainable Future
(Abridged Version)


J anuary 2006, Brisbane


Sandra is a researcher in education for sustainability, an education lecturer with Edith Cowan
University and a primary school teacher. She is also a research associate of the Institute of
Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University.
S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 1
Ecological Literacy:
Basic for a Sustainable Future
(Abridged Version)

Introduction
Capra (2005, p. 19) writes that the first step towards the goal of creating sustainable
communities is to understand the language of nature: the organisational principles by which
ecosystems sustain the web of life. These principles are the web of life, cycles of nature and
the flow of energy from the sun. According to Capra, (2005, p. xiv) through direct
experiences of the language of nature:
we become aware of how we ourselves are part of the web of life, and over
time the experience of ecology and nature gives us a sense of place. We
become aware of how we become embedded in an ecosystem, in a landscape
with a particular flora and fauna; in a particular social system and culture.
An ecologically literate person, according to Orr (2005, p. xi) would have at least a basic
comprehension of ecology, human ecology and the concepts of sustainability, as well as the
wherewithal to solve problems.
Orr (2005, p. 92) writes that many of us are residents who reside temporarily in places by
putting down few roots and knowing comparatively little about our places, rather than
inhabitants who dwell observantly, lovingly and caringly in place, in a mutually nourishing
relationship. To a great extent we are a deplaced people in that our food, water, livelihood,
energy, materials, friends, pastimes and sacred inspiration are no longer sourced from our
local places (Orr, 2005, p. 88). Rather, many of these elements come from planetary places
unknown to us, to which our toxic and radioactive wastes, garbage, sewage and industrial
wastes are consigned. In fact, we spend much time, effort and energy going elsewhere!
Ecological literacy develops through connection with place, and is necessary to address the
problems associated with deplacement and abstraction of thought which underpin our
unsustainable business-as-usual societies.
What are the key connected elements of ecological literacy?
The key connected elements of ecological literacy that I describe below, are the ecological
self, with which I include ecological identity and spirituality, a sense of place and active
S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 2
citizenship, systems thinking and relationship, the ecological paradigm, the pedagogy of
Education for Sustainability (EfS), and reading the world of nature and culture.
The Ecological Self
The ecological self experiences the sense of interconnectedness with the cycle of life on the
basis of care and compassion, expansiveness of soul and respect for other on the basis of
respect for difference (Wooltorton, 2004). Many people experience this interconnectedness in
a spiritual way.
An ecological self is also a relational self which develops in community, in particular a
participative democracy notion of community. We all have an ecological self which can be
repressed by ego-bound thinking. Mathews (1994) describes a world-directed love as the vital
attitude of the ecological self in its tasks of creating meaningfulness and reconnecting with
nature and each other. She writes:
Meaningfulness is to be found in our spiritual capacity to keep the ecocosm on
course, by teaching our hearts to practise affirmation, and by awakening our
faculty of active, outreaching, world-directed love. Though a tendency to 'tread
lightly' on the earth, and to take practical steps to safeguard the particular
manifestations of Nature will flow inevitably from such an attitude, the crucial
contribution will be the attitude itself, a contribution of the heart and spirit.
(1994, 160; emphasis given)
When we develop the ecological self, we enhance the capacity for ecological literacy.
A sense of place and active citizenship
Devall (1990, 58) says that place is the homeland of the ecological self. He writes, "the more
we know a mountain or a watershed for example, and feel it as our self, the more we can feel
its suffering" (1990, 52). People have always lived symbiotically with nature, weaving
religion, stories and culture into the sense of place. In Australia, this education is more than
50,000 years old. A strong sense of place implies an engagement in local culture, history and
organic community together with the ecosystem. Ecological literacy fosters a revitalised
sense of place, underpinned by a more direct contact with the natural elements, the soils,
wildlife and landscape of the place.
Orr (2005, p. 93) suggests that place-based education is partly remedial learning to undo the
old habits of dependency and wastefulness. A significant element of place-based education is
its action component. For example, the intention of a regional survey is to enable
S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 3
interdisciplinary multi-level cooperative participation in identification, planning and action,
thereby opening up many opportunities for the development and demonstration of active
citizenship. Ecological literacy is an integral component of active citizenship.
Back to the basics: systems thinking and relationship
J ardine, Clifford and Friesen (2005) contend that the normal basics-as-breakdown approach
teachers are expected to teach reduces the basics to isolated, fragmented, quite meaningless
parts of the inheritances that comprise the living character of the disciplines. In fact, it is the
living character of the disciplines that is most basic to the disciplines (J ardine et al., 2005,
209). J ardine et al. ask:
Imagine if we treated these things as the basics of teaching and learning:
relation, ancestry, commitment, participation, interdependence, belonging,
desire, conversation, memory, place, topography, tradition, inheritance,
experience, identity, difference, renewal, generativity, intergenerationality,
discipline, care, strengthening, attention, devotion, transformation, character.
(2005, xiii).
These elements are basic to each discipline in their fullness and ecological literacy develops
through the systems thinking and sense of relationality that this living approach facilitates.
The living character of the disciplines approach is in line with the new way of thinking and
seeing the world in terms of relationships, connectedness and context that is called for by
Capra (2005, 20), Sterling (2005) and other sustainability educators. This is because living
systems are non-linear and comprise patterns of relationships, which is in contrast to
conventional western science and education. Capra (2005, 23 28) describes the core
concepts of ecology, which he says may be called the principles of sustainability, or even the
fundamental facts of life. These are: networks, nested systems, diversity, cycles, flows,
development and learning, and dynamic balance. The real basics of education therefore, are
these concepts which are inherent in each discipline and fundamental to a sustainable future.
Ecological literacy entails the development of a practical understanding of these concepts,
through each of the disciplines.
The ecological paradigm
The shifts of perception documented by Capra (2005, 20 21) which are necessary for
cultural transformation from conventional science and education towards the ecological
paradigm include: from the study of parts to the study of the whole, from the study of objects
to the study of relationships and networks, from a focus on objective knowledge to a focus on
S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 4
contextual knowledge, from the measurement of quantity to a consideration of quality, from
attention to structure to attention to processes, and from the study of contents to the study of
patterns. In its full application, the ecological paradigm is the opposite of the economic
paradigm, in that it recognises broadly defined biological wealth as true gross national
product rather than commercially produced wealth (Callenback, 2005 p. 44). It is considered
that as a map for cultural transformation, the ecological paradigm would be the most
appropriate foundation for science and society to learn sustainability.
The education for sustainability (EfS) pedagogy
When you teach someone something, youve robbed them of the experience of
learning it (Margolin 2005, p. 68).
EfS is a pedagogy which facilitates a practical knowledge of sustainability. The pedagogy
uses an experiential, participatory and multidisciplinary approach, focusing on the learning
process.
Living things cannot be defined independently of their living systems, which means that
intelligence must be ecologically embedded (Bowers, 1995, 129). Thus, if a creature destroys
its environment, collaboratively or individually, it destroys itself which is insanity rather than
intelligence (Bowers, 1995, 131). Thus, ecological literacy requires competence in critical
literacy. The ecological notion of intelligence points to the compelling need for social
learning, and competence in communication together with a variety of methods of decision
making within a strong, participative notion of democracy in community. Ecological literacy,
as I see it, includes critical, social, cultural and political literacy.
Reading the world of nature and culture: environmental management laws as
part of ethics
Traditional ecological knowledge implies detailed knowledge of and interdependence with
species, their locations in a place, their populations and characteristics together with their
interconnections, relationships and cycles, so that a cultural and ethical framework regulates
usage to guarantee dynamic balance. Abram (1996 p. 176) suggests that almost all
indigenous, oral cultures intertwine earthly place with linguistic memory, and he proposes
that this is a spontaneous propensity of humans which is radically transformed by alphabetic
writing. There are many implications of this idea for educators. Perhaps the most significant
implication is the importance of children engaging deeply with nature as early in their lives as
S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 5
possible, in order that they have a strong foundation for becoming bi-lingual or at least have
the chance to become bi-literate, counting ecological literacy as an equal first literacy.
A short critique associated with ecological literacy
Much theoretical and practical work in schools has been completed by the Centre for
Ecoliteracy in California, therefore over the twenty or so years of development of the concept
of ecological literacy, most of the critiques have been addressed within the broad field of
ecological literacy. The critique of parochialism may be useful if place and local community
comprised the entire curriculum, but it does not. Ecological literacy has been critiqued for its
scientific orientation, implying that the field is the domain of science education, however this
is no longer relevant since the field now comprises a broad interdisciplinary field of views.
Further, the science component is non-reductionist systems science.
The critique that the field implies a narrow, ecological view of sustainability no longer
applies, since it is now reasonably well accepted in the EfS literature that for sustainability to
be possible, all four pillars of sustainability must be present: ecological, economic, socio-
cultural and political. Therefore, cultural, social, political and economic literacy are
necessarily within ecological literacy, and vice versa. The narrow environmental definition of
sustainability does not work within a critical perspective. Finally, the critique of the concept
of transformative education for its continual transforming away from cultural knowledge of
place, resulting in deplacement of peoples, is currently being addressed with recognition that
an important intention of transformation is to reconnect with place and each other
(Wooltorton, 2004).
A constraint in Australia is the systemic English literacy and numeracy testing the
WALNA
1
in Western Australia which causes teachers to teach to the test and spend too
much time on literacy and numeracy in isolation. The WALNA can function as structural
resistance to EfS, in that teachers find that they can not make the time to engage sufficiently
in experiential, participative, citizenship or other creative types of activities (Wooltorton,
2002 p. 8). In the USA, ecological literacy has been shown to function as a solution to this
constraint. Sobel (2004, pp. 24 32) reports that a wide range of high quality studies show
convincingly that using the environment as an integrating context (EIC) results in an across-
the-disciplines, whole of education improvement.

1
The Western Australian Literacy and Numeracy Assessment is a mandatory testing programin all Western Australian schools.
S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 6
The meta-narratives such as consumerism, commercialisation, individualism and corporatism
comprise the remaining challenge, producing a serious constraint both to educators in
implementing EfS, and to the possibility of a sustainable future (Bowers, 2005). The problem
of transforming our culture away from these meta-narratives is a very difficult one to
overcome in schools, since these issues are hegemonic. Research to determine the effect of
ecological literacy against this constraint is needed.
What are the likely educational outcomes of ecological literacy?
The goal of ecological literacy will necessitate the reorientation of our schools and schooling
systems towards a sustainable future. In doing this, the purpose of schooling and each aspect
of education what we do and how, as well as funding will need to be reconsidered.
Schools landscapes will be planned for ecological learning, with areas set aside on campus
and in local places for the restoration of native ecosystems. School communities will model
ecological practices of waste minimisation and reuse, energy minimisation and renewable
energy generation, food growing and lunch production, as well as reflection and enjoyment in
nature. The local community will be closely involved in school activities, both on-campus,
helping with historical and cultural learning, and off-campus with students conducting
regional surveys of various kinds with the assistance of expert community members.
With a goal of ecological literacy, the focus of planning will be the ecological self of each
child. Arts, music, dance, crafts, physical education, society & environment and sciences will
be considered as important as literacy and numeracy. Schools will be for the dual purpose of
enabling children to achieve their potential and to prepare for a sustainable future.
Perhaps the most considerable curriculum outcome of the goal of ecological literacy will be
the acceptance of systems thinking and relationship as new basics for each discipline, and
interdisciplinary studies will form an important part of the curriculum. Systems thinking,
together with critical, creative and caring thinking, will be a cornerstone of all of our
planning for learning. Likewise, communicative competence and participative decision
making will be a feature of classroom and school organisation and practice. Finally,
performance at school will improve considerably across a range of indicators including
enthusiasm and willingness to learn, learning outcomes in all disciplines and standardised
literacy and numeracy tests.
S. Wooltorton: Ecological Literacy 7
The concepts, skills, values and practices of ecological literacy are basics required for
addressing the great challenge of our time, of reorienting our communities toward
sustainability.
We cannot solve such deep problems quickly, but we can begin learning how
to reinhabit our places, as Wendell Berry says, lovingly, knowingly, skilfully,
reverently (cited in Orr, 2005, 94).
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human world. New York, USA: Pantheon Books.
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Bowers, Chet (1995). Educating for an ecologically sustainable culture: Rethinking moral
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Wooltorton, S. (2004). School as community: Bridging the gap to sustainability. PhD Thesis:
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