The Socio-Scientific Dispute Character of Environmental Education

Amos Dreyfus
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Arjen E.J. Wals
Wageningen Agricultural University, Netherlands

Environmental Learning and Sustainability, Online Colloquium, 19-30, 1998.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/education/documents/colloquium/wals.htm

Abstract

In view of the extent and urgency of the modern world's environmental crisis, environmental
education must become education for all (even if all education must not become ENVIRONMENTAL
EDUCATION, as advocated by some). Environmental education for all must show why it is so
important for all, which type of essential and indispensable objectives must be achieved, and can be
achieved in non-utopic conditions. Priorities must established. i.e. some central, essential, primary
achievements must be defined and given high-priority.

Using biodiversity as an example, the authors suggest that ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION lies at
the cross-roads of science, technology and society: a fuzzy area characterized by uncertainty, a
battle between "ready-made science" and "science-in-the-making," and by "socio-scientific disputes."
Developing environmental literacy in essence means enabling and empowering people to
understand, navigate, critique and participate in these disputes, in the realization that full
understanding of each and every issue is impossible and unnecessary.

At the same time, educators must recognize both the science and value-ladenness of environmental
issues and the way they are presented. This implies that moral questions and ethical considerations
must be addressed to help educators determine the type of environmental education in which they
wish to engage.

This paper, in short is about controversy, making choices, coping with uncertainty, socio-scientific
disputes, and saving environmental education from becoming elusive.

Introduction

Biodiversity is generally considered to be a key theme for Environmental Education. Because of the
divergence in meanings and uses of biodiversity by people of all kinds of backgrounds, it exemplifies
both the challenge and rationale of environmental education, particularly in formal education we tend
to focus in this contribution. Teaching about and for biodiversity - much like teaching about and for
sustainabilty - first and foremost requires environmental educators to clarify their approach to
environmental values and ethics, if only to decide whether they need and wish to teach biodiversity
as a central concept of environmental education. Subsequently, in case of positive decisions, they
must clarify for themselves what they mean by biodiversity, i.e., what they intend to teach. And finally,
knowing what and why to teach biodiversity, they must solve problems related to the teaching of such
a complex and elusive concept. In this paper we will address issues related to values and ethics,
issues related to the concept of biodiversity and issues related to teaching and learning. The future of

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environmental education largely depends on the way these issues are dealt with by environmental
educators themselves.

Value Based Decisions

Educators must firstly find answers to three questions, concerning the relations between human
beings and the great biological diversity which exists around us, i.e., in the biotic part of our
environment (see Box 1).

1. Does Planet Earth, with its nature, its biosphere, belong to us (even
if only as "Master after God"), or are we guests?

2. Is humankind’s well being and survival, for all practical purposes,

the only worthwhile consideration, or are we responsible for the
existence or well being of other species?

3. Do humans represent the sole entity which gives meaning to the

biosphere, or are people meaningful a respectable, but not the only
respectable, member of the biosphere?

Box 1. Key moral questions to be addressed by environmental

We have no intention to analyse or assess the validity of possible answers to the questions posed in
the box, but only want to show that no environmental educator can avoid questions, about the
relations between human beings and the great biological diversity which exists around them, i.e., in
the biotic part of their environment. The answer to these questions, even if implicit or intuitive, first
and foremost bears drastically on the environmental educators’ perception of their task. Secondly, in
view of the extent and the urgency of the modern world’s environmental crisis, environmental
education must become education for all.

When a type of education must be imposed on students at all educational levels, its components
must be selected on the base of robust answers to basic and often awkward questions. The task of
teaching all the students of an educational system music, for instance, is different from that of
teaching groups of volunteers, who have chosen the music option because they love music, or are a
priori motivated to learn music for reasons of their own. Similarly, optional environmental education
for nature lovers is not analogue or equivalent to environmental education for all. Environmental
education for all must show what is so important in it that all the students must learn it, which type of
essential and indispensable objectives must be achieved, and can be achieved in non-utopic
conditions. That is, priorities must be established in order to reduce environmental education to
manageable dimensions. Establishing priorities means that some central, essential, primary
achievements must be defined and given high-priority.

Educators who answer "Yes" to the first part of each of the questions in box 1, are clearly on the "A"
side of Leopold’s (1949) "cleavage": man is a conqueror rather than a "biotic citizen," and nature a
slave rather than a "collective organism." They tend apparently to hold traditional western views
which give to humankind total domination over other creatures. Whereas the source of these
traditions is the descriptions of the creation in the Old Testament’s Genesis and the following Jewish

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and Christians’ attitudes (White, 1967), or mainly the Christian view (Passmore, 1974), they have in
common that nature is not seen as sacred (Passmore, 1974; Hughes and Swan, 1986).

In the views of such educators, the main problem is "sustainability," as defined by the Bruntland
commission (WCED, 1987) : "Sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Their view of
sustainability is essentially "technological" (O’Riordan, 1989, p. 85; Orr, 1992, p. 24), in the sense
that they put emphasis on society’s ability to find technological solutions to environmental problems.
Concerning nature, they are essentially "conservationists": nature has value only as a resource which
must be managed wisely and responsibly. Environmental problems are only those which may induce
unsustainability, which comes mainly from poor technologies or from poor use of technologies.

From this point of view, the role of the educator is to demonstrate right uses of technologies and
responsible resource management. The type of argument is well displayed in some critics of
environmental education materials: "The very large differences between available reserves using
current technologies and potentially available resources using improved technologies are rarely
explained, thereby creating false impressions of the rate of depletion of various fuel supplies" (ICCE,
1997). The main type of activities will therefore deal with local or global environmental specific
problems and their possible solutions. It can be shown that there are frequent opportunities to
"infuse" such activities into the general curriculum, based on subject matter relevance (see for
instance Ramsey, Hungerford and Volk, 1992).

Two main educational implications emerge from such a view of environmental education: Firstly, no
radical change in the curriculum is required, the definition of the rationale of the curriculum is by and
large left to the developers of programs of study which are not primarily environmental. Secondly, the
"burden of proof" is on the environmental educators: for any damage caused to the environment by a
human activity, they must demonstrate that it is actually harmful to humankind, otherwise it is not
worth being dealt with, since humankind has no responsibility towards the other inhabitants of the
planet. In some cases, e.g., air and water pollution, such a demonstration is relatively easy. This is in
part why most environmental education programs mainly consist of small activities well focused
damage. For many reasons, the analysis of which is beyond the scope of this discussion, such
activities have indeed the great advantage of being feasible, useful, concrete and meaningful to the
students.

But for other issues, such as the loss of biological diversity, it may be very difficult to demonstrate
direct damage to humankind. The demonstration, basis of sometimes unclear, not clear-cut, and
often very sophisticated knowledge, would require a very high level of cognition and intellectual
flexibility on the part of students and be very demanding of the teachers’ skills. Furthermore, within an
anthropo-technocentric view, it may be very difficult to show that, counterbalanced by great, tangible
economic advantages, (trade-off, see Wood, 1997), the alleged damage is actually a damage. All
these considerations may well explain why, in the now "traditional" environmental education
programs, some parts of environmental education do not easily find a place.

The educators who would answer "Yes" to the second part of any of the questions in box 1 represent
the wide range of approaches who attribute to nature some specific values, "intrinsic" or
"instrumental." The term nature is temporarily used here, to include "everything except man and what
obviously bears the mark of man’s handiwork" (Passmore, 1974), and toward which people may have

3
moral obligations. Instrumental values are those which are related to "human interests and well being
now or in the future" (Oksanen, 1997). On the other hand, "to say that a thing is of intrinsic value
means that in justifying its preservation not need to refer to any other duties or values in a justificatory
sense" (Oksanen, 1997, emphasis added).

Some of these educators would hold the view that we are on the earth to take care of it responsibly,
i.e., with a responsibility to all its inhabitants. This is what Passmore refers to as "the stewardship
view of man not as a despot, but as a steward, a farm manager, actively responsible as God’s deputy
for the care of the world" (Passmore, 1974, p. 28). The stewardship approach is still considered by
many to be problematic for (Solomon, 1994a) mainly because it represents human kind as a
dominating, external to nature, agent, and not an intrinsic part of nature. But, as well stated by
Solomon (1994a), we are not stewards anymore, we are "potential victims," and "there are no
privileged positions within an ecosystem.... All life is interdependent." Accordingly, more and more
ecocentered, as opposed to anthropo-centered, views of environmental education have developed,
leading to highly equity minded "partnership" ethics, which consider "human as equal partners with
(rather than controlled by or dominant-over) non-human nature" (Merchant, 1996, p. 188, quoted by
Gough, 1997, p.140). Concerning human-nature relationships, this assumes equity between the
human and non-human communities, moral consideration for non-human nature, respect for
biodiversity (Gough,1997). This position also admits that environmental ethics are not
anthropocentered, they are anthropogenic, or human-generated.

From stewardship to partnership, the well documented range of views (see for example Huckle, 1991;
Corcoran and Sievers, 1994; Sauvé, 1996; Gough, 1997; Orr, 1992) concerning sustainability and
education towards sustainability have one thing in common: a feeling of responsibility, of commitment
towards the integrity of nature, or environment, whether the environment includes the human society
or not.

Before assessing the implications of such approaches in relation to environmental education, let us
return to our main assumptions: Education for all must define essential objectives, and central,
essential, primary achievements must be defined and given high-priority. Wide comprehensive,
inclusive central concepts must be given priority, and serve as organisers, guidelines for relevant
activities. In view of the common commitment of all the non-technocentrist educators towards non-
human organisms of Planet Earth, a functional understanding of the principles of biological diversity
and of their implications for human behaviour appears to be one of the most obvious central
objectives of environmental education. And when such a principle has, in the views of the educators,
an intrinsic value, its teaching does not need to refer to any other duties or values in a justificatory
sense. The burden of proof disappears. It does not mean that instrumental values will not be
mentioned, but they are neither the sine qua non condition, nor the main reason for teaching a
subject.

Concerning biological diversity, or nature, such a situation would prevail in the case of the partisans
of the ecocentric, often Gaianist (Gough, 1997) "partnership" approach, as well as for all the pure
ecocentrists, such as the "land" ecocentrists, disciples of Leopold (would we say "habitat"
ecocentrists today?), the "deep ecologists" of the Naess school of thought (Naess, 1988), also
probably for all types of biocentrist individualists focusing on animal rights, right to respect the
intrinsic value of all sentient non human animals (see Reagan, 1988; Singer, 1990), and for partisans

4
of Wilson’s biophilia which considers love of nature as a human biological, innate, adaptive,
evolutionary characteristic (Wilson, 1992).

So we have on the one side pure ecocentrists, who do not need to justify the teaching of biological
diversity, because it has intrinsic value, and on the other side, the technocentrists, who do not really
need to teach biological diversity as a central principle, but only those related contents for which they
find a direct, human and technologically centred link with human well being. And in the middle, we
have the ones we will call the stewards or "caretakers."

Nowadays, the so-called caretakers represent the bulk of environmental educators. They actually
produce environmental education activities. With different shades and nuances, they have in
common a non-behaviourist ideology and a human-social justice trend, oriented towards various
degrees of social criticism of the existing social interactions and power relations, and empowerment
strategies. They are nature oriented as well, but mainly in the sense that they see human societies as
essentially capable of and responsible for taking care of nature (Wals, 1997; Stapp, Wals, and
Stankorb, 1996; Robottom, 1987; Huckle, 1991).

For that type of non-Gaianist educator, the "burden of proof" does not disappear automatically. They
may, for instance, accept, in a non-traditionally western way of thinking, the value of the principles of
biological diversity, for religious or religious type beliefs, thus considering that one of our essential
roles on Earth is to preserve its natural biological diversity - notwithstanding any other duties. Then
they would have to find practical ways (and obviously the necessary compromises), to harmonise
their preservationist duties towards nature and their perception of their social duties, and this, may
prove to be a difficult task (Schmidtz, 1997). In any other case, they would have to try to insert the
principles of biological diversity as a rational, logical link between their ecocentric environmentalism
and their anthropo-oriented ethics.

To sum-up, "middle of the road" environmental educators must ask themselves several questions
about the wisdom of teaching the principles of biological diversity as a type of central educational
concept. Firstly, what exactly do we mean by "biological diversity," from a scientific and educational
point of view? Secondly, what is the rationale, beyond moral intrinsic values, to make biological
diversity a central concept in environmental education? What are the instrumental values connected
with it? And, thirdly, how can it be taught? The answers to these questions are as interdependent and
interwoven as the questions themselves.

Socio-scientific Disputes

As stated by many authors, biodiversity actually eludes definition (see for example Magurran, 1988;
Wood, 1997; Takacs,1996, pp. 46 ff.). There is apparently no universally agreed definition of
biodiversity, in spite of the enormous use, and exponential increase in the use, of the term in the
scientific literature (Harper and Hawksworth, 1995; Van der Maarel, 1997). Magurran (1988), for
example gives an overview of "the different emphases a biological scientist can use in studying
aspects of biodiversity" (genetic, species, guilds, habitat, ecosystem, landscape diversity, with
subdivisions). In a similar way, based on Salwasser’s (1991) "focal elements for ecosystem
management" in an "approach to conserving biodiversity through ecosystem management," Takacs
(1996) shows how "ecosystem" may represent different things to different biologists. This situation

5
may give the impression that biodiversity is "an ill-defined concept" or fuzzy (Wals and van Weelie,
1997; 1998). However, this is not necessarily the case.

Consider the term used in the Magurran’s (1988) definition or all the attributes of biodiversity
suggested in Wood’s (1997) references to various reviews: richness, evenness, equitability,
frequency, number of entities (species, genes, etc.) in a standard sample, composition, structure,
function, ecological processes, cladistic hierarchies, phylogenetic lineage, or in McNeely’s definition
(1990, also quoted by Wood): "Biodiversity encompasses all species of plants, animals, and micro-
organisms and the ecosystems and ecological processes of which they are parts . . . number and
frequency of ecosystems, species or genes . . . three levels: genetic diversity, species diversity, and
ecosystem diversity." There is nothing fuzzy in the use of those terms by scientists. Their use
involves the stipulation of careful definitions. Mathematical and scientific concepts are generally
regarded to be "well-defined" in the sense that their attributes or dimensions are well defined, and
that they can be transferred across situations or contexts without changes in their definitions (see for
example Tennyson, 1996).

So where does the ill-definedness or fuzziness that is often associated with biodiversity or, for that
matter, sustainability, come from? Ill-defined concepts, as opposed to well-defined scientific
concepts, are more culture bound and have characteristics which are variable with the various
contexts or situations in which they are used. The latter description is closer to the view of
biodiversity as perceived by many authors. The concept varies with the approach of the scientist.
Hence, it is not the attributes or the dimensions which are badly defined, it is the approaches which
are different, thus bringing about different selections of well defined attributes. "The main difficulty in
defining biodiversity" suggests Wood (1997), "is its multi-dimensional character, along with the fact
that the dimensions are not commensurable; they cannot be reduced to a single, and therefore
commensurable, statistic."

Biodiversity thus does not appear to be one single ill-defined concept, but a number of neighbouring
concepts, under the umbrella of a common term, and which has become the subject of a so-called
socio-scientific dispute. According to Bingle and Gaskell (1994), "when uncertain knowledge
associated with science-in-the-making is a part of a social issue, a socio-scientific dispute results
because there is no consensus as to the scientific facts. In such instances, citizens find themselves
facing divided expertise - qualified scientific experts who have produced different scientific findings
issue or who disagree over the interpretation of the same findings." A socio-scientific dispute, the
authors suggest, can even arise in the face of a scientific consensus, when the consensus is
challenged from outside because: personal (anecdotal) experience of citizens is in conflict with the
"scientific" evidence; because citizens feel that scientific knowledge is so new that any consensus on
its factual nature must be considered tentative at best. Or that certain interests are having undue
influence consensus position.

With such a view in mind, the task of the environmental educators, who are not purely homo-techno-
centrists and who feel some burden of proof, is quite clear: to meaningfully teach a concept which
cannot be reduced to and the dimensions of which cannot be reduced to one common statistic. This
means that the basic concepts which form the various views of biodiversity must be taught and put in
the context of various approaches, so as to make them functional. By "functional," we mean (Dreyfus
and Jungwirth, 1989) that the student recognises when the concept makes a difference, i.e., when a
different apprehension of the concept would lead to different conclusions or implications, and when it

6
is irrelevant or out of context. It also means that the students have some understanding of the
scientific/technological concepts which may allow them to assess the implications (environmental
"problems") of human technological interventions in nature, and the validity of suggested solutions,
according to various views.

This also means that various views of biodiversity and of conservation, or protection goals (e.g.,
endangered species, habitat, ecosystem integrity, process of evolution, etc.), should be presented in
the curriculum, so that ultimately the students would have true opportunities to make their own
judgements --as enlightened citizens in a democratic country-- concerning the importance of
biodiversity, the reality or validity of claims concerning damage caused to biodiversity, and the
implications of such damage. Educating for something, in such a view, does not mean partisan
indoctrination, but the development of the knowledge, the intellectual skills and flexibility which make
the student able to appreciate diverse approaches to science and technology laden social problems
and the ability to appreciate opposing arguments and functional ambivalence (Gardner, 1987;
Dreyfus and Roth, 1991).

So far, it can be argued that, beyond intrinsic moral values, taking care of nature means taking care
of biological diversity, because the two terms are more or less equivalent. So any intelligent
environmental education must include the basics of biological diversity as an indispensable scientific
basis. But when the term biodiversity is used, it has a specific social environmental slant: created for
conservation purposes, it is part of a "convincing strategy" (Takacs, 1996). Educators may feel that it
requires further justification, in terms of more or less instrumental values.

Values of Biodiversity

It would be beyond the scope of this discussion to review the numerous instrumental, homocentric
values that different authors have attributed to biodiversity, resource or potential resource: scientific,
ecological, economic, cultural, aesthetic, etc. The weakness of these views is that such resources
may be "traded-off" for the very development projects which deplete biodiversity, i.e., for allegedly
more useful or more real resources (Ehrenfeld, 1988; Wood, 1997), and that people have competing
interests, so that "no single group ... has proposed a set of reasons which are sufficiently compelling
and appealing to generate the necessary support to ensure that all of the biological diversity they
value be maintained" (McPherson, 1985, quoted by Wood).

Still, students should be made thoroughly aware not only of the strengths and weaknesses of these
types of arguments, but also, in view of the environmental crisis and of the rate of human induced
rate of species extinction (Ehrlich and Wilson, 1991), of a more abstract type of argumentation. Such
argumentation would show the danger of reducing biodiversity itself which, according to Wood
(1997), is the reduced supply of wild genetic resources which will lead to the depletion of current
resources. Any single "resource" may be traded off by any society, to fulfil its socio-economic
interests, or its survival needs, provided that biodiversity is not depleted (Wood, 1997). Biodiversity is
therefore seen as a necessary precondition for biological resources, and it cannot be traded off. This
appears to be its value.

The understanding of this type of argumentation requires some sound scientific literacy, for they are
based such as the vulnerability of current biological resources to insect and disease pests, to adverse
climatic conditions, the inability of biotechnology to supply the necessary diversity of genetic

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resources (see Baumann, Bell, Koechlin, and Pimbert, 1996), or the disadvantages which may
ultimately overweigh its possibilities (see for example Westra, 1998; Mannion, 1995, chp.10). Such
"ecological" arguments which assign an inherent value to biodiversity itself, have their detractors. But
in view of the acute potential danger to humankind, it is inconceivable that students of environmental
education should not be provided with the opportunity and the tools to appreciate Wilson’s (1992)
question: "If enough species are extinguished, will the ecosystem collapse, and will the extinction of
most other species follow soon afterwards? . . . by the time we find out, however, it might be too late."
The educational argumentation will indeed claim that in a democratic society, the defence of
biodiversity requires literate, and even ambivalent, citizens, rather than apparently well-intentioned,
but ignorant, uninformed or fanatic supporters.

Environmental Education and STS

Scientific and technological literacy are the main objectives of the STS (Science-Technology-Society)
education which has developed independently from environmental education even though STS too
mostly deals with environmental issues. A scientifically and technologically literate person, said
Bybee (1991a) understands, amongst others, the nature of modern science and modern technology,
the nature of scientific explanation and of technological solutions to human problems, and the
limitations and possibilities of science and technology. Miller (1990) made an extremely important
distinction from the point of view of environmental education, between "learned" people, who possess
knowledge, and "literate" people, who are able "to read about, comprehend, and express opinions on
scientific matters." In order to express an opinion, says Solomon (1990) "a minimal level of scientific
knowledge is thought to be required, buttressed by a suitably positive attitude towards science and
scientists (emphases added)." Ramsey (1993), as quoted above, regarded empowerment to involve
"knowledge and processes of both science and democracy."

STS educators tend to emphasise that citizens should be scientifically literate, that STS issues are
essentially science-laden, but that science is value laden, and cannot anymore be considered to be
morally neutral, and that, furthermore, relevance, action, social and personal responsibility are central
to science and science education (Solomon, 1994b).

Environmental education, on the other hand, tends to emphasise that citizens should change their
behaviour in some way or another and that environmental issues are essentially value-laden.
However, most environmental educators would not claim to be science educators. This may be why,
while scientific and technological knowledge have always been recognised as basic requirements for
environmental education (see for instance the report of the Tiblisi conference, UNESCO, 1978;
Hungerford, Peyton and Wilke, 1980; or Huckle, 1991), scientific knowledge is referred to mainly as a
source of well established information to be used in discussions, experiments, decision making
processes, etc. In spite of Rubba’s and Wiesenmayer’s (1988) claims or recommendations,
"foundational competencies" such as understanding of the nature of science, of scientific laws and
explanations, the power and limitations of science, are rarely overtly treated in environmental
education materials. When Huckle (1991), with a socially critical focus, sums-up the nine components
of education for the environment, one of them refers to scientific knowledge and one to technology,
and there is no mention of understanding of the nature of the scientific enterprise or of scientific
knowledge.

Literacy for a Socio-scientific Dispute

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Having decided to teach biodiversity, escape the feeling that its "socio-scientific dispute" character
represents a golden opportunity to educate literate and enlightened citizens. The students must
understand the scientific grounds for the impact of a science based technology on biodiversity. But on
which biodiversity? The answer, depending on a type of approach to biodiversity, is extremely
science laden (biologists are proposing various approaches which the students, as suggested above,
must understand). Firstly, the students must understand what it is that has which impact on what, all
very science laden questions, and also be able to understand possible answers to a no less science
laden and no less crucial additional question: so what? (The term science laden does not, by any
means, suggest that the answer is exclusively scientific, but that it has an important scientific
component which can be neither ignored nor underestimated).

Secondly, because of the nature of scientific knowledge, students must understand its role in a socio-
scientific dispute. This objective goes far beyond Huckle’s objectives or that of the Independent
Commission on Environmental Education (ICEE, 1997, pp. 2-3): "Environmental Educators should
place primary emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge." Socio-disputes are issues about which
decision making is most problematic. They are in fact the main topic of environmental education, or of
STS, since they are truly at the interface between science and society. They also represent a most
common situation, since where there is no dispute, there is no longer any issue at stake, there is
accepted or an imposed solution.

Education towards rational behaviour in cases of socio-disputes may be regarded to be the main goal
of environmental education. As a classical, crucial, contemporary socio-scientific dispute, potentially
relevant to every student’s personal or social environment, the controversial issue of biodiversity
indeed represents a golden opportunity to educate, empowered and enlighten citizens. Teaching
about biodiversity without its socio-scientific dispute aspect would be tantamount to indoctrination
about desirable behaviours as well as to presenting hypothetical scientific knowledge or claims as
certain. All this being said, socio-scientific disputes are heavily related to scientific knowledge.

We will not discuss here the relativity, and the tentative character of even well established
knowledge, and the influence of reality on the formation of knowledge. With Driver and her
colleagues, (Driver et al., 1994) we will accept as functional for environmental education, Harre’s
(1986) idea that scientific knowledge is constrained by how the world is and that scientific progress
has an empirical basis, even though it is socially constructed and validated. With Driver and her
colleagues, we will consider that knowledge has been constructed and agreed upon within the
scientific community, it becomes, for all practical purposes, part of the taken for granted way of
seeing things within that community. This taken for granted knowledge -- the ready-made science,
non-controversial and unrelated to the specific contexts of its development, (Bingle and Gaskell ,
1994, based on Latour’s and Woolgar’s approach (1979) -- is the first type of knowledge that students
must learn. Within the context of environmental education such knowledge would essentially consist
of basic scientific concepts, such as principles of ecology, reproduction, etc., or of basic technological
understandings, in as much as they are necessary.

However, the biodiversity studies lead the students into areas of disagreement between specialists:
the perceptions of the dimensions of biodiversity, of the actual meaning of biodiversity, the impact of
technology according to different views and the hypothesised implications of such an impact. This is
the area of science-in-the-making, in which, "statements about scientific knowledge are seen as
claims: they are contestable and subject to revision" (Bingle and Gaskell , 1994). It is of great

9
importance that students be made aware of the social character of science-in-the-making, of the
development of theories, and also its powerful impact, as well as of its limitations, so that they realise
the relation between the nature of scientific knowledge and the type of role that it may play in the
making of decisions concerning socio-human problems. Such an education is indispensable in
relation to the development of literacy and of empowerment.

A sound grasping of the uncertain, hypothetical character of the "science in the making" knowledge
also has important implications concerning public decision making. As Bingle and Gaskell say, a
socio-dispute may arise when citizens feel that scientific knowledge is so new, "that any consensus
factual nature must be considered tentative at best," and accordingly, the greatest prudence is
advisable when crucial decisions are to be made basis. This is Takacs’ feeling (1996, p.202), that,
since the claim that diminished biodiversity means diminished prospects for human survival is "not
necessarily untrue, why not err on the side of caution?", is valid when it comes from a scientifically
literate citizen, not from a scientifically ignorant one.

As shown in this short discussion, sound relevant scientific knowledge must be acquired by
environmental education students not as a basis of information, but as a part of their understanding
of a) the social construction of scientific knowledge -- especially in the case of an abstract, complex
idea(s) as biodiversity, and b) of the resulting role and position of scientists and scientific knowledge
in public decision making. In short: as a part of their environmental education. Does this mean that
"formal" environmental education is actually open only to science majors?

Science-laden Education for All

According to the ICEE report (ICEE, 1997) environmental education should be "an upper-level multi-
disciplinary capstone course integrating what students have learned in science, social science, and
other upper-level courses." Although there is no reason to consider that science majors should not
profit of their knowledge, and no reason to prevent the development of such "capstone" courses for
science majors, we regard the main problem to be the education of all the students about biodiversity
as a part of environmental education. As Aikenhead (1994), based on Fensham (1988) has shown,
the emphasis and on social aspects (STS contents) in STS curricula can vary widely, from a situation
where most of the emphasis is on scientific contents, to one where they are mentioned mention the
link with science. A continuum between those extreme cases, various decisions can be made, and
this is true for environmental education as well as for STS education. But the main idea of some STS
educators is that science, as a part of the general education of everyone, cannot and should not be
taught as "top down" science, from those who know down to those who do not, but rather as a
functional tool to be used in a relevant context (Solomon, 1994a; Aikenhead, 1994). Biodiversity does
provide such a context, in the framework of which knowledge can be acquired when required.

However, the problem should not be underrated. Biodiversity as presented here, i.e., as seen by
educators, is essentially interdisciplinary, and its understanding, as well as that of its implications,
appears to require a wide range of knowledge and a tremendous amount of information. Some voices
which claim that environmental education materials do not provide the students with appropriate
knowledge and information, can already be heard. The result is an allegedly biased, unbalanced
education, which puts emphasis only previsions, and ignores other views (see for example Sanera,
1998).

10
When discussing education for scientific and technological literacy, Fourez (1997) showed a great
awareness of the problem of scientific knowledge. In his view, it is a normal situation that even
involved and literate citizens would lack in-depth knowledge concerning various STS-issues. No one
is a specialist in everything. Smith (1998) also stated that the goal of environmental education cannot
be the full expertise of each citizen, but "the ability to ask the right questions and evaluate the quality
of available answers." Accordingly, Fourez (1997) claims, STS education should provide the students
with skills which make them able to meaningfully use "black boxes." A black box is a "representation
of a part of the world which is globally accepted, without caring how it operates" (Fourez, 1997). A
black box may still be meaningfully understood in the sense that the student grasps what it does, and
is able to use it correctly (a watch is a black box for most of us, but we have a functional
understanding of what it does and of what it says to us). This is the level which all students must
reach concerning the necessary scientific knowledge. Also, says Fourez, amongst other related skills,
students must be literate enough to be able to "use" rightly specialists, a skill which he claims can be
taught ("to strike the balance between our dependency knowledge and our own healthy critical
minds"), and he mentions several other scientific-literacy related skills. These are the kind of science
related skills which environmental education should try to develop.

A crucial topic like biodiversity requires the ability to use functional scientific understandings in a state
of uncertainty-linked decision making. It can be inferred that environmental education, when involving
topics such as biodiversity or sustainability, cannot be content with "infusing" activities into other
curricula. Infusion is a pragmatic way of action, which must not be discarded, but environmental
education must also develop its own socio-scientific curricula, which would claim full responsibility for
relevant science education.

Conclusion

Just as the social definition of biodiversity refers to a strategy, the educational definition must go
beyond the scientific views of biological diversity or of nature. Biodiversity in the educational sense is
a natural phenomenon of which the integrity must be urgently protected, according to various views.

The educational concept of biodiversity includes an understanding of:

• the idea(s ) of biological diversity,

• the natural processes involved in it and relevant scientific concepts,

• claims concerning its importance and central position in the biosphere, and other values
related to biological diversity, or nature, (why it should be protected),

• the damage caused, or claimed to be caused to it by human activities,

• claims concerning possible ways of action concerning the human generated problems,

• the Science, Technology and Society interactions related to the recognition of problems and
implementation of possible solutions,

• the rational treatment of socio-human science based problems, especially in cases of lack of
knowledge or lack of consensus about the existing tentative knowledge (socio-scientific

11
 dispute): basic scientific and technological knowledge, knowledge concerning the nature and
implications of the crisis and of possible solutions.

Through environmental education students can be made aware of the social character of "science in
the making," of the development of theories, and also its powerful impact, as well as of its limitations,
so that they come to realise the relation between the nature of scientific knowledge and the type of
role that it may play in the making of decisions concerning socio-human problems. Such an education
is indispensable in relation to the development of literacy and of empowerment.

The potential strength and added value of environmental education lies in its ability to explore the
edges. Environmental education lies at the cross-roads of science, technology and society: a fuzzy
area characterized by uncertainty, a battle between "ready-made science" and "science-in-the-
making," and by "socio-scientific disputes." Developing environmental literacy in essence means
enabling and empowering people to understand, navigate, critique and participate in these disputes,
in the realization that full understanding of each and every issue is impossible and unnecessary.

At the same time, educators must recognize both the science and value-ladenness of environmental
issues and the way they are presented. This implies that moral questions and ethical considerations
must be addressed to help educators determine the type of environmental education in which they
wish to engage.

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