A second edition of this textbook is now available. Developing Ecological Consciousness offers an ecology-based, wonder-filled initiation to the Universe and the Planet Earth. It examines the ways in which humans are damaging the Earth and their own bodies and spirits. The book presents paradigms, values, and tools essential for both planetary and personal transformation.
Developing Ecological Consciousness is a unique introduction to environmental studies. In Chistopher Uhl's view it is time to acknowledge the ways that our cultural conditioning leads to separation from self, other, and Earth. This book charts a three-step path for healing this separation, first, by revealing that Earth is our larger body; second, by detailing the sickening state of our Earth body; and, third, by offering the tools necessary for healing both ourselves and Earth.
Developing Ecological Consciousness is a unique environmental studies textbook. Rather than working through a list of environmental problems, it aims to help students become aware of the awe and wonder of our planet, understand some of the challenges facing it, and explore possibilities for action and change. This text is invaluable for courses in a variety of disciplines, including environmental studies, biology, sociology, and political science.
This book offers an ecology-based, wonder-filled initiation to the Universe and the Planet Earth. It examines the ways in which humans are damaging the Earth and their own bodies and spirits. It also presents paradigms, values, and tools essential for both planetary and personal transformation.
This thesis examines the factors that influence the development of an ecological consciousness in children and seeks to answer two overarching questions, including (1) how can an ecological consciousness be developed in children, and (2) can the influences that lead to the development of an ecological consciousness be embedded within a new learning structure for environmental education?" This study developed from the belief that environmental education must shift its structure in order to succeed in initiating long-term changes in human behavior towards the environment. Environmental education's structure will require a movement away from teaching facts and concepts about the environment and moving towards fostering, mentoring and guiding interrelationship to the natural world through the development of an ecological consciousness. A phenomenological study was conducted on the lives of six environmentalists and naturalists. This thesis study attempts to uncover the factors and influences that lead to the development of an ecological consciousness in these individuals and utilize those findings to inform a new structure for environmental education that fosters the development of an ecological consciousness.
In their latest book, Edmund O'Sullivan and Marilyn Taylor highlight the pedagogical practices that foster transformation from our current way of thinking about our place in the world to an underlying ecological way of seeing and acting. Learning Towards Ecological Consciousness offers the reader a selection of transformative practices that demonstrate, in specific contexts, the complex journey and contextual conditions that move us forward towards a deeper realization that we are part of the world around us, holding a greater promise for deeper ecological awareness. To this end, thirteen chapters offer a rich array of practices in diverse life settings - educational environments, communities and workplaces and personal relationships. Contributors and their material represent a range of cultures, work setting and professions. The aspect of O'Sullivan and Taylor's new book that distinguishes it from other books in the field is its exploration of how consciousness can be transformed through practices, experience and action.
This book explores alternative ways of understanding our environmental situation by challenging the Western view of nature as purely a resource for humans. Environmental Consciousness, Nature and the Philosophy of Education asserts that we need to retrieve a thinking that expresses a different relationship with nature: one that celebrates nature's otherness and is attuned to its intrinsic integrity, agency, normativity and worth. Through such receptivity to nature's address we can develop a sense of our own being-in-nature that provides a positive orientation towards the problems we now face. Michael Bonnett argues that this reframing and rethinking of our place in nature has fundamental implications for education as a whole, questioning the idea of human "stewardship" of nature and developing the idea of moral education in a world of alterity and non-rational agents. Drawing on and revising work published by the author over the last 15 years, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of environmental studies, environmental education, and the philosophy of education.
