Abstract
The growth of the ecology of environmental learning research programme continues to increase as research evolves in understanding how garden-based programmes can be effective in spreading awareness of the sustainability crisis. This chapter challenges the prevailing traditional approach to environmental education by proposing that the current 21st century crisis requires the infusion of a peace ecological orientation to environmental learning in order to realize sustainable transformation and a sustainable peace through education. Preliminary results of a university peace environmental course in achieving the deeper challenge of transforming human consciousness as a precondition to existential changes in lifestyle habits are reported. Narrative accounts show different types of transformation are possible in assessing the effectiveness of combining peace and environmental education as a viable critical approach for learning environmental stewardship. This chapter introduces the concept of emergent biophilia as a higher-order integral state of consciousness when learning is approached as a transdisciplinary process of integrating nested ecologies of environmental knowledge, participation, cultural experience, and peace values in course construction.
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Notes
- 1.
The 2010 State of the World Report from The Worldwatch Institute documented staggering figures tracking environmental changes over half a century. Environmental degradation stood as the highest priority of world problems that severely impacts the survival of the human race (Assadourian 2010). An UN report of 7 June 2012 on the environment emphatically warns that the earth’s physical boundaries critical to human survival ‘are being pushed towards their biophysical limits… As human pressures on the earth … accelerate, several critical global, regional and local thresholds are close or have been exceeded … Once these have been passed, abrupt and possibly irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet are likely to occur, with significant adverse implications for human well-being’ (“UN warns environment is at tipping point,” in: USA Today, 6 June 2012: 1).
- 2.
In 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued this warning: ‘Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our recent course will bring about’ (http://www.un.org/popin/icpd/conference/ngo/940909224555.html).
- 3.
The U.S. Department of education, the National Science Foundation and other partnership agencies offer the Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition grants in which gardening programs may find funding if they combine science education with gardening practices. STEM initiatives in funding is a result of the U.S. falling in world-wide status in students who graduate in these fields.
- 4.
A U.S. national example is Chef Alice Waters owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley California. Waters pioneered the Edible Schoolyard program that introduces students into all aspects of locally grown organic gardening in the public schools where they grow, prepare, cook and share food. A local icon, Chef Alan Wong, is considered the Godfather of Hawaiian Cuisine and engages in local fundraisers for charity organizations and supporter of the Kapiolani Community College Culinary Arts Program of which he is a graduate.
- 5.
Hawai’i local and world renown musician, Jack Johnson and his wife founded the non-profit Kokua Hawai’i Foundation supports educational grants and programs in environmental education for Hawai’i schools. Johnson hosts an annual Kokua Festival as the major fundraiser event that brings together environmental organizations, eco-friendly businesses, musicians, artists, teachers, and community leaders to support environmental education in Hawai’i.
- 6.
Wood, R.J., Farm to School and the Child Nutrition Act Improving School Meals Through Advocating Federal Support For Farm-To-School Program. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Published: 05/31/2011 http://www.rwjf.org/en/research-publications/find-rwjf-research/2011/05/farm-to-school-and-the-child-nutrition-act.html.
- 7.
Farm to School Meeting, The Kohala Project, Hawaii Island, report, 22 February12.
- 8.
See footnote 2.
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Lum, B.J. (2014). Beyond the Surface: The Deeper Challenge in Environmental Education—Transforming Consciousness Through Peace Environmental Education. In: Oswald Spring, Ú., Brauch, H., Tidball, K. (eds) Expanding Peace Ecology: Peace, Security, Sustainability, Equity and Gender. SpringerBriefs in Environment, Security, Development and Peace(), vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00729-8_6
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