On Wednesday (Today) we celebrate Earthday, founded on April 22, 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson, and around the world it is a day that focuses on educating all of us for the environment with activities, celebrations, conferences, and programs.
You can visit the Earthday Network to explore a myriad of resources that are available to us to further our understanding and involvement in environmental education and environmental science activities, as well as political & economic developments.
In the past 40 years the significance of Earthday has changed from of environmental awareness to mainstream developments in environmental policy that will shape our future. Within this time frame, the EPA was created, laws were passed to clean the air, water, and land, scientists reported results of studies pointing to climate change and global warming, and the present US administration has appointed a very powerful group of environmental scientists and activitists to head the Office of Science and Technology, the Department of Energy, the EPA, and Interior.
In the last half dozen blog posts, I’ve explored the theories proposed by Vladimir Vernadsky, author of The Biosphere (read the complete book here), a book published in 1926, that laid the foundation for work that was to follow by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. Vernadsky developed the concept of “biosphere” calling attention to a “sphere of life” which, according to him, came about from biogeochemical processes between living and non-living matter. Lovelock and Margulis proposed the Gaia hypothesis suggesting that living organisms maintain the chemical balance of air, seas, and soil that ensure their own existence. That life creates and maintains environmental conditions favorable to its existence was called the Gaia Hypothesis. For these two pioneering scientists, Gaia is like a living cell. The scientific & theoretical underpinnings for an Earthday can be found in the work of these researchers, and many others.
The launching of a Global Environmental Summit in Moscow
For many years I was involved with the development of the Global Thinking Project (GTP). Basing our work environmental science as underscored by Vernadsky, Lovelock and Margulis, we designed curriculum to foster global thinking among students around the globe. One of the signature activities of the GTP was real time, face-to-face “global environmental summits” which were held over the years in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Atlanta.
American and Russian students and their teachers discuss "strategy" prior to making a presentation at a "global environmental summit" in Atlanta
The summits were carried out amonst one hundred American and Russian students, who had lived in each others’ homes for two three-week periods, participated in environmental research activities in American and Russian communities, and lived in the context of each others culture. The summits brought them together to resolve environmental topics and to write declarations. We described the student’s activity as that of a “citizen scientist,” one who combines the process of science with public policy decision making.
In the GTP curriculum, one of the “projects” that was based on the global environmental summits, was a project which we labeled Project Earth Month (you can find the entire project at this link). Project Earth Month was an open-ended project that encourages students to identify an important environmental topic, design investigations, and take action on their findings. Earth Month was traditionally held during the month of April so as to be part of local Earth Day activities.
You might want to follow this link to Project Earth Month to find out what procedures were used with the students, and read about some of the work that GTPers did in connection with this project.
Resources
Earthday Network: Its mission is to broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide, and to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle for promoting a healthy, sustainable environment.
Project Earth Month: A GTP environmental science research activity.
Environmental Science on the Net: The Global Thinking Project: Text containing the curriculum of the GTP.
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