Ecological Consciousness in Ontario Elementary Schools: The Truant Curriculum and the Consequences

Abstract

Global ecological degradation is currently causing widespread suffering and this is expected to worsen unless we change our global behaviors. Wilson (2002) has suggested that the consequences of ecological degradation are a threat to all life on earth. Woodbridge (2004) asserts that human pressures on natural systems will reach pivotal status by 2025. There have been many international research studies that have comprehensively examined a wide variety of natural systems, and the results continually point to a serious threat to our long term survival. However, we don't have to look to the future to know we have serious problems now. Globally, every 8 seconds, a child dies from drinking contaminated water (deVilliers, 2000, p. 19). Principally, we in North America feel somewhat distanced from a statistic such as this and take comfort that these serious ecological problems are happening somewhere else. Yet, even in Southern Ontario, people have died from drinking contaminated water, from air pollution and from living on or near contaminated soil. We are slowly waking up to the fact that complex ecological systems have no boundaries and that we are all vulnerable. Given the serious nature of ecological decline, there is some concern that we have not done a very good job in creating an ecologically literate society nor have we been able to significantly develop common ecological behaviors.