"Wildnerness of Zin", 1999-2001, oil on canvas, 65 x 153 cm., 26" x 60" painted by Ron Gang of Kibbutz Urim.
Instructor: Eric Pallant, Department of Environmental Science
Allegheny College
Meadville, PA 16335 USA
Meetings: Monday 8:00 - 11:00
E-mail: epallant@allegheny.edu
or click on mailbox 
Click hand to go to Pallant home page 
Links and other contacts |
| Environmental Education | Lesson Plans | Israeli Environmnetal Organizatgions | People |
The goal of environmental education is to teach people how to learn about the environment and their connection to it. Notice that in my definition the goal is to teach people how to learn. Environmental education is not really a forum for teaching people about issues, about what is right and what is wrong, about how to vote, how to protest, or even about how to change their lives. Moreover, if there is one thing that environmental educators have made clear to all other kinds of educators, it is that most people learn best by doing, by experience, by participation. This is a stark contrast to the kinds of education so many of us have become accustomed to: the frontal attack. Environmental educators have figured out that it is far more effective to take the teacher off the podium at the front of the classroom. In fact it's best if the class isn't even in a classroom. Better still, it may not even appear to be a class, but rather a collection of structured observations and experiences.
This class, Environmental Education for the Middle East, will begin modeling the processes of good environmental education from the outset.
Week one: Introduction and goals for environmental education. Ways of teaching. Ways of knowing.
Week two. Introduce projects. Select a project and create working teams. Begin to formulate goals
Week three: Create teaching goals. Submit goals (one page). Visit sites where you will be teaching.
Week four: Submit methods of teaching to meet your goals with at least eight references to other environmental education plans that inform your method of teaching.
Week five: Submit curriculum and begin teaching.
At this point in the semester we will begin alternating time in our class with time spent with the classes you will be teaching.
Final project due two weeks before the end of the semester. You will need to submit a usable curriculum with the following elements.
There are many useful links to Environmental Education websites, hundreds of them, including many designed for Israelis. I have listed only a few of them here. One of your jobs in this class will be to check out these websites and others and to evaluate them for their utility in the Middle Eastern context. Some, like those designed for nature exploration in the Pacific Northwestern U.S. may be contextually inappropriate. They receive more than 1,500 mm of rain per year. They may provide useful clues, however, to techniques which are quite relevant.
Schoolyard Ecology, Latin
America and the Carribean. It's a useful site hosted by the Audubon Society
because it describes a method of teaching for developing countries using materials
available in the environment right around the school. 
eelink is a project of the North
American Association for Environmental Education. It is a huge website filled
with useful materials.
eelink publications has
hotlinks to a huge list of publications, some of them on-line, related to environmental
education.
Links to Middle
Eastern, especially Arab, environmental sites, though they may not be educational
sites. 
.
Middle East and Urban
Agriculture has some helpful links to Israel and Palestine related to composting,
urban gardening, and agroecology.
Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission has environmental lesson plans for K-12, mostly K-8. These are excellent examples of the format your curriculum should take, with one addition. You should also include some kind of assessment! This is a great place to start.
The U.S. National Park
Service has some interesting nature-based environmental lesson plans. 
US
EPA Curricular Resources and Activities has some very useful links to lesson
plans. They have sections on Air, Conservation, Ecosystems,
Human Health, Waste & Recycling. 
The US EPA Office of Water has produced. The Water
Source Book for Grades K-12. It looks very promising, but you will need
a computer with Adobe Acrobat to read the pdf file.
This page hosted by ERICSE is a list of links to all kinds of sites that host environmental education lesson plans on the web. This site is worth looking at because it has something for everyone including websites from the Plastic Bag Association (an industry site) to Water Quality Lessons.
Israeli Environmental Education Links
Many of you are already associated with Green Course. Here is their website. They have two sites. One in English and one in Hebrew. It's a useful place to get an overview of Israeli environmental issues.
The Society for the Protection of Nature in
Israel (SPNI) is Israel's largest environmental NGO. This site has an English
and a Hebrew version and a specific link to its education page. Also in Arabic
and Russian.
The Heschel Center is one of Isreal's
foremost environmental think tanks. Their main site is in Hebrew. They also
have an English web
page and an Education webpage. 
Dori Meshi, Friends of the Earth Middle East, Eilat Director, T/F: +972-(7)-634-7024, e-mail, ecoeilat@hotmail.com
Manon Ehrich teaches high school in Jerusalem. her number was 02.665137. This number is out of date.
Sherman and Melodie Rosenfeld's number in Rehovot was 08.472528. This number is out of date. E-mail: ahava@in.zahav.net.il He is an environmental educator, exhibit designer, computer education person.
Midreshet Sede Boquer has a high school for Israeli Children who are really interested in biology. If you call Berry Pinshow or Uriel Safriel they could let you know who is the principal now.
One other source. In Jerusalem there is the Bloomfield Science Center. Maya HaLevi is the director. I'm not sure what they are doing right now, it is hands on science and they are connected into the curriculum folks in Israel. I think that the number is 02.618128. Please note that all of these numbers date back 9 years now. So they may not be correct.