Ecological Principles as Transformative
Sustainability Education Focus
for Grades 4 to 5/6 (9-11 Year Olds)

As students start to become curious about the world,
this is the time to give them a solid grounding
in ecological principles.

Students at this age and stage start to explore the bigger world around them, so what better time to give them a solid grounding in the laws of the universe and the principles of ecology — in short, ecological literacy and consciousness.

As students begin to widen their sense of community, encourage them to include the natural world in their growing sense of place. Maintain outdoor undirected play even beyond the younger grades, and ensure your students have opportunities for outdoor education — both are important elements of the school experience.

This way, the study of ecology will be
up close and personal for students, not abstract and faraway.

"If children go to school, what are they learning about, if not their home place, local history, neighborhood or ecosystem?"
— Maeve Frances Lydon

Discover your watershed (drainage basin) together. Where does your school's water come from, and how does it get there? Where does rainwater flow to? (A river, lake, dam, wetland, estuary, sea or the ocean?) Children need to learn that water runs downhill, and that we all live downstream. Put on your raincoats and follow rivulets created by the rain someday! You could look for evidence of hidden (covered over) streams while you're out there.

As a class, learn about your bioregion (an area — sometimes quite large — consisting of a natural ecological community with characteristic plants, animals and environmental conditions, bounded by natural rather than artificial borders). What makes it distinctive from neighbouring bioregions? Do some bioregional mapping with your students so they can create beautiful and personal visual representations of their new knowledge and sense of "home place."

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." – John Muir

Those of us who admit to not understanding ecology can learn right along with our students. Once we understand several main ecological principles, we start to see them in action all around us.

Here are the most important ecological principles to teach your students — with thanks to the very special Institute for Earth Education — using fun, experiential, exploratory, hands-on, visceral (my word for full-body, get-down-and-dirty) activities!

ENERGY FLOW

• The sun is the source of energy for life on Earth.
• Energy flows from the sun to plants (green plants, which make their own food through photosynthesis, are absolutely vital to life on Earth — "all flesh is green," it is said), from plants to animals, then to animal eaters, and finally to decomposers.

• Everything is made up of the same basic building materials (the elements in air, water and soil).
• The building materials of life have been around a long, long time and are used over and over.
• Nature does not waste. Waste equals food for another organism.

• Every plant and every animal is related to every other living and nonliving thing on the Earth.
• Plants and animals in an ecosystem are dependent on each other.

• Everything is changing all the time. Everything is becoming something else.
• This change happens always very slowly, and sometimes quickly.
• Living things are constantly changing so that they can get and use energy and materials in better ways. It is this constant change that keeps life going.

• Differences in living things provide for the success of all life.

• All living things interact with other things in their surroundings.

• To survive, everything must fit where and how it lives.

Indigenous peoples throughout the world, through their wisdom and history rooted in place, remind us of these ecological principles. "The Circle of Life" reminds us that what dies today makes new life tomorrow. The Native North American expression "All Our Relations" reminds us of our interconnectedness — we are, literally, related to everything else on Earth.

Here's the best (short) video available online for helping your kids remember that we're all connected. In fact, Wombat practically became the mascot of our school greening initiative — both students and adults love him. With several viewings, his message really began to sink in.

"The sun shines not on us, but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us." — John Muir

• learn about how Nature (the biosphere) supports life


• study how life works on Earth by researching what they have observed and experienced outdoors


• learn the laws of ecology and thermodynamics in lots of different ways


• learn the carbon cycle (along with the water cycle) inside out and backwards (without an understanding of the carbon cycle, no one can understand global warming)


• get to know local ecosystems and learn about global ecosystems


• learn the names and characteristics of several local plants and animals (I've heard that most students recognize hundreds of commercial logos but can't identify even 10 local species)


• appreciate the complexity of life and understand the common needs of all living beings


• learn The Great Story of how life came to be on Earth (something that Maria Montessori believed in sharing with children), as an integrated continuum of evolution > ecology > biodiversity > ecosystem services (or Nature's gifts)


• discover the importance of biodiversity (learning that it took billions of years to come about is a great way for them to discover its significance)


• integrate their learning, to counter the reductionism of the education system and the false separation of learning into different subjects that will greet them in later grades (all of which fragments the story of life for them)


• discern that the ecosystem is everything, and gain an understanding of what makes an ecosystem healthy


• learn about Darwin, how he is misunderstood (or at least misquoted), and what science has discovered about evolution since Darwin
  • The simplistic view of competition and "the survival of the fittest" is misleading in terms of modern biological understandings.
  • Mutualism, symbiosis and reciprocity rock! Survival of the fittest applies to whoever works together, fits in and adapts best in the long-term to their ecosystem.
  
  
• start to make connections between ecological systems and human systems — otherwise known as social ecology


• understand why Earth is called "the Goldilocks planet" and the role our distance from the sun plays in keeping our planet not too hot and not too cold


• understand their ecological place and impact as components of an ecosystem, members of a species, constituents of a society, and individual human beings


• do ecological mapping (similar to concept mapping) as an easy way to learn systems thinking


• develop their ecological consciousness and identity or sense of self (What elements and aspects of Nature do they identify with? Water? Air? The fire of energy? Landscapes? Which plants, birds, animals feed their souls?)


• continue bonding with the natural world by encouraging exploration and stewardship of natural spaces and practising reverence for all life


• discover their Naturalist Intelligence


• spend time learning local natural history (for example, create a class book or calendar revealing the "true life stories" of different schoolyard or backyard species; include artwork — sketches, paintings, poetry)


• start a lifelong habit of keeping their own Nature journal


• explore the 3 Rs from an ecological perspective, developing an ecological conscience; take responsibility for composting, reducing and reusing paper, and recycling in the school — and know why this is important (for example, for reducing greenhouse gases)


• choose Eco-Heroes to learn about and emulate (here is a class set of examples to choose from)
  1. Ray Anderson
  2. David Attenborough
  3. John James Audubon
  4. Father Thomas Berry
  5. José Bové
  6. Erin Brockovich
  7. David Brower
  8. Rachel Carson
  9. George Washington Carver
  10. Jacques Cousteau
  11. Severn Cullis-Suzuki
  12. John Denver
  13. Gerald Durrell
  14. Sylvia Earle
  15. Dian Fossey
  16. St. Francis of Assisi
  17. Buckminster Fuller
  18. Biruté Galdikas
  19. Chief Dan George
  20. Lois Gibbs
  21. Jane Goodall
  22. Mikhail Gorbachev
  23. Al Gore
  24. Grey Owl
  25. James Hansen
  26. Denis Hayes
  27. Julia Butterfly Hill
  28. Bob Hunter
  29. Betty Krawczyk
  30. Aldo Leopold
  31. Jaime Lerner
  32. James Lovelock
  33. Paolo Lugari
  34. Wangari Muta Maathai
  35. George Perkins Marsh
  36. Bill McDonough
  37. Donella Meadows
  38. Chico Mendes
  39. John Muir
  40. Arne Naess
  41. Senator Gaylord Nelson
  42. Prince Charles
  43. Chief Seattle
  44. Ernest Thompson Seton
  45. Vandana Shiva
  46. Marina Silva
  47. Sister Dorothy Stang
  48. David Suzuki
  49. Paul Watson
  50. Sheila Watt-Cloutier
  51. E. O. Wilson
  52. A local eco-hero in your community
  
  and relate the work of these people to other teachings (for example, the conservation work of Grey Owl to save the beaver in Canada from extinction would integrate well with study of the fur trade)


• learn indigenous stories of Nature and ecological principles


• be open to plant and animal totems, allies or guardians


• become familiar with all the ecosystem services, or, as some of us prefer to call them, Nature's gifts
1. regulation of atmospheric gases
2. climate regulation
3. flood protection and drought recovery ("disturbance regulation")
4. regulation of water flows
5. supply of water
6. erosion control
7. soil formation
8. nutrient cycling/decomposition
9. waste treatment/pollution control
10. pollination
11. pest control/population control
12. habitat
13. food production
14. raw materials and resources (lumber, fuel, fodder)
15. genetic resources/biodiversity
16. opportunities for recreation
17. cultural resources (artistic, scientific, educational, spiritual, aesthetic values of ecosystems)

Have your class pick out the six most important gifts — impossible! — or discuss what would happen if just one of them disappeared or stopped working.

(Click here to download, in pdf format, the pioneering paper on ecosystem services by Robert Costanza et al in 1997, "The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital.")

The seed that I'm trying to plant is that much of what students learn at this age can be done through the lens of ecological principles, and learning how life works on this precious planet. I hope this seed can be nurtured in your classroom, school and jurisdiction.

Go from Ecological Principles (Grades 4-5/6) to
Environmental Solutions (Grades 6/7-10)

Return from Ecological Principles to Greening the Curriculum

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