Ecological Literacy

Why are we interested in ecological literacy?

The whole purpose of the existence of The Upper New is to foster ecological literacy around the globe.  It’s baked into our mission.

We believe ecological literacy is the backbone of what it means to be a good human being that knows how to “fit” into the biosphere as a responsible steward and commoner, sharing the air we breathe and water we drink and nutrients we need with all other living species in an appropriate, respectful, responsible fashion.

So, how do we foster ecological literacy, in ourselves and others?  It can help to begin with some questions about human beings and our relationship to reality.

• What does it look like for a person to be ecologically literate?
• How do we become more ecologically literate?
• What does it look like when a person practices ecological literacy: functionally, culturally, and critically?
• Which human behaviors demonstrate high levels of ecological literacy?  
• Which human behaviors demonstrate lower levels of ecological literacy, or ecological illiteracy?

As we ponder these questions, let’s tackle one that may seem simpler through an objective, external approach: What is ecological literacy?

What is ecological literacy?

When it comes to defining ecological literacy (often referred to as environmental literacy or ecoliteracy), there have been many approaches taken.  We have found the perspective of several scientists, teachers, and scholars to be helpful for us to form our own dynamic perspective of what ecological literacy is.

Andrew Stables’¹Stables, A. (2018). Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of the SCAA guidelines. In Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy (pp. 154-163). Routledge. definition of ecological literacy is perhaps the most concise: “…the ability to make sense of the world around us and our relationship with it”.  

David Orr²Orr, D. W. (1992). Ecological literacy: Education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
emphasizes knowledge, care, and practical competence in his definition of ecological literacy, as well as a broad understanding of sustainable relationships between individuals, society, and the natural systems – all based upon a fundamental knowledge of how the world works as a physical system.

Taking a slightly different approach, Frank Golley³Golley, F. B. (1998). A primer for environmental literacy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. outlines a scientific, systems-oriented approach to ecological literacy, based on three foundational concepts: the environment, the system, and hierarchical organization.

Fritjof Capra⁴Capra, F. (2000). Ecoliteracy: A systems approach to education. In Center for Ecoliteracy. Ecoliteracy: Mapping the terrain. Berkeley, CA. provides an amorphous, holistic perspective, involving a basic understanding of organization within and between ecological communities, including an ability to embody these organizational relationships as part of one’s daily life within human communities.  Capra outlines several fundamental concepts of ecology: networks, nested systems, cycles, flows, development, and dynamic balance.

Berkowitz, Ford, and Brewer⁵Berkowitz, A. E., Ford, M. E., & Brewer, C. A. (2005). A framework for integrating ecological literacy, civics literacy, and environmental citizenship in environmental education. In E. A. Johnson & M. J. Mappin, (Eds.). Environmental education or advocacy: Perspectives of ecology in environmental education. New York: Cambridge University Press. emphasize an understanding of the interface between ecological science and society as a key element of ecological literacy.  As a sort of follow-up, Jordan, Singer, Vaughan, and Berkowitz⁶Jordan, R., Singer, F., Vaughan, J. and Berkowitz, A. (2009), What should every citizen know about ecology?. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7: 495-500. https://doi.org/10.1890/070113 have presented a knowledge space framework for ecological literacy, which includes: 1) evidence-based habits of mind, 2) ecological concepts and connections, and 3) self knowledge (i.e., human-environment connectedness) – with a focus upon the intersection of these three elements.  We find it interesting that this group of ecologists chose to title their paper “What should every citizen know about ecology?”

Do you have any thoughts about what every citizen should know about ecology?

This brings us to a followup question: What about “levels” of ecological literacy?  Clearly, certain people are better singers than others, or better basketball players, and some literate people are better readers than other literate people.  So why wouldn’t there be a set of levels for ecological literacy?

Functional, Cultural, and Critical Literacies

Stables notes that in “relation to language development, however, whence the term [literacy] derives, it is common to distinguish between functional, cultural, critical and, sometimes, academic literacies.“  Stables continues with a differentiation between functional, cultural, and critical literacies to lead into a delineation of functional, cultural, and critical environmental literacies.  For the sake of argument: here, environmental literacy and ecological literacy are interchangeable (for the moment).

Stables describes functional environmental literacy as follows:

“Functional literacy is not just a matter of knowing what words mean, but of being able to find out what they mean in the context of whole sentences by the use of phonic and contextual cues. Functional literacy also involves being able to read words referring to commonplace abstractions (beauty, goodness, fear, etc.). It involves literal comprehension.

Functional environmental literacy must, therefore, refer not only to the ability to remember what an oak tree is, but to recognise one; not only to recognise several trees within a given area, but to know whether they form part of a wood or an area of parkland. 

Functional environmental literacy must also involve the ability to ascertain, from contextual cues, what something half known is likely to be: for instance, to make an informed guess, using observation, at the types of woodland flower within a beech copse overlying chalk rather than an oak wood on more acid soil.

Functional literacy is not, therefore, a mere prerequisite to more advanced forms of literacy, but involves a series of complex skills and an accumulation of knowledge which has unlimited capacity for growth.

Both cultural and critical literacy are impossible without functional literacy.”

Stables, A. (2018). Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of the SCAA guidelines. In Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy (pp. 154-163). Routledge.

So, in some ways, functional ecological literacy is the “lowest” level of literacy, serving as a foundation for the other two.

Continuing on, Stables offers a broad definition of cultural environmental literacy:

“Cultural literacy refers to the ability to understand the significance that society attaches to cultural icons.

On one level, a degree of cultural environmental literacy merely enables one to recognise the significance of natural images in human culture, along with some recognition of why and to whom they are significant.

However, it also allows for an understanding of why the landscape itself is as it is, shaped not merely by climate, glaciation and topography, but by arguments about enclosure, the need for timber and patterns of land ownership dating back many centuries.

While functional environmental literacy develops knowledge of what natural things are, cultural environmental literacy enables us to explain why they are there when the causes are clearly not simply geological or climatic with no apparent human intervention.

Cultural literacy depends on a degree of acceptance of cultural hegemony: it links the learner with a dominant value system.

Cultural literacy refers more to cultural heritage than to cultural analysis.

Insofar as cultural literacy is empowering, it empowers by giving the learner access to socially powerful perspectives; cultural literacy alone does not enable the learner to act upon that knowledge, once acquired. 

Effective action requires critical literacy.”

Stables, A. (2018). Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of the SCAA guidelines. In Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy (pp. 154-163). Routledge.

Finally, Stables connects critical literacy to functional and cultural literacy, beginning with a definition:

“Critical literacy is the ability to understand the text on a deeper and more creative level: the ability to discuss the use of genre in context, to question the motives and ideology of the text and to explore and develop a personal (and broader social) response to it.

Critical environmental literacy must then imply the power to develop an understanding of the factors that contribute to environmental change and to have a view on how to further oppose that change in a way which can be translated into action.”

Stables, A. (2018). Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of the SCAA guidelines. In Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy (pp. 154-163). Routledge.

Stables continues explaining critical ecological literacy by providing examples of questions one might ask when forming a critically literate perspective, such as: 

• What does [a place or an issue] mean to me?
• What does it mean to us, or to others?
• What are the consequences of carrying on in this way [in relation to this place or this issue]?
• Should we act differently, and if so how?
• How do we translate our values into effective action, and are our values themselves ready for change as a result of what we now know or feel?

Have you ever asked yourself these questions?

Stables notes that critical literacy “cannot be effectively developed without good levels of both functional and cultural literacy”, and functional and cultural literacies are basically pointless without critical literacy.

Stables elucidates the connections between critical, functional, and cultural ecological literacies:

“Critical environmental literacy relies on functional environmental literacy because both environmental debate and environmental action rely on information. 

Critical environmental literacy relies on cultural literacy not simply because environmental debate and action need to be grounded in an awareness of the norms and values of, say, national cultures, but because influence on environmental change demands an understanding of the norms and values of the dominant culture.”

Stables, A. (2018). Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of the SCAA guidelines. In Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy (pp. 154-163). Routledge

Considering the global and local aspects of humans’ interactions with and effects upon the biosphere, how might you describe our current dominant culture?  Which culture is most dominant, most responsible for dictating collective human behavior?

Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, ecoliteracy…

More recently, in 2013, McBride, Brewer, Berkowitz, and Borrie⁷McBride, B. B., C. A. Brewer, A. R. Berkowitz, and W. T. Borrie. 2013. Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, ecoliteracy: What do we mean and how did we get here? Ecosphere 4(5):67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES13-00075.1 published an open access article reviewing and comparing the histories of three “strands” of ecological literacy: environmental literacy, ecological literacy, and ecoliteracy.  They outline the components of environmental literacy, adapted from Simmons, including Affect, Ecological Knowledge, Socio-Political Knowledge, Knowledge of Environmental Issues, Cognitive Skills, Environmentally Responsible Behaviors (ERB), and Additional Determinants of ERB.

They proceed through the history of frameworks for environmental literacy advanced within the field of environmental education, frameworks for ecological literacy advanced within the field of ecology, and frameworks for ecoliteracy which come from the social sciences and humanities.  Their article provides a wealth of information in one place, and they provide insight into how people have been thinking about this concept from various perspectives since the early 1990s.  We will find this article a useful reference as we continue to articulate and operationalize our own perspectives on ecological literacy.

The authors conclude the article with characterizations of environmental literacy, ecological literacy, and ecoliteracy, including questions for further discussion.  Their questions include:

• Must environmental literacy be fundamentally oriented toward problem solving? 
• What is the range of environmental values appropriate for environmental literacy, and who should determine them? 
• How can we recognize that environmentally literate individuals may reasonably disagree with respect to issues requiring significant trade-offs?
• Is the scientific method a necessary and sufficient way to understand environmental realities, or is it imposing a quest for the right answer? 
• Precisely what is the ecoliterate individual striving to sustain under the aegis of sustainable development, at what level, and over what spatial and temporal scales?
• How is the ecoliterate person to judge which actions will positively contribute to sustainable development?
• What roles might intuition, creativity, and spirituality play in enhancing ecoliteracy?
• Alternately, what are the pitfalls that may be associated with a spiritual approach?

4-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) Framework

In 2018, a team of ecologists and educators working with the Ecological Society of America published the 4-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) Framework.  The four dimensions of the 4DEE are:

1. Core Ecology Concepts
2. Ecology Practices
3. Human-Environment Interactions
4. Cross-Cutting Themes

We intend to use the 4DEE to guide our continued work fostering ecological literacy around the globe, as we develop incidental learning experiences for various forms of creative expression, critical thinking, and systems wisdom.  We encourage everyone to visit the ESA website for the framework, and read the brief whitepaper linked on that page, which includes a detailed description of the 4DEE framework components and their relevance.

Beyond Ecological Literacy

Beyond ecological literacy?  Where are we going with this?  

Understanding and fostering ecological literacy is only the beginning, only the first few pieces of the puzzle.  As we continue, we must ask ourselves questions, such as: what does ecological literacy actually look like?

What are some examples of ecologically literate decisions?

What are some examples of ecologically literate behaviors?

What are some examples of ecologically literate outcomes?

How do we support ecological awareness, the ecological self, and ecological agency?

Can we all become eco-beings?

More practically, we can ask: How do humans demonstrate ecological literacy?

What are ecologically literate approaches to various ethical issues?

Can we define a series of ecological mindset shifts?  What are they?

These are the questions that guide us, and we seek to continue to answer them, more explicitly over time.

Stay tuned!

Works Cited

• 1
  Stables, A. (2018). Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of the SCAA guidelines. In Environmental and Sustainability Education Policy (pp. 154-163). Routledge. ↩︎
• 2
  Orr, D. W. (1992). Ecological literacy: Education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
  ↩︎
• 3
  Golley, F. B. (1998). A primer for environmental literacy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ↩︎
• 4
  Capra, F. (2000). Ecoliteracy: A systems approach to education. In Center for Ecoliteracy. Ecoliteracy: Mapping the terrain. Berkeley, CA. ↩︎
• 5
  Berkowitz, A. E., Ford, M. E., & Brewer, C. A. (2005). A framework for integrating ecological literacy, civics literacy, and environmental citizenship in environmental education. In E. A. Johnson & M. J. Mappin, (Eds.). Environmental education or advocacy: Perspectives of ecology in environmental education. New York: Cambridge University Press. ↩︎
• 6
  Jordan, R., Singer, F., Vaughan, J. and Berkowitz, A. (2009), What should every citizen know about ecology?. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7: 495-500. https://doi.org/10.1890/070113 ↩︎
• 7
  McBride, B. B., C. A. Brewer, A. R. Berkowitz, and W. T. Borrie. 2013. Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, ecoliteracy: What do we mean and how did we get here? Ecosphere 4(5):67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES13-00075.1 ↩︎