Are Middle School Textbooks Making the Grade?
After nearly a decade of growth, the environmental sciences are becoming an integral part of the K-12 curriculum, and for good reason. Human health and living conditions, our transportation infrastructure, the development of new and advanced technologies, economic stability and expansion, and our relationship with nature are all shaped by environmental actions. We need to equip today’s students with the foundation to become an informed, and participatory, citizenry, and our classrooms must become places where students can achieve a deeper understanding of complex environmental issues. A forest, for example, may be a place of great beauty; a natural resource critical to the economic health and well-being of its surrounding communities; a local ecosystem, supporting rich plant and animal life; and a vital component in the planet’s great biogeochemical cycles for regulating global climate. The ELC seeks to help teachers and their students see this forest and its trees: to analyze and eval
