Ryan Pleune
I discovered my vision to combine education reform and environmental literacy when I was a wilderness therapy instructor with adjudicated youth in Montana. In the privacy of the wilderness, teenagers whispered their stories about sexual abuse, needles producing euphoric highs and generational poverty. I spent my own youth at a high school with over 70 percent students of color, but in my classes on the accelerated track there were less than five percent racial minorities. As an undergraduate, reflecting on my privilege in the accelerated classes and the rift that continued growing between me and my peers shocked me into action and intensified my passion to affect change in society. I co-founded a community service program called the Colorado College Learning Initiative in the Mountains that paired college students as “enviro-mentors” with at-risk middle school youth. Upon graduation, I spent the next ten years as an educator using the wilderness as a landscape for transformative learning. All of these experiences shaped my understanding of environmental literacy and the external and internal development that occurs with individuals and groups of people as they learn to “read” the natural world. Spinning bow-drills to make fire, hiking to access water, collecting edible plants and learning about native cultures, our wilderness therapy program taught traditional academic standards. Students received credit in physical and life sciences, math, reading, and social studies. During the 60 days these adjudicated youth spent in the Montana backcountry, we practiced “leave no trace principles” and completed service projects for the National Forest System. Our work had positive impacts on habitat restoration and land management and our living was sustainable. The improvement of environmental quality and the increase in knowledge of ecosystem functions are indicators of external development in environmental literacy. We also witnessed a positive impact on the internal development of individuals in our groups. They demonstrated tremendous emotional growth as they restored trails, planted trees and shrubs, and learned about the ecosystem that supports their lives. Statistics show that only four out of ten students returned to the juvenile justice system upon graduation from this program. Compared to state detention centers with a recidivism rate of seven out of ten for the same demographic, it seems clear that there is a profound psychological healing effect when humans reconnect with the wild and natural environment. This aspect of learning about the environment and acting in service to it informs my definition of environmental literacy.
Latest content created by this user
| Comment | |
|---|---|
| Growing Greener Schools | Mar 24, 2010 |
| Re: Green Elementary School Curriculum training | Mar 24, 2010 |
