by Sharilyn Calliou
Lower Fraser Bioregion
This piece was originally published in Perspectives in Bioregional Education, edited by Frank Traina and Susan Darley-Hill, North American Association for Environmental Education, copyright 1995.
This chapter addresses questions pertinent to teachers in a traditional classroom setting. How does one teach from a bioregional perspective? Where, when, and how does bioregional education get incorporated into an already brimming curriculum? And the larger questions, does it even belong in the curriculum, and should schools promote social change? Calliou speaks to these questions as a veteran teacher.
She contends that not only is bioregional education well-suited for a holistic learning approach focused on developing lifelong learning skills, it is a powerful tool for building responsible, capable students who possess a broad perspective and are socially adept. By encouraging, and indeed relying, on community involvement in the education process, bioregional education promotes a broad base of support for schools.
Bioregionalism poses changes to schooling beyond addition of Environmental Education classes to timetables. Etymologically, the term originates from the Greek bios for life; and the Latin regia for territory or regere meaning to govern. The invitation is to “reinhabit” a natural area—a bioregion—and become a conscientious eco-citizen which suggests differences for lifestyles and classrooms. Becoming a bioregional practitioner and educator will probably occur by degrees as readiness, experience and confidence evolve.
This article introduces six questions to consider as one begins the metamorphosis of self and bioregion while teaching in “traditional” classrooms. 1
The Need for Landmarks
Classroom teachers are crucial in “mainstreaming” new perspectives in educational thought. The revolution in language teaching beginning in the 1970s, from a phonics-grammar-spelling program to a Whole Language philosophy, indicates the enormity of change possible at the classroom level. Developing landmarks in bioregional education will help to facilitate recognition of exemplary practice: identify ways curricula can be easily adapted in an already stretched school day; discuss pre- and in-service requirements; and create curriculum theory and materials grounded in a responsible land ethic which motivates social and political transformations. There is much to be done and consideration needs to be given to the constraints (increasing numbers of second language students, integration of emotionally wounded and differently abled students into the mainstream classroom) and restraints (fiscal, time, mobility of student population) of daily classroom life if establishing a land ethic-sacredness in Euro-traditions of schooling is not to become marginalized.
Does bioregional education belong in the school program of studies?
Bioregionalism can provide needed socio-ecological awareness about where we live and how we live. Global issues require an educated, ecology-wise citizenry and a socio-cultural antidote to the feelings of alienation as technological, economic, urban and other pressures amplify. The Worldwatch Institute predicts that another four decades of “overpollution, ozone depletion, rain forest destruction, and global warming” will result in our passing “the threshold of irreversible environmental destruction” (Worldwatch Institute cited in Connexions, 1992, p. 33). This urgency has sanctioned social change activities and discussion in schools not defensible 10 or 20 years ago.
School-wide recycling projects, trashless lunches, garbage composting, reduced paper usage, and the use of non-toxic art materials are becoming more popular. More ambitious efforts include student fund-raising to sponsor acres of Amazonian forest and working to reclaim a damaged creek site (Calliou, 1991, pp. 21 & 23). A rural, community school advisory council collected 7,424 liters of hazardous materials in a community-wide educational initiative (Calliou, 1991, p. 24). These examples illustrate how ecological damage has already prompted revisions to school and societal policies, politics and practice.
Bioregionalism promotes explicit understanding of our Earth as a “community of entities that form a living organism” (NABC2 III Proceedings, 1989 p. 2), and knowledge about the effects daily living has on the “health of the Earth community” (Ibid.). Any school not openly addressing eco-social justice issues is in danger of educating citizens unprepared to cope democratically, compassionately or confidently with a growing inventory of overwhelming changes.
However, bioregionalism is not simply about the environment as landscape in need of repair to facilitate further economic development or as a backdrop for adventure tourism. Reinhabitation is characterized as relearning the arts and skills of living-in-place in “an area that has been disrupted and injured through past exploitation” (Berg & Dasmann, 1978, as cited in Andruss et al., 1990, p. 35). This assumes that the extent of damage will be honestly acknowledged in order to shift curriculum from a human-centered (anthropocentric) to life-centered (biocentric) philosophy. Classroom teachers will need to clearly understand this in their efforts to change from teaching exclusively for the aims of subjects, literacy or industry, to that of teaching about and for the Earth.
Bioregionalism is not just environmental education. It is also concerned with developing and teaching ways to legitimate and formulate appropriate socio-cultural lifestyles which foster “understanding activities and evolving social behavior that will enrich the life of that place, restore its life-supporting systems, and establish an ecologically and socially sustainable pattern of existence within it” (Berg & Dasmann, 1978 as cited in Andruss et al., 1990, p. 35). This includes all cultural areas from poetry to spirituality to economics to literature in the context of ecological restoration; in essence a legitimation of some aspects of the lived experience evidenced in regionalism already extant. Conscious reconsideration of the way we think and feel about, treat, and live on and with the Earth and other life forms is strenuously advocated.3
The Socratic maxim that “the unexamined life may not be worth living” suggests in-service time is needed. The study of bioregional education principles and curricula, and the exploration of personal philosophies of living-in-place require time. Exceptional teachers are characterized as capable of reflective action which “entails the active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and the consequences to which it leads” (Zeichner & Liston, 1987, p. 2). School districts need to consider that teachers are more often reactive than proactive as they cope with too busy days. Time is needed to thoughtfully restructure and reform; and teachers seldom have adequate professional development time to study new ideas.
Learners on the move may lack a sense of the concept, the security and responsibility of having a permanent home. Bioregionalism addresses the deep, human yearning we have to live in community in socially and ecologically healthy ways. A bewildering alienation and disconnectedness in the increasingly urbanized mentality and koyaanisqatsi4 of late 20th century life could be reduced if attention is given to this sense of home. The obvious facts—that no matter where we live, in a rural or urban setting, the soil beneath our feet is a home; and that we all have neighbors with which we can develop mutually reciprocal relationships (the planets, minerals, insects, grasses, reptiles and other life forms)—are not always evident to families on the move.
The increasing mobility of humans demands that schooling promote discussion of healthy community making that is respectful of the land which gives us all we need. Maintaining democratic decision making about the natural areas we inhabit also needs to be sacrosanct. Decision-making about the ways we use/abuse these natural areas (urban or rural) requires a heedful relationship with the land. This awareness can be reflected and taught in our politics, cultural events, traditions and schools. At this juncture in human history, schooling cannot be relevant unless the total picture of this history-making is reflected in school curricula.
Should schools promote social change as discussed in theories like bioregionalism?
The advisability of introducing the “politics” of change into the classroom has created noisy debate which continues without “agreement even among the experts—regarding the relative importance of two central missions… namely, socializing the young on one hand and promoting social change on the other” (Jarolimek, 1981, p. 5). Bioregional education, a variation of educational social reconstructionism (first evidenced in the 1930s in America and resurrected in the 1960s in the writings of Apple, Greene and Giroux and others), has a specific agenda for adjusting socio-cultural lifestyles to “live within the limitations and with the advantages of [a] local natural place” (Pollen, 1990, p. 3). Discussion about difficult issues—such as First Nations land claims and inherent right to self-government, sustainable development, alternative economics, energy sources, domination of Nature—will be introduced at the classroom level and actually follows a traditional ideal of democracy which requires issues be brought into the “public” sphere with faith in and respect for the ability of the citizen to consider, speak and act in the interests of the collective.
There are adamant voices proclaiming that schools must be silent about the complex socio-eco-ethical-economic-spiritual questioning about current lifestyles as doing so may impose values in a system which should be voluntary and free of indoctrination. However, to not introduce the discussion negates the very freedom required of deep, rational discourse and limits the freedom from indoctrination so necessary in a democracy.
Education can be understood as a relationship of processes “striving to initiate others into a form of life” regarded as “desirable, in which knowledge and understanding play an important part” without use of techniques of indoctrination or conditioning (Hirst & Peters, 1970, pp. 20, 40-41). The very act of defining what is desirable in teaching, learning and curriculum makes the process of schooling “inescapably valuative” and the need for a cogent ethics obvious (Peters & Hirst, 1970, p. 40).5
The exigency of environmental questions invites educators to re-examine the seeming apolitical cleanliness of the classroom. Some schools have grappled with social issues and initiated clothing banks, food sharing baskets, culturally relevant language programs, and fund-raising for causes into the school day. Other schools, like Nicholas Sheran Community School (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada), have begun to redefine their school mission in light of global factors reflecting a partnership of school and community cognizant of changing family and cultural institutions, environmental factors, population dynamics, creative and innovative use of available resources to meet population and environmental needs while fostering individual and community well-being and self-actualization (Verhagen, 1992, p.7). The reflective action of these community educators illustrates the observation that education “is a work of necessity” to ensure survival of the species (Dewey, 1916, p.3) understanding that it “is the very nature of life to strive to continue in being” (Dewey, 1916, p.9).
Bioregional education could accelerate “discussion, planning and action for a sustainable, humane economy and society” (NABC III Proceedings. 1989) which mirrors thinking in current debate about the teacher’s role in education:
The concern of teacher education must remain normative, critical, and even political—neither the colleges or schools can change the social order…[or] legislate democracy. But something can be done to empower teachers to reflect upon their own life situations, to speak out in their own ways about the lacks that must be repaired; the possibilities to be acted upon in the name of what they deem decent, humane, and just. (Greene, 1978, p.7)
Bioregionalism could provide teachers with a way to focus dialogue about becoming empowered to live an ecologically responsible life-way and empowering learners to also do so. The school alone cannot provoke social change. Healthy schools can only exist in healthy societies and bioregionalism discusses ways to think about change needed to heal our local and global collectives.
Not introducing social change at this juncture in human history, where we are not “just changing human life [but] bringing about a disastrous change in the life development of the planet Earth” (Berry, 1990, p.8), leaves educators open to charges from future generations that our schooling did little more than legitimate or ignore the oppressive forces of social reality and environmental sorrow. A first duty of education is not to ignore but to seek Truth.
Where can bioregional education be taught?
Ideally, bioregional education would use the natural area of the learner to aid direct contact and communication and improve sensory knowledge. “This demands that a lot more of school education takes place out-of-doors, and a lot more of the out-of-doors get into the classroom” (Traina, as cited in Andruss et al., 1990, p. 158). Advocacy of the use of the wider “community” as a classroom or learning lab is not new although many teachers lack experience, training, and adequate time to develop field studies.6
Edward Olsen enumerated the value of field trips as: providing for personal experiences which are “real, concrete, dramatic, and hence, highly educational” (1945, p. 149); furnishing sensory experience; deepening “insight into familiar phenomena” (Ibid.); motivating classroom activity, student interest and curiosity; integrating classroom instruction “by exposing subject matter divisions as artificial, and by enabling pupils to view facts and forces as they exist in their everyday relationships” (Ibid.); enriching pedagogical practice; and building citizenship character by promoting group work and cooperation while on field trips. This interactive teaching and learning style is often squeezed out by the more “academic” emphasis of force feeding with burgeoning curricula content.
The bioregion itself was the first respected Teacher of First Nations people. Chief Luther Standing Bear described the Lakota as a “true naturist” who “loved the earth and all things of the earth, the attachment growing with age”, knowing that one’s “heart away from nature becomes hard…that a lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to a lack of respect for humans too” (1933, pp. 192, 197). Bioregional education stresses the need to revere the Earth again and understand local and planetary ecosystems and all “other life forms and all ecological processes” (NABC I, as cited in Pollen, p. 5).
Ideally, bioregional educators would prefer a majority of schooling occur, for learners of all ages, in the bioregion. However, the concept is “not strictly a scientific one like ecosystem” (Traina, 1991) or a social one like neighborhood. Berg and Dasmann (1978) recommended the term refer “both to geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness to a place and the ideas that have developed about what it means to live in that place” (as cited in Andruss et al., 1990, p. 36). Again, living-in-place refers to values which are non-exploitive, restorative, non-dominating and ecologically nurturing in exchange. Thus, merely to teach location and life forms without dissecting attitudes about such will not be adequate.
Unfortunately, the definitive work for delimiting boundaries is still evolving and problematic. Traina (1991) proposed identification be based on two criteria: (1) locality distinction in terms of flora, fauna, watershed, climate. etc.; and, (2) feasibility of the area being fairly self-sufficient and ecologically sustainable. Berg & Dasmann also proposed being aware of one’s bioregion to identify “the distinct resonance among living things and the factors which influence them that occurs specifically within each separate place” (as cited in Andruss et al., 1990, p. 36).7
The size of some preliminary bioregional definitions are so massive an area that an individual eco-citizen could feel as disenfranchised and out-of-touch in them as in some current political entities (Alexander, 1990, p. 165). Classroom teachers will most probably have to carefully understand that locality-based curriculum needs to attempt to work from local to more abstracted concepts of region. The emphasis on global is difficult for younger students still learning to tread a six-block trek home.
In times of fracturing families, fragmenting communities and dissolving political entities, bioregional education can provide felt and intellectual substance to an intuition that we stand on an eternal and universal home; that Earth “is our Mother [who] nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us” (Big Thunder in Curtis, 1968, p. 11).
When can bioregional education be taught?
Always. Bioregional education accents the interdependence and kinship of humans with all that exists. This affective and cognitive recognition needs to be integrated into all subject areas and time slots. Yes, education provides learners access to employment and further educational opportunites, as well as basic literacy to ensure they are empowered to enjoy an autonomous life. However, bioregional education requires teachers and learners to consider that these objectives may not be achieved on a dying or dead planet. No interests can be satisfied if ecological systems collapse. “Business as usual” cannot continue on a dead planet.
Bioregionalism extends beyond an additional ecology or environmental ethics class, “in its enfranchisement of other life forms and land forms, and its respect for their destinies as intertwined with ours” (Mills, 1981 as cited in Alexander, 1990. p. 162). Add-on programs or units will ghettoize bioregionalism on the timetable as just another class to attend (or skip), crowd already stressed teaching loads (AIDS to Driver Ed to algebra), and reduce Earth Care to textbook lessons and multiple choice quizzes.
Eco-citizens live lives immersed in issues: celebrating successes, mourning tragedies and healing wounds. Many of these issues are related to questions of social and environmental injustice with deep political and spiritual subtext. Yet, learners of all ages encounter subjects: mathematics, literature, auto mechanics, science and technology. Bioregionalism must be viewed as more than a subject and firmly introduced with an across-the-curriculum resonance. Interdisciplinary studies are essential to developing and understanding a holistic worldview. Ecology does not come in pieces.
The principle of lifelong learning is firmly established. However, schooling continues on a 9-to-4 schedule in a 40-week framework. Schools have been likened to factories; however, factories run 24 hours on a principle of lifelong production. Bioregional educators will need support to take advantage of teaching and learning activities beyond the traditional school day.8 Lessons may require classes at dawn or dusk. Schools will need to provide compensation time away for teachers and learners.
Schools are not the only instructors in a community. Bioregional educators may wish to develop curriculum plans with other agencies and individuals. Joint curriculum development with Boy Scouts and Girl Guides or a local senior citizens home could coordinate study of a bioregional site at various times of the day throughout the local seasons. Bioregional educators will need to impress on learners that study and educational praxis can occur daylong (evening too), through all seasons and lifelong (for all life forms).
How can bioregionalism be taught?
Bioregional educators have, thus far, recommended traditional methods espoused by progressive education: active, concrete, and experiential learning; problem-solving, and hands-on with an appeal that “learning not be separated from life” (NABC III Proceedings, 1989). This invocation for relevance has been constant in progressive and reconstructionist (including Marxist and Utopian) theories of education. Olsen (1954) noted that education must begin to “counteract the unfortunate effects of urbanization” as “the city crowds people together physically even as it renders their wider associations less personalized” (Olsen, 1954, p. 302) and further removed from the natural world. He believed greater contact between schooling and life processes in urban and rural environments was necessary (1954, p. 302). The classroom teacher of the late 20th century is encouraged by many voices to introduce the “real world” into lessons and cease filling students’ minds with “inert ideas” (Whitehead, 1929, p. 5); lessons where knowledge is kept alive, perhaps, by eradicating the “fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum” (Whitehead, 1929, pp. 5 & 6).
New pedagogical techniques are not needed as much as a paradigm shift reteaching humans to learn how to live within the carrying capacity of a natural, local ecosystem. Carrying capacity is a concept originating in wildlife biology and management which describes the ability of an area to sustain life. Human interventions such as industrialization, resource extraction and intensified land use make it difficult to assess carrying capacity; however, it is obvious that these are devastating natural areas. Techniques to teach bioregionalism will result more from teacher understanding of natural world and ecological concepts than from development of lessons and materials; and from the willingness of a school district to make ecological caretaking a primary reason for the task of schooling.
These eco-social-political issues lend themselves well to inquiry-based studies. Those charging that such studies may deviate too far from curriculum requirements, resulting in a breakdown of intellectual pursuit or anti-intellectualism, might consider Olsen’s (1958) argument that life-related studies promote depth of understanding, critical analysis, historical perspective, problem-solving, discovery and application of basic principles. These are intellectual qualities of highest caliber in anyone’s philosophy of education. Bioregional education cannot be anti-intellectual in its thrust to examine the nature of where we live and the purposes for living as we do, although such rationalism must be tempered with intuition and compassion.
Teachers who comprehend the ins-and-outs of bio-regionalism and practice the principles of living-in-place will be more capable, enthusiastic and credible as teachers for social change, than someone who is the “bioregional teacher” on staff. A school-wide philosophy is required. Steinhauer Community School (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) is in the second of a three-year project to implement a school- and community-wide environmental theme which includes creation of an on-site composter for organic wastes, paper recycling and lessons to reduce waste and reuse materials. The Pineridge Community School Project (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) held an Environmental Awareness Week which included hands-on activities like paper making from scraps, garbage sorting, poster contests, minimal paper day, environmentally friendly crafts classes and an Environment Fair open to the community (Calliou, 1991, p. 22). These are environment-based activities. However, these examples illustrate that techniques do not necessarily have to be new. Exceptional teachers can teach with a stick in the sand; but, more importantly, the educational-political will must be nurtured to create change articulated in bioregional thought.
A move to bioregional education will require greater perusal of textbook materials9 and production of locally-based materials. Again, the question is not how to teach bioregionalism as content, but how to teach the intangibles of bioregional thought which are necessary for species and planetary survival. Bioregionalism is not about merely imparting skills, but about developing conscious philosophical understandings guiding life.
What is the role of the teacher in bioregional education?
Carol Marshall brings us a typical blueprint of the traditional school structure based on her years as a teacher consultant where she has given workshops to approximately 9,000 teachers. She found teachers identified “typical” elements of the traditional school setting as:
- students in rows
- quiet learning environment
- formal classroom design
- teacher dominant
- whole-group instruction
- textbook lecture format
- learning by looking/listening
- low/no mobility
- paper and pencil emphasis (Marshall. 1991, p. 225)
Marshall sought reasons for this formulaic concept of the classroom and found teachers taught this way because:
- It’s the way I was taught.
- It’s the way I learn.
- It’s the easiest (most expedient) way to cover material. (Marshall, 1991, p. 225)
And, generally, they had been instructed in ways they assumed were applicable to all students.
Bioregional educators will probably have classroom practice rotated up to 180 degrees from this blueprint. Irwin and Russell recommended that “teachers who have restricted their classroom activities to lectures, reading the basic text, or assign-study-discuss procedures may find that an inquiry approach to learning is a first step in breaking away from the traditional, textbook-centered curriculum” (1971, p. 28); and that open-ended questions which come first from the learners should be used (p. 29). Bioregional educators will need to assess their comfort level and readiness with leaving the textbook behind.
This has enormous implications for teacher education programs, similar to those stated by the elementary-school teacher preparation program at the University of Madison, Wisconsin. Here teachers analyze the origins, purposes and consequences of their teaching behaviors “as well as [to focus] on the material and ideological constraints and encouragements embedded in the classroom, school, and societal contexts in which they work” (Zeichner & Liston, 1987, p. 1). The role of the bioregional educator must be more proactive and empowered than that of coping with the usual disciplining, textbook ordering, lesson planning, supervising recess and extra-curricular activities, and report card writing. An additional responsibility is making philosophical judgments; bioregionalism entails executing a great number of these.
Bioregional educators will first need to know their own bioregions, thinking about where one lives-in-place and how one encourages the reciprocal relationships an eco-citizen can have with a place. Teachers must develop an empathy with the natural area as place, as physiographic locale, as bio-geographic space, as shared cultural-historic experience, as sustaining environ, as inspiration for culture building, as wounded “spiritus”. An awareness of the potential for restoration and healing is a sensibility to be nurtured. As teachers become more bioregionally attuned, they will become valuable models of ecological, sustainable, humane, compassionate ways for living-in-place. This cannot be translated into the classroom without acceptance or experience.
Individual schools, school districts and teacher education programs will need to provide teachers and community members the time and forum in which to examine and discuss current ideological paradigms and to consider ways to reintegrate Earth care and conscientious eco-citizenship as educational priorities.
Conclusion
Teachers and students at Dunluce Community School (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) organized a G.R.E.E.N. Day10, in 1991, at their local recreation/community hall. Displays on several different environmental topics were developed in language arts, drama, science, art and social studies activities. Topics included: global warming, food chains, pulp mills and ozone depletion. The participants presented performances of environment-related rap songs and choreographed dance pieces. Cooperative games were organized and supervised for learners of all ages. The event was open to the community both afternoon and evening (Calliou, 1991, p. 21).
This example illustrates the acceptance of environmental education’s plea for ecological awareness and action. Bioregional education can provide an ethical foundation for ecological teachings, reasoned arguments for honoring the sanctity of the interdependence of living things, and a new respect for the original Earth Keepers of Turtle Island.
Many voices advocating educational reform besiege teachers and threaten creation of a cacophony of conflicting curricular agendas with no one heard. Consideration must be given to the practicalities, restraints and fiscal constraints confronting teachers, or bioregional education could become a lost voice or another subject on the timetable; worse, a shiny new kit on the library shelf. Teaching about one’s eco-social home has possibilities for restoring an ethical foundation to a very secularized Eurocentric worldview. We all need to understand the heart of the intuition that “Each region is a single community so intimately related that any benefit or any injury is immediately experienced throughout the entire community” (Berry, 1988, as cited in Andruss et al., 1990, p. 53).
Endnotes
1The writer thanks Don Alexander for generous use of his bioregional library during the University of British Columbia strike.
2NABC stands for North American Bioregional Congress. These are large gatherings held in four locations to date. These include:
NABC I Ozark Mountains, 1984
NABC II Michigan, 1986
NABC III British Columbia, 1988
NABC IV Maine, 1990
NABC V Texas, 1992
3Especially scrutiny of eco-exploitive economics which are seen to be entangled in a global problematique producing an improved material, health, production, technologically convenient lifestyle on the one hand with grave environmental weakening, relativistic ethical practices and disparity among classes on the other.
4The Hopi believe our current world reality is the Fourth World and that three previous worlds have existed and been destroyed by human actions and upset the balance of Nature and the way things are/ought to be. In their prophesies there is a sense that each world passes from a state of “harmony to one of ambition, followed by increasing materialism and ultimately the tribulations and suffering” Their word for a world that is alarmingly out of balance is koyaanisqatsi (Kaiser, 1991:77, 3 & 28).
5The struggle of First Nations people to reestablish control of education relevant to their socio-spiritual, cultural and political needs illustrates just how value-laden a cargo knowledge in schooling has been. The reassertion of a schooling relevant to the needs of people and the traditional land reverenced as home and nourishment for the spiritual journey could actually be viewed as experimental bioregional-political-spiritual work. Resistance is possible.
6Edward G. Olsen’s School and Community, The Philosophy, Procedures, and Problems of Community Study and Service Through Schools and Colleges (New York: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1945) provides basic information about the techniques of and reasoned arguments for using community resources (people, places, realia, issues, problems) in teaching and learning.
7This resonance alluded to by Berg and Dasmann seems similar to the beauty-spirit-power First Nations people comprehend as alive in all; a visible, tangible animating “glue” bonding all life forms and. thus, logically, guiding all actions to protect and preserve rather than to harm and unbalance.
8Edward Olsen (1945, 1954) discussed the need for “life- centering education’ (1945:17) and the curriculum recommending the school use community resources to “invigorate the conventional program” (1945:18) and “center its curriculum in a study of community structure, processes and problems” (1945:18). Bioregional education can build on pioneers who have advocated community- or locality-based education to enable individual and community betterment.
9For a description of work done at NABC IV to assess usefulness of contemporary textbooks see “Review of Educational Materials” in Fourth North American Bioregional Congress Proceedings, Turtle Island Office. 1991, pp. 41-42). An Evaluation Committee has begun to develop criteria to appraise curriculum materials and develop a system whereby educators and parents/guardians can analyze materials for themselves.
10G.R.E.E.N. stands for Greater Responsibility for Environment Essential Now.
References
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Sharilyn Calliou (1953-2018) was a Canadian bioregional educator. She received a master’s in Education Studies from the University of British Columbia, where she wrote her thesis on community-related curriculum, and participated in community education programs with the Alberta Community School Programme.
