Beyond Neat Classifications: A Case for the In-Betweens

Simplified, reductionist approaches to curriculum design and delivery are pervasive in science education. In ecological curricula--particularly in, but not limited to K-12--biomes, ecosystems, habitats, and other units of study are simplified and presented as static, easily identified and described entities. Characteristics, components, and representative phenomena of each are taught, and student learning of these things is evaluated. However, this approach minimizes the complexity and dynamic nature of environments whether natural, human built, or some hybrid of the two. In this paper, I make a case for studying environments and environmental issues in all of their spatial, temporal, and compositional complexity from the very earliest ages as a way to increase environmental literacy among individuals as well as in the population as a whole. This, in effect, will cultivate learners with a better, more nuanced understanding of the natural world and will lead to citizens, professionals, and policymakers who are more inclined, have more efficacious intellectual tools, and who are better able to address the environmental issues and crises such as climate change, sea-level rise, wildfires, epidemics and pandemics, drought, and crop failure, that are becoming more common and more critical in the 21st century.