USES OF THE
WORLD WIDE WEB IN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Peter A. Bowler (pabowler@uci.edu),
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California,
Irvine, CA 92717
Alan D. Thornhill (athornhi@rice.edu),
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, MS 170 Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston,
TX 77005-1892
Harry J. Mangalam (mangalam@uci.edu),
Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine,
CA 92717
and Peter J. Bryant
(pjbryant@uci.edu)
Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine,
CA 92717
INTRODUCTION
By enabling rapid access to and exchange of information, the World Wide Web (WWW) has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of education (see Barrie and Presti, 1996). It is an especially appropriate resource for environmental education because it provides convenient access to timely information on rapidly developing environmental issues at both local and global levels, and opportunities for both instructor and students to explore their interests independently and to contribute to information sources as well as benefit from them. We have developed several different kinds of web resources in support of environmental education at our institutions:
HYPERTEXT BOOK
A complete hypertext book (http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/Titlpage.htm) has been produced for the students in Biology 65, Biological Conservation (http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/) at UCI, and is available for use in similar courses elsewhere. The hypertext book contains a core text of 18 chapters covering all topics in biological conservation as well as numerous links to outside information sources that are selected by the instructor for their timeliness and educational value. Biology 65 is the second of three courses needed to fulfill the requirements of the new Interdisciplinary Minor in Global Sustainability at UCI.
There are numerous advantages of electronic hypertext books and other WWW documents over conventional information sources in environmental education. They are:
· Inexpensive. They do not use paper and they are usually free for use by the students
· Searchable. Search engines are readily available and can be incorporated into WWW sites so that the entire resource can be searched by key word or phrase.
· Authoritative. Most textbooks are the product of one individual's heroic efforts. They are limited by the author's expertise and time available for research and production, and they are often are out of date before they are used. In contrast, with the WWW it is possible for environmental scientists and educators everywhere to collaborate in producing curriculum and virtual textbooks, taking advantage of special scientific, legal and political expertise as well as local knowledge everywhere. Such a resource could dramatically improve the quality of instruction, wherever it is used.
· Up to date. The WWW links provide access to sources of information, analysis, and opinion that are constantly being updated, without the need for instructor involvement. For example, pending federal and state legislation is one important type of information that is usually readily available via the Web. The Thomas Home Page (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html) provides comprehensive information on bills before Congress, with digests that are usually available within 48 hours of the introduction of the bill. Timely reaction and analysis is provided by many organizations. For example, the Sierra Club (http://lists.sierraclub.org/archives/index.html) publishes electronic action alerts by e:mail and the WWW several times per week. The Natural Resources Defense Council (http://www.nrdc.org) also publishes legislative analyses on a regular basis. An extremely timely site is Popclocks (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html) which shows human population projections by the U.S. Census Bureau, updated every few seconds! It would be impossible for conventional textbooks and information sources to approach the level of thoroughness and timeliness that the WWW provides.
· Interactive. Some WWW sites allow various types of interaction with the user. Examples are self-paced tutorials (for example, the tutorial on Geographic Information Systems at http://www.uwsp.edu/acaddept/geog/index.htm), simulations, and virtual field trips (http://www.uwsp.edu/acaddept/geog/) and expeditions (http://www.jasonproject.org/). With our sites we encourage students to contribute to the sources of information, as well as use them. For example, they are asked to identify non-functional links, to explore internet resources not already identified in our site, and to propose additional links for evaluation and incorporation into the hypertext book if appropriate. By its nature the internet provides an outstanding opportunity for conservationists in different parts of the world to share information and experience. It also lends itself to the establishment and management of geographic information systems in which numerous sources of local information can be integrated into global databases. Students involved in ecology and conservation courses could be important contributors to such databases. An excellent example is the Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) information resource (http://nas.er.usgs.gov/) provided by the Florida and Caribbean Science Center, which accepts sightings of exotic species from users, and compiles the information into a geographic database that can be viewed at the same web site.
· Unlimited and Evolving. Since the information on the WWW is distributed over a huge number of computers, the amount of information that is accessible is enormous and growing rapidly. In contrast, conventional textbooks are necessarily limited in scope. Of course, this represents a new challenge for the instructor in identifying those links that are of most educational value in the context of a specific course.
· Available and Accessible. Web documents can be made available to the world for educational and other purposes without cost or restriction. This makes them ideal information sources for on-line courses. We have started to offer Bio 65, Conservation Biology, as an on-line course using the Hypertext Book. It is also easy for instructors at other institutions to take advantage of remote sources in offering related courses, and for students to use them in learning the subject and in preparing reports.
ISSUE GUIDES
Issue guides have been produced by the instructor as well as the students in our Senior Seminar in Global Sustainability, and posted on the WWW site at UCI. They deal with numerous local and global environmental issues. Each new cohort of students can use the accumulating set of guides and add to the resource as new information becomes available and new issues arise. We find that students are highly motivated to produce a high-quality product when they know it will be made available on the web and will be used by others, rather than just being graded as a report and then discarded. Some of our best Issue Guides are developed by teams of students with different expertise (e.g. Computer Science Majors, Graphic Artists and Biological Science Majors).
THE CENTER FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY NETWORK
The Center for Conservation Biology Network (CCBN) (http://conbio.rice.edu/) promotes environmental awareness and the development of academic curricula dealing with global environmental issues. It is a series of integrated information servers connected to the internet with the purpose of providing information about conservation biology issues, programs, and opportunities globally and of helping to develop the technical means for the protection, maintenance, and restoration of biodiversity on this planet.
The CCBN is host to over a dozen separate but related divisions that support environmental education, including:
· The Society for Conservation Biology home page
· A comprehensive guide to academic programs in conservation biology
· Financial and education resources for students of environmental sciences
· The Virtual Library of Biodiversity, Ecology, and the Environment
· The Native Americans and the Environment home page
· The On-line Center for Higher Education Environmental Programs, produced by the Committee for the National Institute for the Environment (CNIE)
· The National Library of the Environment, also produced by CNIE.
(under construction) Resources for Instructors of Ecology and Environmental Sciences. This division will be a clearinghouse of information for teachers working in these topics. We will bring together the other divisions of the CCBN with instructors in mind to facilitate their use of the internet in education. This division will also include a repository for teacher's ideas and suggestions for approaching topics in environmental education.
USEFUL SOFTWARE
Several Word Processing programs can now "Save as" html, making the generation of web documents possible without any knowledge of html. Microsoft FrontPage is especially convenient as it allows viewing and editing in both normal and html modes, can add attractive formatting themes to all documents in a collection, and can automatically scan for non-functional links. The latest version also makes it very easy to establish discussion groups, and to generate web-based forms that will capture information from users into a database.
INVITATION
The use of the WWW to deliver materials should enhance the quality of environmental education at all levels. We encourage instructors and students elsewhere to take advantage of the resources that we have developed, to criticize them, contribute to them, and suggest ways of developing them further.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant DUE9554965 to the first and third authors.
REFERENCE
A Web version of this paper, with active links, can be found
at http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/global/naaee.htm