Issue Of The Week LVI: With The Growing Need Of Protecting Planet Earth, How Can Equality In Environmental Education Be Achieved For Minority Students?

I am totally on board with the idea of hands on learning. It made perfect sense and was obvious that the study found that children who were exposed to environmental training rather than just a handout were more impacted. With today's environmental concerns, it is such an amazing program to get children involved in the actual process of helping the environment. When children feel productive, they will want to make a difference in this world. If we start by teaching our childre;, no matter what their economic background is, how to make positive changes in our environment through hands on training, they will likely continue their positive attributions into future generations.The article did not go into detail as to why white students were not as deeply impacted by the study as minority students. I was left wondering why, but am grateful for the program and hope it continues.

I really never thought of environmental education as needing to be modified for minority students, but I do see that the eco movement does seem to be primarily white. I think the concept of going green may be intimidating for lower income students in general because some aspects of green living can be more expensive. The hands on approach of actually getting kids out into parks and other environmental systems is the best way of teaching. If you can teach the kids to appreciate the environment, they will want to respect and take care of it. I thought it was interesting that white students were not as affected by the outdoor programs and look forward to hearing theories as to why this is.

I myself have noticed that in lower income neighborhoods where blacks and Hispanics live there are more obvious amounts of liter. I feel after reading this that the reasoning for this is the lack of knowledge about environmental factors. I feel that educating minority children about the environment is a necessary thing. Children who are going to school in lower income areas have to worry about so many other issues in everyday life, that I feel they don’t recognize the environmental ones. These children and parents are just trying to survive in the world they live in. They haven’t learned to worry about trash and climate control; they’re more worried about gun violence and trying to feed their children. If environmental curriculum is implemented that will help minorities to see these issues that they never thought of before.

Recently, a friend told me that my people don't do us much justice in the environmental/vegetarian movements. I thought it was very interesting to divide people concerning race and cause. I, as other students have noted, wonder why white students were not as impacted by the hands-on learning. I wonder, are they less prone to connect with nature because they are more encultured into ipods, video games, and computers than minority students?I love that we are learning the importance of environmental education. This summer, our school is offering a sociology of the environment class, and I think it's wonderful when we realize the connection between environment and social justice issues.

I found that this was very interesting in a way that usually when articles talk about educating minorities or our young they usually talk about the essential things such as math, English, and science. I never really gave much thought about educating our younger generations about the environment. Our planet and our world is an important one and I feel that if we can educate our young we can better our planet's future.

I thought that this article was interesting in a sense that when people talk about educating our young minorities, they usually talk about a way of better educating them in the core courses such as math, English, and science. I never really gave much thought about educating our youth about the environment. Our planet and the environment is very important especially with the pollution that we put on this Earth and I feel that we need to educate our young especially our young minorities. As a minority myself I would have liked to been more educated on the matters of our environment. What I know about our Earth, I unfortunately had to learn on my own. I hope that our schools realize that teaching our young one's about the environment is just as important as learning core courses.

It makes sense that, in the past, white children had more knowledge about environmental studies than minority children. Minorities are more likely to be lower income. In lower income schools the children are less likely to participate in programs about environmental studies. I think it is great that the children are getting a chance to be outdoors and have a hands on learning experience. They will learn much more from actually getting out there than they ever would from pamphlets and reading material.

Being outside is critical in the process of learning about environmental awareness. On a basic level, a child needs to experience the wonders of nature to want to save it. If an inner city child never goes to a forest for example, they won't understand those experiences and why that forest needs to be saved. Another influential choice may be to enforce environmental education all the time, not just in April, because Earth Day is in April.

This is an excellent article but lets think about this from a very broad perspective, it is no different in any other area of learning. It is not possible to learn music without sheet music and an instrument, it is impossible to be technologically savvy without a computer.... Children learn best from hands on experience because it intrigues them, written materials to children are boring. Also in the case of environmental education many of these children live in areas where they aren't safe going outside much less to explore the environment. I think this is a great way to not only give kids the opportunity to learn but also to enjoy things they other wise wouldn't.

All children need to be outside more,this is nothing new. We have known for a long time that when children play outside it has numerous benefits for their health including lowering obesity. Of course they did better when you took them outside, but what did surprise me a little was the fact that children of color responded even better to being outside than the white children. I suppose there are many ways to look at this, but my initial thought was that the white children might possibly have more technology available to them that would keep them indoors more, while the children of color specifically those of lower SES would not. So, in that sense it

Although I enjoyed the information from this article, the author did not report on any findings on why it is that minority children respond better to environmental education through hands on training. Is this because of a difference in learning styles or because of other factors such as depressed exposure earlier in life, leading to an inability to make connections to written material? I think discovery WHY is an important consideration for educators who design programs to reach all students.

I think that educators may be on the right track with a hands on learning approach to environmental education. I also feel that African Americans and Hispanics may get more out of these experiences than whites because many times they do not have the same opportunities as white children to be out in nature. Many of these minority children may live in apartment buildings where the only patch of ground has a playground on it. It would be nice if city planners could set aside more land for community gardens.

I think that this article is a great example of providing insight on the way that we we learn, specifically as children. This article shows that through hands-on activities our brains can retain a better relationship with the knowledge we learn. I n my opinion, more learning should be done this way. I think that it is also a beneficial thing to realize that the way we test kids hasn't exactly been equal. The article states that the African-American and Latino kids did much better on the elements of literacy. Could it be possible that we have been testing some students that have been lacking the hands-on experiences and expecting them to have the knowledge as if they have had it? I do also think that the way we as a people learn is not representative of the way we are taught to learn by school systems. Personally, I think that I have had classes that I just learned how to take the tests well instead of actually remembering the material. Regardless, the fact that there was a recognition that there could possibly be some equalities in ecology among students is a story that I think shows progress in this country.

It is important for the all students to learn about saving the environment. It may be a bit harder to teach inner city students about it, but it's not impossible. Those students could work around the campus and even though it may be a small area it still gets the wheels in the mind rolling better than just learning in the classroom. This can play an importan roll in helping the minority students to retain the information and overall do better in school. Teachers may even be able to roll this idea into other way to teach the students outside or in different teaching environments other than the classroom.

Why is the topic of minority students even associated with environmental acts. It doesn't matter what race or religion a person is, it doesn't change the fact that if they go outside and plant a tree it will help our environment. The color of someones skin has no impact and has nothing to do with efforts to try and restore the environment around us and i don't know why people have made this a topic.