Things to Think About...
Students need to develop an awareness of the world around them as a basis for further study. As they gain more experiences, they increase their understanding of their surroundings, as well as how elements of the environment function, how these elements interact, and students' actions affect and are effected by the environment. Students should develop critical thinking skills and not simply collect environmental facts. Materials should be developed within a conceptual framework that allows students to place information in context and to construct new knowledge throughout their lives.

Awareness should include both the natural world and the built environment as well as the relationship between the two. Environmental literacy requires that students learn how they interact with and are affected by these two aspects of their world. Additionally, students must understand that environmental factors and concerns occur on different scales, from local to global, short- to long-term, past to future.

Environmental literacy also requires teaching with both breadth and depth. In studying a forest, for instance, teaching for breadth could include cataloguing the forest's contents, the varieties of trees, ground cover, plant and soil types, and animal life. But studying the forest at this level may mean looking at isolated facts and elements without connection. To fully understand the forest ecosystem, students have to take a closer look. This "in depth" look reveals the connections and processes of the forest environment (photosynthesis, predation, decomposition, reproduction) and the forest's relationship with surrounding habitats and communities. Breadth provides the basics and a place to begin study. Depth carries the process further, linking those basics within the forest ecosystem context.