Ecological Education: Cultivating Resilient Learners for a Sustainable Future
Introduction
Ecology, as the most resilient and stable system known, provides a powerful framework for understanding and designing educational systems. Ecological education emphasizes creating systems that mirror the patterns and principles of nature, social structures, ecology, and the mind. It moves beyond the acquisition of knowledge to focus on intertwining it, fostering creative problem-solving and adaptability in students.
Education As Ecology
Ecosystems are self-replicating, self-propagating, and self-maintaining systems. Natural systems increase in complexity and resiliency over time and use resources effectively by cycling them through tens of thousands of interconnections. The connections in an ecological network are similar to the synaptic connections in the brain, networks within a city, and the links between curricular outcomes or ties within social networks, communities, gardens, and schools. Ecological education is about creating systems that reflect the patterns and principles of nature, social systems, ecology, and the mind.
Expanding the Adjacent Possible
The concept of the "adjacent possible," as described by Steven Johnson, is crucial in ecological education. It refers to the range of potential actions or possibilities that are within reach at any given moment. Expanding the adjacent possible involves opening doors, increasing choices, and fostering potential futures.
In natural systems, succession is a process where ecosystems expand their adjacent possibilities. Each stage builds upon existing connections to create conditions for future growth. Similarly, ecological education aims to help students expand their potential futures by increasing their options and potential.
Connections Strengthen Systems
In ecological systems, the end of every process lays the foundation for the beginning of another. Every organism depends on countless others and, in turn, relies upon the whole. From this lens, the goal of education is not the acquisition of knowledge but the intertwining of it. An ecological education approach aims to create students capable of applying knowledge from multiple domains in new and novel situations. Creative problem-solving is seeing or combining previously disconnected concepts in new novel ways. A brain is not the sum of its parts but the connection between them.
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Characteristics of Ecological Education
Ecological education is characterized by several key principles:
- (Success)ion: Knowledge and skills are learned by linking new outcomes to previously mastered ones.
- Resiliency: Resiliency is a function of how interconnected a system, idea, or skill is to the whole. Ecological Education emphasizes the links between curricular outcomes rather than memorization of specific outcomes in isolation.
- The Adjacent Possible: The role of education is to create as many an abundance of vibrant futures for each student.
- Ecotones: The number of potential connections is greatest at the intersection of two separate systems, e.g. where a forest meets a lake. Interdisciplinary approaches to equations are educational ecotones. Schools’ physical structure/layout would help facilitate cross-curricular initiatives by encouraging exploration and dialogue between teachers of different disciplines. The physical space ought to be self-similar to the webs and connections within ecosystems and the mind.
- Creativity: Creativity is defined as a student’s ability to combine curricular outcomes in novel ways and scenarios.
- Diversity Over Uniformity: The more different the elements within a system are, the more opportunities there are for connections within the system. An ecological approach to equations emphasizes developing each student’s unique traits, skills, and interests rather than uniform learners entering a uniform workforce.
Ecological Education and the Resilient Learner
A resilient student’s adjacent possible is so vast that they have a seemingly unlimited number of paths. Throughout their education (formal or otherwise), a resilient student has had the opportunity to gather so many ideas, concepts, and experiences that they view their future as abundant.
The Ecology of Education: A Design Approach
Within the world of education, the primary functions of teaching and learning take center stage, but influencing these functions is the context of the overall educational ecosystem and what our team calls the “Ecology of Education.” Through this lens, we study how students interact with each other; how they interact with teachers, support staff, and administrators; and how all these groups interact with and within their environments. As architects and engineers, we view our role as your partners in designing learning environments, continually developing a deeper understanding of the interactions within schools so our designs can better accommodate the needs of everyone within them. Ecology is defined as the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings. Similarly, Cushing Terrell’s multidisciplinary team uses the “Ecology of Education” as our approach to understanding user groups and designing the best learning environments for them.
At Cushing Terrell, their design practice follows the motto: “Imagine… Create… Improve.” Their approach to the Ecology of Education is no different. They strive to 1) imagine the possibilities for learning; 2) create intentional, sustainable, holistic environments; and 3) improve our knowledge of education through research, evaluation, and experience.
The Framework: Imagine, Create, Improve
The three pillars of their Ecology of Education design approach are: Imagine Learning, Create Environments, and Improve Knowledge. The activities aligned with these pillars do not occur in a vacuum - each project and project phase inform the others in a process that begins and ends in research.
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Pillar #1 - Imagine Learning
The methods, deliverables, and project examples that depict how we take our understanding of education, as well as knowledge from other sectors, and apply it to the development and design of learning environments.
Objectives and Tactics:
- Enable future-ready leaders. Regardless of the curriculum, the age of the student, or the location of the school, the goal of education is to equip learners with the knowledge and skills needed to be successful in life. Whether focusing on a career path; attending a university, college, or trade school; enlisting in military service; or embarking upon any life adventure, we must ensure students can thrive as leaders, actively contributing to their own personal growth, cultivating growth in others, and improving the world around them. In tandem with educational leaders and their unique vision for education, we aim to imagine all the possible ways students might prepare for their futures so we can design optimal environments within which to learn.
- Consider the whole student. It’s widely accepted that academic success is neither a guarantee nor the sole contributor to success in life. To prepare students for their futures, schools must teach to the whole student, including supporting the development of social skills and healthy relationships, understanding and supporting their emotional needs, and teaching students how to care for their own mental and physical well-being. To be effective, this must occur within an environment and culture that maintain an unerring sense of psychological safety, reinforced not only by policies and procedures, but also systems, equipment, and spaces that support physical security, social-emotional growth, and intellectual stimulation.
- Employ the right methods, modes, tools, and equipment. While we tend to recognize and draw inspiration from similarities in interests, talents, and skills, each student approaches learning from their own unique perspective. Students find their passions and develop their strengths through various methods and modes of learning, using tools and equipment that bridge their personalities with the task at hand.
Project Spotlight: TVCC Career and Technical Education Center
The Career and Technical Education Center at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Oregon, is an immersive, hands-on learning environment focused on giving students the skills to excel in the region’s high-demand industries: agriculture, natural resources, automated systems, welding, and fabrication programs. The design goals were to create transparency and cohesion between learning spaces and facilitate community and business connections. The building features a “working” lobby with entrances at both ends to welcome students, staff, community members, and industry leaders with comfortable seating, high-top tables, and whiteboards for presentations and career events. The spaces invite interaction, serving as a gathering place for innovative thought and leadership. In addition to the community and presentation areas, the building boasts a variety of classrooms, display areas, breakout spaces, and flexible labs. The technology-enriched environment is infused with daylight while exterior courtyards make it possible for learning to happen inside and out. Additional features include a culinary kitchen lab to support the agriculture science program and a 28kW solar array that provides renewable energy for the facility and serves as a demonstration project. This variety of learning spaces supports agency, activity, and a variety of ways to both teach and learn.
Pillar #2 - Create Environments
Imagining what learning can look like ultimately leads to the creation of those environments, but how do we get it right in real life? A skilled design partner can help you take “pie-in-the-sky” ideas and fit them into your budget, timeline, and strategy.
Objectives and Tactics:
- Every space must be intentional. Instead of thinking in terms of creating a building, we start by thinking in terms of purpose. At Cushing Terrell, the planning phase of their creative process involves comprehensive documentation of the educational, environmental, and operational functions (the purposes) your facility should support. Through this understanding, they come to size rooms appropriately, realize necessary adjacencies, discover possibilities for shared use, identify efficiencies through the flexibility of spaces, and apply intent to the finishes, furniture, fixtures, equipment, systems, and utilities provided within each space. While thinking intentionally about each space, we must also think of long-term relevancy. If schools built today are expected to last a minimum of 50 years, we must consider the building’s ability to remain relevant, which is contingent upon its ability to adapt to a variety of functions and user groups.
- Prioritize sustainability, health, and well-being. High school students today rank sustainability among their top considerations when choosing which colleges to attend. At Cushing Terrell, sustainability, health, and well-being go hand in hand. As we strive to create better lives for future generations, nowhere is this truer than in our schools. We see that sustainability must be achieved through not one, but several interconnected perspectives. A school must realize sustainability through the longevity of the building’s components and its relevance as a space for learning. It must realize efficiency in both energy use and cost. And it and must address health holistically through the life cycle of its materials, the methods of their production, respect for the building’s site and surrounding context, and the quality of conditions provided to all occupants living and learning within it.
- Design holistically for the intersection of ecosystems. Something holistic is “characterized by comprehension of the parts as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.” Through their planning efforts and their approach to sustainability, they achieve a comprehensive understanding of each individual function, space, and element required of your school.
Project Spotlight: Gallatin High School
Gallatin High School in Bozeman, Montana, was designed around the concept of a town center - a place where people come together for a variety of purposes aligned with creating a unified, supportive, interactive community. Central to the design is the “commons” where students and staff gather for assemblies, speakers, small group meetings, and individual study time. The grand staircase offers a “wow” factor but also is highly functional with a coffee bar and café tucked beneath. The team infused the design with the ideas of cross-pollination and discovery, creating greater visibility into other learning areas to spur interest in trying something new. Incorporating wider hallways and an abundance of natural light support a learning environment that feels accessible and full of opportunity. Rather than spreading the 300,000 sq. ft. school across two levels, the team designed a more compact solution: a combination of stacked one-, two-, and three-story wings. This layout helps reduce travel distances from one side of the school to the other, creates opportunities for key spaces to make physical and visual connections to the commons, and enhances efficiency in the building’s footprint, systems, and energy use. These and other sustainability and wellness factors resulted in the project achieving CHPS (collaborative for high performing schools) design certification.
Tool Spotlight: Ecotones and Vibe Mapping
Two of the tools their team uses in their work to design holistic, interconnected spaces that enhance productivity, flexibility, and culture are ecotones and vibe maps. An ecotone is the transitional area between two different biological communities. With ecological design thinking applied to circulation, we can leverage these “community zones” where activities blend. This blending of activities is particularly evident in learning environments and shared workspaces. By intentionally leveraging ecotone areas, it’s possible to create buffers to achieve quiet spaces for focus time while also making the most of the “spaces in between” for activities that best suit those areas. To be successful, we first identify the needs of an ecotone to appropriately design for it, thus ensuring activation of the in-between zone where the desired, diverse activities overlap. To identify those needs we utilize vibe mapping. A vibe map is a kind of heat map that documents activity within a space. When worked into the design process, a vibe map can inform where intentional transitions can be utilized to positively impact the feel of the overall space, creatively and intentionally make the most of each space, and further support happy, healthy, productive occupants.
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Pillar #3 - Improve Knowledge
The knowledge base we pull from to inform our project approach and design, including industry research, research collaborations with academia, internal project studies, and new contributions through post occupancy evaluations and occupant surveys.
Objectives and Tactics:
- Stay attuned to the latest research. Research is constantly unveiling new ways of understanding. The ideal learning environment of the past has been turned upside down by studies in how environmental factors - views, lighting, glare, acoustics, smells, temperature, humidity, air quality, and ventilation, for example - impact our ability to concentrate. Additionally, we now know people learn in different ways and that different subjects can be more deeply understood through different methods of engagement. Drafty lecture halls may not yet be a thing of the past, but the spaces we learn in have evolved to support hands-on learning and group collaboration, not to mention alternative learning environments that are a far cry from a traditional classroom.
- Leverage collective experience. Through our collaborative approach of designing with our clients, we understand that a team’s collective experience can stretch the mind beyond the dimensions capable by any one individual. As partners coming together to design the best learning environments possible, administrators, teachers, coaches, students, parents, architects, and engineers each contribute their unique perspectives as shaped by their own distinct experiences. In conjunction with research-based knowledge, our shared experiences enhance our ideas of what schools can and should be, redefining the standards, and reimagining our approach to how people might function within them.
- Never stop learning and improving. The ultimate success of a building’s design is founded upon a dedication to continuous improvement and critical evaluation. While drawing upon experiences from previous projects and incorporating any newly acquired industry knowledge, technical, educational, and environmental standards are captured through our initial planning efforts. Together with our clients, we revisit these standards throughout the design and construction phases to ensure these standards will be met. After the campus has opened, evaluation can continue with input from groups involved in the daily life of the building, from students and teachers to administrators and maintenance staff.
Tool Spotlight: Post Occupancy Evaluation
We can learn a lot from the buildings and spaces we inhabit, as well as from the people who utilize and occupy them. The value this knowledge brings is the focus of Cushing Terrell’s Post Occupancy Research Group. The team leverages research and expertise to help our team and our clients learn more. A post occupancy evaluation - or POE - is a detailed look at how a facility is meeting the original design objectives and operational requirements. It’s also a review of how occupants are using the space and how they feel about it.
Education Ecology: A Planetary Imperative
Education Ecology is not environmental education in any usual sense such as an Environmental Biology class. It is, rather, a planetary imperative for a World at Risk. It's goals are to think globally with actionable ideas, which can only be locally implemented at a community level of organization. Think globally, Act Locally. There is a need for the human species to recognize that what has served human adaptation, satisfaction and governance in the past cannot be a foundation for the future; to believe it can is insanity or absurd. This is particularly true for schools and the whole notion of schooling as a suitable path for education Schools will be obsolete as education evolves beyond the mandates of an industrial model built to serve the fading industrial age.
Getting into the future will not be for the faint of heart or for those who are fearful of the new ideas that will solve the problems we, humans, have created on this earth. Think globally, Interact regionally, Act locally. Ask Questions! What do you mean? How do you know? What difference does it make? Education's Ecology cannot be planned as there can be no lasting organization; certainly nothing resembling our current system of schools. Natural ecosystems are never static; they change by succession and evolution across time in response to alterations in in their physical conditions and ebb and flow of populations within their communities. Education will evolve as its conditions and constituents change. Accordingly what emerges from thinking about Education Ecology is not expected to be a new enduring institution. Rather what endures is process. Above all Education's Ecology will shed the traditions and dogma attached to schools.
Redefining Learning and Education
Learning is an inherent part of life processes that adapt an organism for survival and is enabled by a will to live. Education may well be an extension of learning in this sense for the human organism. Yet it may be a rather grave human mistake to lump too many important matters under the term learning. "Learning" to recognize your mother's face as an infant and "learning" to walk and ride a bicycle are many orders of magnitude different from "learning" to solve a differential equation or to lead a corporation, institution or government. It may be past time to enlarge our vocabulary about these things we casually and unthinkingly call learning. If education is about "learning" it too is in need of rethinking and redefining. With that discovery we may never again see lifelong learning and adult education as just something that happens after our school, college and university experience is done. Education is never "done."
Schools and Social Imperatives
Schools are enigmatic for education ecology because they impose arbitrary order on someone's social imperatives and do so through what is essentially totalitarian means. Accordingly, meaning is circumscribed and inevitably incomplete.
Cultivating Ecophilia and Ecological Thinking
The ecophobic culture of the Global North and its drive to dominate has pushed our ecosystems, social systems, and climate out of balance. This behavior has had dire consequences, including extreme weather, supply chain issues, mass extinctions and tears in our social fabric. The best thing we can do to prepare our children for an uncertain future, emotionally and practically, is to help them develop ecophilia, a love of ecosystems, and to help them be ecological.
Being ecological includes:
- Being aware that we are interdependent with each other and our ecosystem.
- Understanding the science of how ecosystems continually regenerate themselves through a dance of interdependence.
- Being familiar with the contributors and relationships in one’s home ecosystem, including how humans can benefit from and contribute to our home ecosystem.
- Acting in accordance with our interdependence with each other, ecosystems in general, and our home ecosystem by forming caring relationships with ourselves, others, and mother Earth.
Nurturing Educational Learning Environments and Communities
Rather than teaching, consider what we do as nurturing educational learning environments and communities. If communities are a web of relationships, then relationships are threads in a web. Not surprisingly, my goal for this blog is to spin some threads between forest educators, defined by Ricardo Sierra, to include all of us that support learning in ecosystems.
tags: #ecology #education #definition
