Reviewed by Charles K. Jervis
Teacher
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary field. To help our students understand issues fully, we must provide content in many disciplinary areas. Many resources are available, but, like an ecologist searching for that rare plant or butterfly, a student often must explore deeply to find real value.
Environmental Connections: A Teacher's Guide to Environmental Studies does an admirable job of sorting and integrating information to give a balanced treatment of the topic with varied perspectives. Web and print resources provide background, legal perspectives, and political views, and laboratory or field-based activities supplement many chapters. The range of material in the well-annotated bibliography covers almost all the topics that would be included in an introductory course.
To make the guide as current as possible, many web sources have been evaluated, and the publication's own website contains clickable links to some of these sites. This is a valuable resource becuase it does some of the organizing and filtering that often overwhelms teachers who try to use the Internet with their students.
Environmental Connections: A Teacher’s Guide to Environmental Studies includes reference material for many classical studies, and the website provides opportunities for updates. Sidebar quotes from sources ranging from E.O. Wilson, Henry David Thoreau, and even Homer Simpson break up the encyclopedic feel of the material. This would be a valuable tool for teaching environmental science from grades 10 to 12 and introductory college level.
Review posted on 3/3/2001
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