The Journal of Environmental Education, 2001, Vol. 32 No.

3 2125

Support for EE From the National

Science Education Standards
and the Internet
CHRISTOPHER J. MOORE and RICHARD A. HUBER

ABSTRACT: Two recent developments are likely to have a significant impact on the
future of EE: (1) education reform initiatives based on the National Science Education Standards and (2) the development of promising Internet resources for teaching
environmental sciences. This article urges the EE community to recognize that the
time is ripe for environmental educators to embrace these developments. We examine several Internet-based resources that are used as tools for implementing standards-based reforms and promotion of EEs goals in K12 classrooms.
Key words: environmental education, Internet-supported science, K12 education,
National Science Education Standards

1998; Jackson et al., 1997). We believe that the standards

and Internet resources will have a substantial and sustained
impact on how EE is taught in public schools. These developments hold substantial promise for furthering the goals of
EE. In this article we urge the EE community to recognize
that the time is ripe for environmental educators to embrace
these movements. We believe that the Internet can be used
to implement the National Science Education Standards in
ways that also promote the goals of EE, and that the EE
community has a vital interest in pursuing those goals.

wo recent developments are likely to have a significant

impact on the future of environmental education (EE).
First is the mounting interest in science education-reform
initiatives based on the National Science Education Standards, published by the National Research Council (1996).
The response to the standards has been strong and supportive (Bereiter et al., 1997; Bybee, 1995; Bybee & Champagne, 1995; Collins, 1997; Lee & Paik, 2000; LoucksHorsley, 1998; Mergendoller, 1997; Pederson & Yerrick,
2000; Pratt, 1995; Riechard, 1994; Zeidler, 1998). Second,
the recent explosion of interest in educational applications
of the Internet has given rise to an equally stunning explosion in the development and implementation of Internet
resources for teaching K12 science (Huber & Harriett,

Standards-Based Reforms
In advocating that EE embrace these developments, we
join others in urging environmental educators to step into
the fray of educational reform initiatives (Marcinkowski,
1992; Robottom, 1987; Wade, 1996). The EE community
must recognize its responsibility to collaborate with the rest
of the educational community in striving to improve the
opportunities given to K12 students. The EE community
must also recognize its responsibility to further its interests

Christopher J. Moore is a 5th-grade teacher at Malpass

Corner Elementary School in Burgaw, NC. Richard A.
Huber is an associate professor of Curricular Studies at the
University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
21

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The Journal of Environmental Education

in educational reform initiatives. By embracing initiatives

spawned from education reform efforts, environmental educators can advocate for students, teachers, and EE. According to Wade (1996), the EE community cannot wait for the
formal educational community to realize the educational
value of EE, but must instead grasp the opportunity provided by educational reform efforts to demonstrate the relevance of EE. If environmental educators do not advocate for
EE, who will? We urge environmental educators to reflect
on the costs and benefits of educational reform initiatives.
The potential value of these reform initiatives to EE has
been recognized for some time. For example, Simmons
(1994) and Archie (1996) addressed standards within guidelines developed for evaluating EE materials. These works,
along with the works of others (UNESCO, 1978; UNESCOUNEP 1976), contributed to development of the Excellence
in Environmental Education: Guidelines for Learning (K12)
standards (NAAEE, 1999). These guidelines, like the National Science Education Standards, are voluntary and present a
vision of excellence in environmental science education.
The degree to which reform initiatives enable environmental educators to promote EEs interests will depend, in
part, on the consistency of the reform agendas with EEs
interests, and on whether reform agendas can become more
congruent with EE. In both regards, the standards-based
reform effort seems to be a golden opportunity. The goal of
the standards is not to implement a detailed reform agenda,
but to promote and support a vision of a transformed education system. Although the standards have clearly defined
parameters, they note that individuals and educational communities will shape reform outcomes.
The standards advocate and support a vision of dynamic
learning communities that work in enriched learning environments. These environments are supported by an educational system that provides support to those communities.
Students in these learning communities will be actively
engaged in inquiry-driven, experiential, hands-on, and
minds-on learning activities (National Research Council,
1996, pp. 2021) directed toward the goal of scientific literacy for all students (National Research Council, pp. 2 and
21). In these central objectives, the goals of the standardsbased reform effort seem to closely match those of EE.
Internet-Supported Programs as Pathways to Reform
The standards acknowledge the need to provide latitude to
the individuals working within and across the organizations
that are responsible for realizing the vision (National
Research Council, 1996, p. 233). According to the standards,
Implementing the National Science Education Standards is a
large and significant process that will extend over many
years. . . . Change will occur locally, and differences in individuals, schools, and communities will produce different
pathways to reform, different rates of progress, and different
final emphases. . . with the common vision of the Standards.
(National Research Council, 1996, p. 9)

EE has a vested interest in the initiatives that influence the

pathways and final emphases of standards implementation.
Environmental educators can draw upon these standards as a
source of authoritative and persuasive endorsement of initiatives that are often congruent with EE pedagogy. While
working to shape the final emphases of the implementation
of the standards to one that supports EE, environmental educators can influence educational programs and demonstrate
EEs relevance by ensuring that these programs become
major pathways to implementation. One possible route to
reform lies within initiatives to develop and implement
Internet-supported project-participation programs for teaching environmental sciences. The potential benefits of
embracing such initiatives warrant serious consideration.
Several Internet-supported project-participation programs
are currently being used to teach environmental sciences in
ways that seem highly consistent with the goals of the standards and EE. These programs are changing how the formal
education community incorporates EE in public schools. As
Wade (1996) suggested, new programs might be capitalized
upon as a means of infusing EE into the formal education
system. Loucks-Hoarsely (1998) suggested that such programs might also have significant secondary benefits.
As teachers draw on materials designed to implement
educational reform goals, they will be exposed to the new
content and pedagogical principles the materials are intended to promote. The pedagogical principles of standardsbased initiatives will likely reflect experiential and constructivist approaches, as is the case in these Internetsupported programs. Thus, as teachers try new teaching
strategies, they will construct their own understandings
about how the strategies can be used to facilitate learning.
Teachers perspectives and beliefs about learning and teaching can be significantly changed when they use these active
hands-on and engaging experiences. Through participation
in reformed pedagogies involving the development and
implementation of Internet-supported programs, environmental educators can demonstrate the value of EEs goals
and pedagogy to their peers and to the teachers whom the
efforts endeavor to support.
Congruence Among the Standards, Internet-Supported
Programs, and EEs Interests
The congruence among the standards, Internet-supported
programs, and the interests of EE depend on how EEs
interests are defined. The framework suggested by Roy et
al. (1997) and Simmons (1991) has been used as a basis for
stating these interests. As noted, there is general consensus
that the basic interests and goals of EE can be defined in
terms of a single terminal interest and the process-oriented
goals that support it. The terminal interest of EE can be simply stated as the promotion of environmentally sound
behaviors. The process goals are defined in terms of the
knowledge, attitudes, skills, and commitments needed to
achieve that terminal interest, and the means of instilling
those attributes in students. As noted by Roy et al., there is

Moore and Huber

a general consensus within EE that this terminal goal directs

EE practitioners to pursue an issue-oriented curriculum that
emphasizes skill development in problem solving, decision
making, and citizenship action. EE pedagogy also emphasizes experiential learning, affective domain learning, and
outdoor learning experiences. Ramsey et al. (1992) stated
that these are central tenets of most models of EE, and many
environmental educators believe that efforts to instill environmental awareness must be rooted in early first-hand
experience with the natural world. These interests seem to
be strongly supported by the standards (Table 1).
Internet-based educational applications can support the
goals of EE, as noted in Table 1 (Comeaux & Huber, in
press; Mistler-Jackson & Songer, 2000). Furthermore, several Internet-supported project-participation programs currently being used to teach environmental science seem to support the interests of EE. Three such programs are (a) The
Global Learning and Observation (GLOBE) program, (b)
Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN),
and (c) Students as Scientists: Pollution Prevention through
Education. These programs engage students in collecting
local environmental data, publishing data using the Internet,

TABLE 1. Congruence Between EEs and the National

Science Education Standards Goals and Objectives

Goals and Objectives of EE

Provide issue-oriented
curriculum, in which
problem-solving, decision-making, and citizenship behaviors are
emphasized.
Emphasize experiential
learning, affective
domain learning, and
outdoor learning experiences.
Instill environmental
awareness by rooting
learning in early firsthand experience with
the natural world.
Develop knowledge and
skills that support the
terminal goal of environmentally sound behaviors.

The Standards
Support or Advocate that
Students are motivated
(National Research
Council, 1996, p. 37).
Students develop cognitive knowledge and
apply a wide range of
science process skills
(pp. 1924).
Students work in cooperative groups, inquiring
about a wide range of
scientific and social
issues (pp. 13, 3031,
and 5051).
Teachers promote respect for the natural
world and stimulate students excitement and
sense of wonder about
the natural world (pp. 1
and 50).
Students apply scientific
knowledge and process
skills in personal decision making (p. 22),
including collective
judgment of . . . how we
share resourcessuch as
air, water, and national
forests (p. 11).

23

and interpreting data. As the descriptions that follow indicate, Internet activities support experiential outdoor learning
activities and provide students with opportunities to engage
in authentic scientific discourse that extends and deepens
their learning. These applications encourage students to
either model or engage in environmentally sound citizenship
behaviors. As the program summaries suggest, a range of
programs of this type are currently in use.
Global Learning and Observation (GLOBE) Program
The GLOBE program (www.globe.gov/) is a well-established, large-scale, K12 program that provides teachers
with structure and resources for using the Internet in environmental science instruction. In the United States, GLOBE
is administered by a cooperative consisting of the U.S.
Department of Education, U.S. Department of State, 4 federal agencies, and 50 state and local partner organizations.
More than 4,000 schools in 60 countries participate in the
program. Students collect environmental data at or near
their schools (about atmospheric conditions, hydrology,
land cover/geology, and soils) and publish their findings on
GLOBEs Internet site. An international team of environmental scientists provides quality control checks on the
data, processes this information, and communicates findings back to the students via the Internet, in several forms
(e.g., information displays and reference-oriented documents to support student research activities). The program
is designed to deliver numerous resourcesranging from
directive support for novice teachers, to networking functions, to support of interschool (including international)
research projects. In addition to Internet resources, GLOBE
provides teachers with training and educational materials.
Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN)
GREEN (www.igc.apc.org/green/greeninfo.html) promotes an action-oriented approach to education, based on
an interdisciplinary watershed education model. GREENs
mission is to improve education through a global network
that encourages watershed sustainability using the Internet
to meet that goal. For example, GREEN coordinates watershed-wide and global online computer conferences and
mailing lists. It also develops and disseminates educational
materials and trains teachers, students, businesses, governments, and community groups. Thus, rather than providing
a structured course of study, GREEN furnishes a wealth of
resources (many of which use the Internet), that teachers
and classes studying watersheds can draw upon.
Students as Scientists: Pollution Prevention
Through Education
Students as Scientists (smec.uncwil.edu/glaxo/sas/index.
htm) is a component of a regional environmental research
and education initiative, the Lower Cape Fear River program. Both the parent research program and the Students as
Scientists component focus on water quality assessment of

24

The Journal of Environmental Education

the Lower Cape Fear River Basin in southeastern North

Carolina. In addition to the 34 water collection research
sites used by the research scientists, several water quality
parameters are being assessed on an ongoing basis at several educational sites. The scientists charged with conducting these analyses are middle school science students. Students from different schools share their findings with each
other (and other researchers) via the Internet, using a protocol that is virtually identical to the one used by the research
scientists in the parent research program.
Teachers can also integrate Students as Scientists activities with other powerful Internet-based tools designed to
support educational applications of the water quality data
collected by scientists during the research component of the
programs. For example, by using the data visualization tool
available on the River Run website (www.uncwil.edu/riverrun), teachers and students can generate animated graphic
displays showing relationships among water quality parameters through space and time (Huber & Moore, 2001).
These displays use line graphs and color gradients to display data about multiple water quality parameters while animating and displaying the graphs in a sequential series to
show changes through time. The animated graphs function
much like computer-enhanced versions of the small multiples described by Tufte (1983, 1990) as a highly effective
way to display complex, multivariable, quantitative information. A similar application available on another website,
Water on the Web, can be used to explore comparable data
about lakes (wow.nrri.umn.edu/wow/index.html).
The River Run data visualization tool enables students to
discover and explore interesting ecological events that tend
to stand out when the data are graphically displayed. These
abundant and noteworthy events occurred in the river systems during the years from which the data were drawn.
Specifically, the River Run resource provides data and utilities for exploring information about the water quality of the
Cape Fear River and the Northeast Cape Fear River from
June 1995 to June 2000. During these years, a major poultry farm spill, several ruptures of hog waste lagoons, five
hurricanes, and a 500-year flood occurred in these rivers.
Consequently, when water quality data about the rivers are
explored using the data visualization tool, conspicuous
spikes in line graphs and flashes of color on the color mapper frequently appear.
Internet-Supported Programs Within EE
Programs like these support the central goals of EE and
exemplify the Internets potential as a vehicle for promoting
EE. For example, GREEN and Students as Scientists Internet
exemplify how the Internet can be used to engage students in
community-based activities, which are highly valued by
many environmental educators (Sanger, 1997) and by the
standards (National Research Council, 1996, p. 45). The
Internet promotes discourse that facilitates students cooperative efforts to practice environmentally sound behaviors as
participating community members. The value of authenticity

in the publications and discourse portion of the project should

not be taken lightly. As Bereiter et al. (1997) noted:
Although individual scientists and research teams may work
with shovels or electromagnetic resonance devices, scientific communities work through discoursepublications, conferences, debates, e-mail messages, bag lunch meetings, and
so on. (p. 333)

At this time and presumably into the future, and so on

includes communications and data dissemination through
computer networking tools, including the Internet. Furthermore, computer networking can be expected to include
activities virtually identical to those conducted by students
participating in programs such those discussed here. The
networking and electronic data publication components of
these programs are not simulations of scientific discourse;
they are scientific discourse.
Resources available in GLOBE provide information about
how similar programs might be used to address concerns
about making EE relevant to all students, particularly those
living in urban settings. Lewis and James (1995) note that
topics that are often viewed as only peripherally interesting
to EE (i.e., urban soil lead contamination) may be more relevant and meaningful to urban students than topics that are
more consistent with EEs traditional focus (i.e., pristine
wilderness areas and sparkling rivers). For some urban students, soil contamination may be a concrete problem,
whereas the construct of a pristine river is an abstract concept. GLOBE may provide an ideal vehicle for making EEs
interests relevant to these students.
Although we emphasize the strength of selected Internetsupported programs designed to teach environmental science, we must also address two common misconceptions
about the use of computers in the classroom. First, we are
not advocating applications that attempt to use computers as
a substitute for authentic outdoor learning activities. We
recognize the validity of concerns that have been raised
regarding such applications (Bixler et al., 1994). Rather, we
recommend programs that use Internet technology to support and extend learning activities rooted in outdoor experiential-learning activities. Second, most concerns raised
about classroom applications of the Internet are based upon
the presupposition that students or teachers surf the Internet
to seek information (Jackson et al., 1997), which is not the
case in GLOBE, Project GREEN, and the Students as Scientists programs. When students use such programs, their
access can be restricted to Internet sites specifically
designed for classroom applications.
Conclusions
In the preceding discussion, we provided information
about several current initiatives that promote EEs interests.
We believe that the goals of ecological, scientific, and computer literacy are compatible and interdependent. We also
believe in the vision of ecological, scientific, and computer
literacy for all students. Much work needs to be done in this

Moore and Huber

area, however, and the EE community may have much to

contribute to the effort. EE may also have much to gain by
embracing the effort, and there is too much at stake to
ignore this opportunity.
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