The Biosphere 2 story – A model for environmental and sustainability education.

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Monday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Approaches for implementing environmental sustainability education

Proposal

The paper will present the work of Biosphere Foundation, a USA 501 (c) (3) Non Profit, in the field of environmental and sustainability education, through its Biosphere Stewardship programs. The work is an example of the role an NGO can play in combining non-formal education with supporting community based sustainability practices. It is unique in that the courses use the experience gained in Biosphere 2 to inspire young people to realize their role in the intricately complex, life-supporting, closed system that is planet earth.

Over 25 years ago in September of 1993, eight men and women stepped out of the airlock doors of the Biosphere 2 project having spent a two-year sojourn inside the largest artificial closed system to have ever been constructed. During those two years they lived as an integral part of their biosphere, learning to recycle their air and water, produce their own food, and take meticulous care of the biomes that were in turn supporting their existence. Three members of the crew, including the author, later formed the Biosphere Foundation –with a goal to inspire intelligent use of the earth’s natural resources and empower individuals to become leaders in biosphere stewardship. The foundation is dedicated to the concept of local agency, supporting communities to identify and address their own problems and has a strong educational component.

Working mostly in Indonesia and centered in N.W. Bali, the foundation has developed a Biosphere Stewardship Program for 7 to 12th grade students that offers a unique holistic approach to education in sustainability, in a non-formal setting, for both local and international students. Beginning with telling the story of the Biosphere 2 project, the program carries out a thorough investigation of what it means to live inside a Biosphere, a materially closed system that is open to energy and information. Students are encouraged to examine the human role in the Biosphere and how each individual can bring their unique skills to into play towards an intelligent stewardship of our planet.

The courses were originally developed to meet the needs for environmental education in a community where there is little or none in schools. Knowing that understanding is vital in order to foster appreciation and a desire to protect, the foundations local efforts focus on introducing young people to the wonders of the natural biomes that surround them, the challenges they face and the larger biosphere perspective in which they need to be dealt with. It was also developed to meet the needs for programs abroad for high schools that give a quality experience, including genuine service learning work, along with information that ties into many aspects of the high school curriculum.

The initial courses brought together local students with international students from many different countries. The participants examine the environmental challenges facing the planet both globally and locally. They also engage in hands on activities as part of the foundations conservation programs so that they can experience what it means to get involved in a very real and practical way. The courses are aimed at connecting students to the natural world in an age when humans are becoming increasingly detached from the living systems that support them. Furthermore, the concept that we live in a closed system with finite resources and no such thing as “away” is rarely taught in a way that can be fully grasped by the students.

The courses are local in focus, encouraging the students to examine the variety of tropical biomes on their doorstep in North West Bali. These include the ocean, coral reef, monsoon forest, mangrove forest and savannah. The students are encouraged to examine the city and agricultural land as man-made ‘biomes” and consider their impact on the overall biosphere. The courses are global in scope as the lessons learned can be applied to anywhere on the planet. Currently the foundation also develops programs for individual high schools, and is looking towards developing professional programs for college groups, adult groups and teachers.

The paper will describe some of the most successful components of the program, including those used to enhance student’s observational abilities, encourage the use of creative imagination and connect the students to the natural world around them. It will outline the ways in which the course utilizes a wide variety resources from the most recent scientific studies to the deeply humanly engaging work of Joanna Macy. Additionally, it will delineate areas in which the foundation hopes to use the resources of organizations such as CIES to continue to incorporate materials and techniques from many different educational fields and from other NGOs in order to improve and evolve its courses.

The paper will give examples of the ways in which the program has impacted the lives of individual students and community groups to the extent that it has been possible to asses this to date. Assessment is by necessity interpretive in nature, relying on alumni reports. At present the foundation is considering how to create a concrete follow up system to track the progress of alumni and asses the ways in which the program impacted their behaviors, values and attitudes towards sustainability. The paper will examine successful strategies used by other organizations to do this and outline ways in which the foundation plans to improve this in the future.

So far 700 students have taken part in our courses, 220 local students in weekend long camping programs and 480 students both local and international in longer courses – up to 9 days. Individual alumni have gone on to become part of the global sustainability movement in many ways and locally we have seen an increased community concern and involvement in conservation issues especially those that directly impact the economy of the community. The international program has recently been accredited as a United World College short course. Future plans include greater collaboration with other educational organizations and NGOs to widen the discourse, deepen the knowledge base and create joint programs.

Author

• Sally Eva Silverstone, Biosphere Foundation