Don Hohimer and his seventh graders at Cajon Valley Middle School have planted over 150 oak trees in the past two years to enhance and prevent erosion on a ravine exposed by road widening. Debbie Gardner's second graders and Snookie Marier's fifth graders planted trees to prevent erosion on the hillside at San Onofre Elementary. Steven Hamilton's San Pasqual High classes have been performing monthly water tests in Escondido and are working with the City of Escondido. These projects are just part of an effort to introduce environmental literacy into the curriculum of our schools. Many have thought that the path to EL was through environmental knowledge and awareness-based education.
Recent research indicates that knowledge and awareness is only one part of the equation.
Several recent studies performed as part of the Masters' program in the School of Education at SDSU have verified these findings. Each of the studies identified several common conditions that exist among those considered environmentally literate. Recent work by Daedalus founders O'Neill and Winkelman has demonstrated that nature immersion training significantly effected the EL of approximately 50 teacher graduates. The learning process is then communicated through a community education project. The Daedalus Alliance for Environmental Education is a non-profit organization whose goals are to improve the science and environmental literacy of teachers and students and the development of the responsible citizen on behalf of the environment.