The Institute for Earth Education has been very critical of the infusion approach adopted by the field of environmental education. With its pervasive collections of supplemental activities, often sponsored by the very agencies and industries that have contributed so much to our environmental problems, and usually riddled with subtle management messages as if the earth was our cornucopia and everything would be okay if we just picked up the litter and managed its systems a bit better, this model is touted around the world as the educational answer to our environmental problems. We don't believe it. We think the earth is ecologically threatened, and we are convinced that there is no serious educational response underway to counteract that threat.

In general, environmental education has been diluted, co-opted and trivialized, and in the institute we have elected to speak out about this danger and propose an alternative. However, there are many good people out there doing good things for the earth that they call environmental education, and we applaud their efforts. Our concern is with the field as a whole. We aim to attack the problems not the people. Two of the reprints below, from our seasonal journal, Talking Leaves, address this problem, while the others present responses to the critics of various aspects of our work.

Project WILD (Project TAME)

This detailed critique argues that Project WILD perpetuates the myth that the mission of teaching people about how life works on the earth and what that means for them in their own lives can be accomplished without a concentrated effort or a focused program; making learning about basic ecological concepts subject to the background of each teacher and the vagaries of chance and circumstance. Example activities and discussion of the design of Project WILD (really Project TAME -- Towards A Managed Environment) support the argument put forth.

Project Learning Tree (Corporate Propaganda Tree)

PLT takes great pride in saying it teaches people "how to think, not what to think," but the problem is, it doesn't teach people how to act. This critical analysis reveals how PLT is an offspring of the forest products industry and is infused with the industry's management messages.

The Resurrection Of Victorian Nature Study?

There's been a resurgence in the 90's of those advocating the teaching of names and nature study, often setting earth education up as the opponent. This is Steve Van Matre's reply to Mike Weilbacher's widely disseminated article, "The Renaissance of the Naturalist."

Chief Seattle: Hooker Or Hoax?

A response to criticism that Chief Seattle's brief "message" in Sunship Earth and The Earth Speaks is largely the product of a screenwriter for the film, "Home."

Earth Education: Relationship Or Religion?

In recent years earth education programs in a few communities have come under fire from some extremely sensitive religious fundamentalists. This position paper examines their primary criticisms and clarifies why we do what we do in some of our programs.