2015 Conference

Poster Presentation

The correlations between environment, education, and health have evolved into close interdependency over the past decade as urgent environmental and health issues have arisen and proposals for education and preventive measures have been put forth. While environmental and health issues have rapidly arisen, the education system is lagging in innovation to address these problems.

Through the inquiry into a survey of policy studies from the last decade regarding the correlations between the environment and the food system, an implicit trend was found in the timeline for attempting to limit environmental degradation. These studies purport to investigate optimal possible solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems. Waters, for example, advocates the use of local foods due to its environmental safety by educational curriculums surrounding the need for solving the problems. Barlow believes in teaching the economical aspect of the environment and how it relates to our lives. Moore Lappe stresses environmentalism and corporations that promote a better lifestyle for people and preserving the natural world through education of the broader community. However, none present a plausible timeline responsive to the urgency of curbing carbon emissions that has emerged in the past ten years.

Different forms of education for promoting environmentalism have varying levels of efficiency in correlation to the newly emerged chronology of ecological necessity. Lecture-style classes should be seen as less effective than hands-on forms of learning, which encourage individuals to take part in the actual preservation of the world. Whereas exclusively classroom learning does not capture the realities of addressing global needs, an interactive experience gives the learner a chance to make progress in real time while also benefitting pedagogically.