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A volume in Transforming Education for the Future
Series Editors Jing Lin, University of Maryland
and Rebecca Oxford, Air University
Transformative eco-education is environmental education that is literally needed to transform and
save our planet, especially during the global ecological crises of our present century. Such education
demands inner transformation of many deeply rooted ideas, such as the following: the Earth exists merely to
provide for human comfort; the extinction or reduction of other species does not matter; we are free to
consume or destroy natural resources at will but are safe from destruction ourselves; and the Earth will
continue to sustain us, even if we do not sustain the Earth. Unless these concepts are changed, we will
increase global warming and add to the ruin of much of the Earth.
This book presents powerful ideas for transformative eco-education. At this time of ever-increasing ecological crisis, such education is
needed more than ever before. We urge readers to use the ideas and activities in this book with your students, develop them further, and create new
conceptions to share with other educators and students.
The chapters in this book provide key principles, of which the following are just a few. First, educators can and should prepare students for
natural disasters. Second, stories, case studies, the arts, and hands-on environmental experience, all enriched by reflection and discussion, can offer
profound learning about ecology. Third, education at all levels can benefit from a true ecological emphasis. Fourth, teachers must receive preparation
in how to employ transformative eco-education. Fifth, Indigenous wisdom can offer important, holistic, spiritual paths to understanding and caring for
nature, and other spiritual traditions also provide valid ways of comprehending humans as part of the universal web of existence. Sixth, transformative
eco-education can be an antidote to not only to environmental breakdown, but also to materialistic overconsumption and moral confusion. Seventh, we
can only heal the Earth by also healing ourselves. If we heed these principles, together we can make transformative eco-education a blazing torch to
light the path for the current century and beyond.
