.
< ! »
J*f
H
-X
">•'
^^.
-------
-------
By Suzanne Miller Pogell
Learning On The Chesapeake
Chesapeake Bay boaters in Maryland
who have sailed past "No Tres-
passing—Smithsonian Institution"
signs on Rhode River and the Bay around
the Poplar Islands, may wonder what is
really behind the signs and why unlimited
public access is prohibited.
Behind the signs is a 2,600 acre labora-
tory for research and education—a site
of critical environmental studies that
have meaning for all of us and for the
ultimate health of the Bay. The "No
Trespassing" signs have a serious purpose:
they are there to protect study sites, deli-
cate instrumentation, and animal popula-
tions, which are the subjects of Center staff
investigations.
While the facility as a whole is off limits
to public access, it carries on a very active
education and public outreach program.
Emphasizing "learning while doing," the
study of various environmental concepts
begins with sessions for pre-schoolers and
their parents and includes teacher-led ac-
tivities for children in school, after school,
and summer programs, and regularly
scheduled trail walks. Two years ago,
group boat tours were added.
The Chesapeake Bay Center for Environ-
mental Studies was established in 1965.
Java Dairy Farm, the original 368 acre
tract, was left to the Smithsonian in 1962,
by Robert Lee Forrest, who operated the
farm from 1915 to 1946.
The Center is located seven miles south
of Annapolis, Md., on the Rhode River, a
tidal arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Within
its boundaries are forests, abandoned
fields, marshlands and active farms—a
full range of southern Maryland habitats
and animal populations for study. Research
also is conducted on the Smithsonian-
owned and Center-administrated Poplar
Islands near Talbot County on the Eastern
Shore of the Bay.
The research program focuses on the
dynamics of an estuarine-watershed eco-
system, land use effects, and man's inter-
actions with his environment. The program
includes a broad range of long term, in-
tegrated studies on the Center's uplands,
watershed, the two-square mile Rhode
River estuary, and the effects of environ-
ment on people's attitudes and behavior.
Fragmented Habitats
Two Center researchers, Dennis Whigham
and James Lynch, have been exploring the
effects of fragmentation of habitat on plant
and bird species. Earlier studies by Lynch in
Washington's Rock Creek Park revealed
sharp declines in certain bird populations
with the increase in isolation and frag-
mentation of their natural habitat. The
two ecologists are also studying the impact
of deer on one of the small Poplar Islands
and the factors of competition and com-
patability in different plant and animal
communities.
Dr. David Cornell's group has mapped
small basins of the watershed according
to their land use, such as cropland, pasture,
and forest. They are monitoring and
analyzing samples of the stormwater runoff
from each basin through a series of in-
strumented sampling stations and gauges.
Nutrients, pathogens, sediments, pesti-
cides, and herbicides are among the com-
ponents of runoff being analyzed in
Center Laboratories.
The Rhode River estuary receives fresh
water from small creeks, runoff from the
land, and materials entering from the
atmosphere through drainage and rain-
water. Microbiologists and chemists at the
Chesapeake Bay Center are studying how
materials from land runoff are distributed
in the estuary and the effects of these
materials on the estuarine environment. In
another current estuarine study, white and
yellow perch are being studied for
spawning success, growth, and abundance.
Many of the Center's public programs
are made possible by the dedicated and
able assistance of a corps of volunteer
guides. The group boat tours, for example,
have been under the direction of two
volunteer Coast Guard Auxiliary captains.
The Center publishes a quarterly news-
letter, the Rhode River Review, which
features articles on current staff research.
curriculum development, and public pro-
grams. A meeting facility, completed in
1975, is the site of frequent presentations
by guides and Center staff to visiting
groups.
In keeping with the Smithsonian tradi-
tion, the Center is committed to the
increase and diffusion of knowledge and
careful preservation. Its focus is data base
for wise management of its valuable nat-
ural resources.
People and Landscapes
One unusual research program at the
Center is concerned with environmental
influences on human behavior and ways in
which human preferences for various land-
scapes are formed. John Balling and John
Fa Ik have been exploring the effects that
man's evolutionary history may have on
these preferences. Underlying much of
their work is the hypothesis that human
evolution, in large part, took place along
or near river courses in the East African
savanna. Preferences for natural settings
with scattered trees, short grass, and some
type of water body may, therefore, reflect
an innate preference for the environment
in which much of our biological (and
psychological) apparatus evolved.
A two-part theory of the development of
environmental preferences was tested in a
series of studies in which participants
"rated" photographic slides of different
natural environments—tropical rain forest,
temperate deciduous forest, coniferous
forest, savanna, and desert. First, it was
proposed that there is innate predisposi-
tion towards savanna-like settings that
expresses itself most clearly in childhood.
Recently completed research by Balling and
Falk has shown that children as young as
three to five years of age show a strong
preference for savanna environments.
Earlier data revealed that the preference
for savanna persists throughout the ele-
mentary school years. Second, with
increasing age and experience, familiarity
IAN1IARY 1QR1
17
-------
with environment comes into play.
Preference for savanna can be seen to
decline while preference for those environ-
ments with which people are most familiar
rises. Participants in studies completed to
date have been most familiar with de-
ciduous and coniferous forests. Thus, the
ratings of those from the ages of mid-
adolescence through adulthood indicate
an equal preference for these forested
settings and savanna.
Last year, research on landscape
preference was extended through use of an
experimental overlay procedure, developed
by Falk and Balling. This device allows an
individual to "construct" the landscape
which he or she most prefers by selecting,
in turn, a preferred background and a
preferred foreground. The results of
studies using this apparatus tend to con-
firm earlier investigations. Overall, partici-
pants selected foreground scenes con-
taining low, even ground cover and a few
scattered trees. Preferred backgrounds
tended to be hilly, with tree density some-
what higher than that of the foreground.
Almost all subjects who added additional
elements drew in water of some type
(streams, lakes, etc.). In general, the
highly preferred scenes could be described
as "parkland" adjacent to or surrounding
some body of water. The natural environ-
ment that most closely approximates such
scenes is the savanna. Thus, results from
studies using techniques with very differ-
ent types of experimental biases—judg-
ments of slides and the overlay—have
tended to support the hypothesis that there
is some innate component to landscape
preference.
The Center is also concerned with the
development of educational materials for
out-of-school, or informal audiences. In
1979, a series of estuarine ecology
materials entitled SEA (Smithsonian
Estuarine Activities) was produced, which
was targeted for early adolescents in
informal settings such as nature centers.
Starting last year, the Center began work
on two other materials development
projects aimed at different audiences—
families and parents with preschoolers.
Parents As Teachers
A goal of the Center is to develop ways
to help today's parents function effectively
in their role as educators of their children.
While a child may spend some twenty-five
hours per week involved in classroom
learning, the majority of the child's waking
hours are spent away from the school
grounds. Parents, then, have a substantial
opportunity to explore with their children
the world around them, to teach them how
to make decisions, and to help them make
the connections between what they learn
in the classroom and what happens in their
everyday world. However, the rapid scien-
tific and technological change of today's
world often severely limits this opportunity,
leaving an ever-widening gap between
what most parents can impart to their
children and the science in actual use
around them.
The Smithsonian Family Learning Project
is an effort to strengthen the family as a
significant teaching-learning unit. Under
the direction of John Falk, staff members
Jamie Harms, Sharon Maves, and Laurie
Greenberg are developing a series of
learning activities for families to do
together at home, which focus on the home
•
environment as a functioning ecosystem.
To date, packets have been developed and
tested in three areas: home energy use,
houseplants, and lawns. Included in each
packet are games, experiments, and
exploratory projects that provide the tools
for families to discover the dynamics of
these systems in their home environment.
In one of the activities, families learn about
solar energy by constructing a solar green-
house. In another, families explore the
critical variables of heat, light, water, and
other environmental requirements in the
growth and productivity of individual
houseplants.
A complementary project is the Parent
and Preschooler Ecology Series. In a pre-
liminary stage of development, the series
is being designed by Ann Coren to help
families and their young children work in
partnership to learn basic ecological prin-
ciples. Materials are being developed which
will enable parents to capitalize on the
preschool child's natural curiosity. An
essential element of the process of testing
the materials is a pilot workshop format
where small groups of parents and chil-
dren work as a family team using "hands
on" exploratory activities as a framework
for discovery. Two outcomes have been
identified in sessions conducted to date:
children learn ecological concepts through
exploration and manipulation of the envi-
ronment; and the experience of shared
discovery reinforces the teaching/learning
process for both parents and children.
These results suggest that family-based
activities such as these can initiate a life-
long pattern of family learning. D
Suzanne Pogell is a public information officer
with the Chesapeake Bay Center.
IB
EPAJOURNAL
-------
By Edward W. Weidner
>'llor.
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
A New Approach
To Environmental Education
The search for an effective means of
providing a broad education has gone
on for hundreds—even thousands—
of years. This was, of course, a concern of
Aristotle and Plato. This was also a concern
of scholars at the time of the Renaissance,
when the "well-rounded man" was an
objective. The last hundred years have
been no exception. Western countries have
shown great interest in trying to define
liberal education over this period. And
increasingly during the last 30 years, the
search for an appropriate approach to the
subject and an appropriate role for liberal
education has spread throughout the
world.
In recent years, the effort has en-
countered at least four major problems.
There has been a difficulty in defining
liberal education, in appropriately relating
it to the disciplines, in relating it to pro-
fessional areas or to professional schools
and colleges, and finally, liberal education
has been under attack recently from the
proponents of technical-vocational edu-
cation and, especially in the United States,
of what is called career education. In brief,
some consider liberal education as im-
practical and theoretical.
Environmental Focus
It is against this background that applied
liberal education at the University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay may find its signifi-
cance. Ours is one of the few universities
in the United States that has adopted a
rather specific educational philosophy for
all its activities, using a particular theme
or focus. Its approach is one of problem-
oriented higher education, focused on the
problems associated with people and the
environment. We define the environment
very broadly as the context in which life
takes place—including the socio-cultural as
well as the bio-physical environment.
While we place emphasis upon such prob-
lems, the same educational principles we
use could apply equally to the study of
any other set of problems.
Marc/a Nylund, student at the University
from liver tissue of rats.
This approach immediately gives some
clues as to how to avoid the four difficul-
ties that face liberal education. First of
all, a university following this course has
fewer problems with the definition of
liberal education. Such a university is not
just concerned abstractly with the whole
person or with broadening or liberalizing
a person through higher education, or with
developing the capacity to think, to reason,
or to make decisions. A problem-oriented
of Wisconsin —Green Bay, extracting PCB's
approach emphasizes application of all
disciplines and professions to the world
in which we live now and in the future.
More specifically, it relates the whole
person and the liberalizing thinking,
reasoning, and decision-making process to
human affairs in an integrated manner. It is
JANUARY 1981
19
-------
concerned with problem analysis, and this
provides substantial guidelines for liberal
education. It therefore makes some of the
abstract aspects of liberal education very
concrete and tangible.
Furthermore, a problem-oriented
approach provides an appropriate educa-
tional role for the various disciplines and
professions, which can gain their signifi-
cance from concentrating together on a
problem at hand, rather than from autono-
mous or theoretical systems. By this means
one discipline becomes meaningfully re-
lated to another, and one profession to an-
other, when applied to a particular problem.
Finally, in regard to making liberal
education marketable, a problem-oriented
approach provides an education with a
variety of job applications. In order to
analyze problems, students must acquire
both general knowledge and specific skills
in those areas, and apply them outside
the walls of a university. They must learn
to work cooperatively with others. They
must learn to anticipate the future. An
education such as this produces students
who are in high demand on graduation, and
who will continue to be so in the years
ahead.
Other Advantages
But there is more to the subject than this.
There are important advantages for the
student. For example, a problem approach
provides a very substantial motivation to
learn and may enhance his or her ability
to learn. Thus, chemistry comes alive in its
application to problems, as the student
perceives that it is closely related to other
disciplines such as sociology, literature,
mathematics, and biology. A student who
focuses attention on chemistry can actually
perform better in this field if he or she
follows a problem approach to learning,
becomes motivated to apply the discipline,
and finds that this specialty cannot stand
alone, but must be interwoven with many
other disciplines and professions. And it
may well be that fewer credits of chemistry,
and more of related subjects also will
give the student more knowledge of
chemistry.
There are important advantages for the
faculty member. Professors commonly
become more and more specialized over
the years. The range of their coursework is
restricted. Extensive contacts with other
professionals often are limited to those
whose fields are similar. The institution
groups their offices, classrooms, labora-
tories, and studios together by discipline.
A problem-oriented university can provide
a far wider range of stimuli both inside
and outside the classroom. Team teaching,
interdisciplinary departments, and varying
problems encourage faculty members to
consider new and broader perspectives. It
is an atmosphere conducive to innovative
thinking.
There are important advantages for
research and community outreach. Most
traditional universities have a difficult time
organizing for problem-oriented research.
Typically, they create many institutes or
centers, which are rather odd appendages,
separate from the mainstream of the
university. The faculty member may or may
not be rewarded for his or her work in them.
A problem approach places problem-
oriented research in the mainstream.
Whether the topic is local or worldwide,
whether it involves few or many disciplines
or professions, whether it is marked by
many community complications or not, the
problem-oriented university is in an excel-
lent position to make a contribution to
knowledge and to help solve community
problems at the same time.
At a conventional university a student
fundamentally chooses subject matter—
such as biology, chemistry, sociology, or
psychology—or a profession—engineer-
ing, medicine, business administration,
social work, and so on. At the University
of Wisconsin-Green Bay, these two choices
are open to students. They can decide to
emphasize any of the traditional disciplines
or subjects, and they can decide to
emphasize any of the appropriate profes-
sions. The difference is that students have
a third choice—one which they are re-
quired to exercise. They must choose a
problem of some social significance on
which to concentrate. If they also choose
a subject matter and/or a profession, it is
their responsibility to apply the subject
matter and/or profession to the problem
they have selected for understanding and
analysis—in cooperation with other disci-
plines and professions and other students
and professors. Thus, they do not study
chemistry for chemistry's sake alone, but
in regard to its application to the world
outside the university. Similarly, they do
not study business administration alone,
but in regard to the way in which business
structures can constructively relate to the
problem selected.
A conventional university organizes
faculty members either on the basis of
disciplines or on the basis of professional
areas. At our Green Bay institution, the
faculty is organized into multidisciplinary
problem-oriented units called concentra-
tions. This encourages faculty members
to think in multidisciplinary, problem-
oriented ways. We hire and evaluate them
on this basis, and determine academic
policies on this basis.
Thus, neither from a faculty nor a
student point of view are disciplines or
professions predominant. Students select
their major in one of the concentrations.
Of course, they need to have backgrounds
in disciplinary and professional subjects
as well as interdisciplinary and problem-
oriented areas. The great majority of
students, therefore, select a co-major or a
minor in a discipline or a profession, to
go along with the concentration major that
focuses on a problem. This permits or
encourages a student to consider the
discipline or profession as a useful means
20
EPAJOURNAL
-------
to a social end, rather than as a means or
an end in and of itself. About one-third of
the teaching at the University is in broad
interdisciplinary or problem-oriented
courses, and about two-thirds in the dis-
ciplines or professions. However, in regard
to this latter component of courses, much
of it is specifically problem oriented as
well, although within the confines of a
single discipline or profession.
A Moral Imperative
To put the matter in a different way, we
base our academic plan upon the idea of
social responsibility. Each student must opt
for the world, not out of the world. Each
has a responsibility to help make the world
a better place in which to live. We ask each
student to consider the social importance
and social application of his or her intellec-
tual interest. In this world, those persons
who are particularly gifted intellectually
have a special responsibility to apply their
talents so that they benefit many people.
Students should begin this application at
the university, to place learning in a social
context. In this manner, they will under-
stand more fully that each person obtains
much of his or her identity by relating to
other human beings, and indeed has a
sacred responsibility to do so.
At our institution each student has a wide
range of problems from which to select.
A number of students focus upon urban
areas, and environmental questions associ-
ated with them. Others take a larger geo-
graphical perspective and focus on the
region. Some students are primarily con-
cerned with ecosystems. Others are con-
cerned with more specific matters of nat-
ural resource management, or with water,
air, and soil quality. Attention to population
pressure and hunger is common. And
questions associated with modernity or
with the cultural and aesthetic environ-
ments are among other areas of concern.
Whatever the problem selected—and
students have a considerable freedom in
identifying a particular one of interest to
them—the emphasis is on an area or topic
that affects many people—one that is a
truly social problem.
This approach to higher education re-
quires training in problem analysis. It
begins with the identification of what con-
stitutes a problem, and proceeds to an
examination of its various ramifications,
the development of alternative solutions,
and a study of the different ways that these
solutions can be reached most effectively.
This is not a value-free process, of course.
A student needs to understand that differ-
ent communities, different groups of peo-
ple, and different individuals will vary
widely in terms of their value preferences.
Therefore, requiring a student to consider
values, be sensitive to them, and under-
stand priorities among values are important
parts of such a University of Wisconsin-
Green Bay education.
One important element in a problem-
oriented approach to higher education is to
avoid elitism on the part of individual
students, faculty members, or the univer-
sity itself. Working with people at each step
involved in a problem analysis is essential
to identifying a workable solution. This
includes people of all walks of life, in all
geographical areas, in any way related to
the problem. We cannot carry out problem
analysis completely within an educational
or research institution. It must involve
collaboration with the people responsible
for achieving a solution. And in most cases,
problems are not "theirs" but rather
"ours." The researcher or analyst is a
citizen and also a part of the problem. We
hope that at our institution there is not a
we/they or a devil/angel situation. Problem
analysis requires the talents of many differ-
ent kinds of specialists, persons from many
professions and disciplines and persons
who fulfill many roles in the community.
It is overall a humbling and collegia! experi-
ence, not an elitist one.
A university with a program such as this
becomes far more interdisciplinary since
problems do not confine themselves to the
artificial boundaries of particular disci-
plines. All aspects of the educational enter-
prise can be related or integrated—both
the more general subjects and the more
specialized subjects. A special emphasis
on future time is appropriate to problem-
oriented universities. A comparison among
different cultures becomes important in
order for students to understand how
similar problems are affected by cultural
variables. A merger of university and com-
munity resources becomes useful in com-
bining teaching, research, and community
outreach. Students need to have a substan-
tial amount of learning through experience,
and the student/professor relationship
must be one that is both close and heavily
biased in the direction of the "co-learner's"
principle. If students are going to learn to
solve problems, they must have consider-
able freedom in their own education.
Student-initiated education and a choice
among many different alternatives in secur-
ing one's education become requisites.
This is the kind of institution that the
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay aspires
to be. I say aspires because it is probably
impossible for any institution to embrace
completely the principles just outlined,
much less carry them out faithfully. Rather,
these are goals of direction, goals that we
can extend and enlarge, as we accumulate
experience and new knowledge.
Nonetheless, we have made an encour-
aging beginning. Our institution illustrates
that education and social responsibility can
go hand in hand, while academic freedom
is preserved. We remain optimistic for the
future.D
JANUARY 1981
21
-------
Igniting
The Public
Conscience
By Eric Ashby
(The following excerpt is from a book
"Reconciling Man with the Environment" by
Lord Eric Ashby, one of the world's distin-
guished scientists. A Fellow of Britain's Royal
Society, he has received 21 honorary degrees
recognizing his contributions both as a scientist
and as a leader in higher education.
Reprinted with the permission of the pub-
lisher, Stanford University Press. 63 1978 by
the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford
Junior University.
In the summer of 1963, on a couple of
farms in southeast England, some sheep
and cattle and a foxhound died. The
postmortem showed that they had been
poisoned by fluorocetamide, which was
traced to a field next to a factory that pro-
duced pesticides. The factory dumped
drums and canisters and allowed them to
rust away in this field, which drained into
some ponds on the farms where the animals
were likely to drink.
The incident caused no great stir, but it
did lead the Minister of Housing and Local
Government to appoint a Technical Com-
mittee on the Disposal of Toxic Solid
Wastes to advise what changes were desir-
able in order to ensure safe disposal with-
out risk of polluting water supplies and
rivers. The committee set to work in a
leisurely manner: it met 20 times over a
stretch of six years and produced in the
spring of 1970 a lifeless and tedious report
that did, however, conclude that existing
legislation on toxic wastes was inadequate.
The report got scant notice in the media,
and nothing was done.
Meanwhile Britain, along with other
industrial countries, was becoming environ-
ment-conscious. In 1970 a Royal Commis-
sion on Environmental Pollution was
appointed, with wide powers of enquiry.
Its first task was to survey the state of the
environment in Britain. It found evidence of
"fly-tipping," that is, the illicit dumping of
toxic wastes in places not registered to
receive them; and it urged the government
to tighten the law. Still nothing was done.
Throughout 1971 the Royal Commission
collected further examples of fly-tipping,
and in August it expressed disquiet at the
potential danger to water supplies and the
government's failure to deal with the
matter.
The government's reply was that there
was too heavy a program of parliamentary
business for the matter to be dealt with in
the coming session; moreover, there was to
be a reorganization of local government
that would affect the administrative
arrangements, and a comprehensive bill to
control pollution was to be introduced
sometime in 1974. In October and Novem-
ber 1971, further pressure was brought on
the Minister by the Royal Commission, and
on November 30, the chairman of the Royal
Commission wrote to the Minister to say
that "the risk to the public is such that we
must pursue this matter, even though it is
at an awkward time." Still no action was
taken, and the Commission drafted a report
critical of the government that was pub-
lished on March 7, 1972.
But before that date a new character had
appeared in the story. His name was Lonnie
Downes. He was a truck driver in a waste-
disposal firm in the Midlands and shop
steward for his branch of the Transport and
General Workers Union. He discovered that
some of his mates were being given a bonus
of 20 pounds a week for dumping loads of
cyanide, chromic acid, caustic soda,
phenol, and other noxious substances on
delivery tickets that described them as
series
MISCARRIAGE
Seepagi
Chemic
Pregnant Women, Inf
oxic Nightmare Troubles State,
s v
(First of Two Articles)
RALIEGH — Until now, about all state
could say about hazardous
tion, and North Carolina is at least a step
ahead of others on that approach, with the
state government and Research Triangle
Tnstitute already working cooperatively
tion; and one of the bi>
Southeast. Waste from nu
plants is only a small f f
byproduct of industry and res f.
-------
harmless "suds oil." Mr. Dowries com-
plained to the management of the firm, who
replied with vague threats of dismissal.
A few weeks later Mr. Downes was offered
promotion, which he declined. Then, so it
was reported, he was offered 300 pounds if
he would leave the company; again he
declined. Instead, he reported the whole
affair to the local branch of the Conserva-
tion Society. The Society, helped by specific
information from Mr. Downes and his
mates, prepared a detailed report and sent
it to the Secretary of State for the Environ-
ment. Still nothing was done.
At this point the Conservation Society,
having given due warning that it would
make the matter public, sent its findings to
the press. The story broke in the Birming-
ham Sunday Mercury on January 10, 1972.
Thereafter press, radio and television
descended upon the refuse dumps of Brit-
ain like a flock of scavenging birds. Pictures
of alleged toxic waste drums appeared in
the newspapers. Parliament was forced to
hold a special debate on the issue, but the
Under Secretary of State still maintained
that the parliamentary timetable was too
packed for legislation to be introduced
before 1974.
Toward the end of February 1972 the
government knew that the Royal Commis-
sion was about to publish its views on toxic
wastes; but on February 24 an incident
occurred that eclipsed the sober delibera-
tions of a Royal Commission. Thirty-six
one-hundredweight drums were discovered
in a derelict piece of ground near the town
of Nuneaton, on a site where children
played. Attempts had been made to erase
the label 'sodium cyanide' from the drums
and some of the crystals were sticking to
the outside. The Department of the Environ-
ment hurriedly drafted a bill to control the
deposit of poisonous waste. It was read for
the first time on March 8, went through its
remaining stages on March 1 6, and passed
into law on March 30.
I tell this story to illustrate the vagaries
of the human dimension in the first stage
of the chain reaction between the disclosure
of an environmental hazard and political
action to control it. The moral of the story
was aptly summed up in an editorial in
The Times when the emergency bill was
introduced:
"It is instructive to note what did and
what did not prompt the Government to
squeeze a Bill as a matter of urgency into
an already crowded legislative programme.
The urgent representations of an official
commission composed of distinguished
persons who were moved by 'the disturb-
ing cases which have come to our knowl-
edge of local problems and anxieties,' did
not. Headlines about drums of cyanide
waste on derelict land in the Midtandsdid."
It is one consequence of the astonishing
adaptability of man that he has to be per-
suaded to be dissatisfied about abuses to
his environment. To set the chain reaction
going is often the hardest task in social
reform. This raises an ethical problem of
some importance. Is it morally defensible
to use shock tactics, to exaggerate, to dis-
tort the facts or color them with emotive
words, or to slant the television camera in
order to excite the public conscience?
My experience leads me reluctantly to
believe that in the present social climate
some dramatization is necessary.
Without Rachel Carson public apathy
about the hazards of pesticides might have
persisted for a decade longer.
But notice an important point about these
enthusiasts: they are commonly what
academics call "unsound," which in aca-
demia is a highly pejorative epithet. Rachel
Carson's biology can be faulted, and she
uses cunningly the technique of a story-
teller in her opening chapter.
And yet, if these writers had been coolly
rational, if they had stuck meticulously to
uncolored verifiable facts, would they have
made any impression on the public con-
science? I doubt it, and my doubts are
confirmed by the opinions of two very great
men, one a philosopher and the other a
theologian. It was Alfred North Whitehead
who made the surprising assertion,
"It is more important that a proposition be
interesting than that it be true." Proposi-
tions hedged about with reservations, as
many scientific statements have to be, are
seldom interesting to the public. And
Cardinal Newman was even more emphat-
ic: "Deductions," he wrote, "have no
power of persuasion. .. . Many a man will
live and die upon a dogma; no man will be
a martyr for a conclusion." D
Chemical crisis: too liffle, foo lafe
BIRTH-DEFECT RATE HIGH
My
V meet!"- --—-. " """""-"' ic
3 From Long-Buried Toxic
ah Routs N.Y. Families
Towns fight
'ant. It's too late now. She
y going to do about that?
e is done," he said.
thing like tjiis?" said Jii
/do you cut across all th
id where do you stop? HOI
•>~ nonqlp are cafjcfj^ .
ants Urged to Move
•>•» VllClltlUdl CO. Ill 13Ji, nUt/K^I imtu ~._
ditch and covered it wit* "-'- •- .^ •111 „_.,.
Roman's third stillborn
.j*i ™,v Canal torotest
nc then "the ac- Car
are;
ficia
e prob- clint
as be«>n men
e said. A
e man- milll
years, was
•areful j0n t
toxir
nflies . ™
are stud:
The McC
hazardous
waste disposal
-------
Wild In Philadelphia
Pythons, turtles, and owls are
among the stars in the "Eco-
shows" produced by the
Philadelphia Academy of
Natural Sciences to help students
learn the fundamentals of
ecology.
A typical eco-show, such as
the presentation "Wetlands and
Waterways," takes the audi-
ence on an imaginary journey
down Wissahickon Creek to the
Schuylkill River and into
Tinicum Marsh. Their guides
are a great horned owl, a skunk,
a mallard duck, a red-tailed
hawk, and a snapping turtle.
Participants find out how these
creatures interact with people
and with their surroundings.
By learning the ways of swamp
denizens, people can under-
stand better the impact of
human activities such as drain-
ing and filling wetlands.
Certain shows are given
daily in the Academy's audi-
torium for groups of school-
children. A variation called
"Eco-show on the Road" travels
to schools, community organi-
zations, and private groups
giving performances days,
evenings, and week-ends.
Traveling show topics include:
Digging for Dinosaurs, Animals
and their Young, Animals With
Bad Reputations, Survival in
a Wild World, and Animal
Myths and Legends.
ERA.JOURNAL
-------
,/pture the
IB) This young lad v^
>n the
:sters are
n python to
rep-
!ion.
JANUARY 1981
25
------- |