Discuss your thoughts on your own environmental education and how it connects to the readings.
I was born and raised in Mozambique, a developing country situated in East Africa. One of my first introduction to environmental education was through my mother, she was a vegetarian and she has been one even before I was born. My mom is an American and she shared that the main reason she chooses the vegetarian diet was because of the mass production of meat and global warming. I was young when learned about Global warming, didn’t fully understand until I got to high school. I was fortunate enough to get a private education and that is where I learned more about environmental issues, carbon footprint, microplastic found in oceans. In my other disciplines such as geography, biology, and chemistry I realized how the environment is connected to every part of our lives.
Despite having a private education, reflecting back, I still feel like my environmental education was very facts-based and failed to teach actual solutions to live a more sustainable life. We were constantly thought to not litter and pollute the beaches but, they were never thought why. If we don’t fully understand such concepts and ideas, evidently we fail to recognize the actual issue in the first place.
In Bigelow and Swinehart’s reading, the authors talked a lot about how the actions of one impact many especially the impoverished. About two years, my country suffered from a terrible and devastating cyclone called Idai. This resulted in many death, homes being destroyed, floods, and famine. This event really made me realize that while we are all connected, we’re connected unfairly–as those least responsible global warmings are the ones that suffer the most. It is this connection that was missing from my curriculum, which failed to teach me the reality of this world. Moreover, that is exactly how my schooling thought me to contempt for the Earth.
