I o E A

At this point, you will have a full piece of paper. Please keep in mind, while you are doing this, that you are looking at the possible impacts, not the probable impacts, so any wild idea, as long as it has even a remote possibility, is acceptable. Remember what people must have thought about Thomas Edison when he talked about putting a thread in a glass bulb, taking the air out, pumping electricity through the thread and getting light. Keep the criticism of ideas to a minimum, but do watch for appropriate order. Always be on the lookout for statements which do not grow immediately from the previous statement. Try to find an appropriate place for them, but don't let them just get put in for the sake of putting them in. You may wish to begin loosely, but work toward a thoughtful ordering of statements on the wheel. One other important rule for futures wheels: make sure to list both positive and negative possibilities. Without the balance, it is easy to miss some of the most important implications of what you are examining.

As a values clarification tool, the futures wheel is also excellent. By going back to each of the possibilities and scoring them on a -5 to +5 scale, you can see how negative or positive students feel the possibilities are. While this is entirely subjective, it does at least make feelings explicit so that they can be discussed within some kind of framework.

These tools are only two of the several that can be useful. Others are:

• Cross impact matrix - a pattern for examining how various trends and innovations impact on one another

• Relevance tree - a way of designing and evaluating pathways to future goals

• Scenario - narrative summaries for creating a "future story" or "future histories" in which specific sets of possibilities are imbedded, becoming one vision of a future

• Simulation gaming - a process for creating empathy with and involvement in various alternative futures.

These techniques offer a way to arouse interest in thinking about the future and can lead both teacher and student into a

Environmental Education

Reinforces Nutrition Education

A National Science Foundation Grant was obtained to fund a cooperative environmental education project between Michigan State University (MSU) and the East Lansing School System for the 1974-1975 academic year. The project staff included: one geology professor; two graduate research assistants concurrently completing degrees in nutrition and environmental education; and 22 undergraduate students enrolled in a course, Environmental Conservation Program

THE A UTHORS are, respectively, Training Coordinator, Ari­zona Department of Health Services, Bureau of Nutrition Serv­ices, 1740 W. Adams St., Phoenix, AZ 85007; Assistant Profes­sor, Departments of Food Science and Human Nutrition and of Community Medicine; and Professor, Department of Geology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI48824.

74 Journal of Nutrition Education Vol. 9 No.2 April-June 1977

deeper investigation of the possible futures. For example, students can examine their food habits and needs and then develop alternative ways of fulfilling those needs. As described, trend extrapolation and futures wheels can increase the students' awareness of the global implications of American food habits and the possibility of many solutions to the problem of good nutrition for the entire world. With the increasing discussion of food scarcity in the 1970s, these tools are especially significant for classroom use. Hopefully, the ideas generated will lead to more careful considerations of actions of today which ultimately shape all of our tomorrows.

o

Suggested Readings Boulding, K. E., The Meaning of the Twentieth Century: The great

tradition, Harper & Row, New York, 1964. Clark, A. c., ProfIles of the Future: An inquiry into the limits of the

possible, Harper & Row, New York, 1973. Gunn, J., Alternate Worlds: An illustrated history of science fiction,

Prentice Hall, New York, 1975. Kahn, H., The Next 200 Years, William Morrow & Company, New

York,1976. Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of ScientifIC Revolutions, University of

Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970. McHale, J., The Future of the Future, George BraziIler, New York,

1969. Mead, M., Culture and Commitment: A study of the generation gap,

Doubleday and Natural History Press, New York, 1970. Meadows, D. H., D. L. Meadows, J. Randers and W. W. Behrens, The

Limits to Growth, Universe Books, New York, 1972. Michael, D. N., On Learning to Plan-And Planning to Learn: The

social psychology of changing toward future-responsive societal learning, J03sey-Bass, San Francisco, 1973.

Polak, F., The Image of the Future, Elsevier, New York, 1973. Roszak, T., Where the Wasteland Ends, Doubleday, New York, 1972. Schumacher, F. S., Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mat-

tered, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1973. Toffier, A., Future Shock, Random House, New York, 1970. Toffier, A., Learning for Tomorrow, Random House, New York, 1974. Toffier, A., The Eco-Spasm Report, Bantam Books, New York, 1975.

James A. Rye, Kathryn Kolasa and Harold Stonehouse

Design, and majoring in a variety of disciplines including nutrition, environmental and elementary education, biology, physical education and geology. The principal goal of the project was to develop effective means of incorporating environmental education into an urban school system, grades K-8. An early interest was shown by East Lansing school teachers and project staff in planning curriculum-integrated, nutrition-related environmental education activities. These activities raised student awareness and concern for environ­mental problems generated by food additives and packaging, energy use in food production, and worldwide malnutrition, including overnutrition and undernutrition. Furthermore, the activities demonstrated the relationship between food produc­tion and utilization, nutrition, and the ohuman internal and external environments.

Questionnaire, Course, and Newsletter Three structured events initiated and enhanced project staff

planning of nutrition/environmental student acivities with teachers. First, 1,075 students in grades 3-8 completed an Environmental Inventory to determine the student's under­standing of the components of the environment. A large percentage of students did not consider several food and nutrition-related elements, such as hot dogs, non-returnable bottles and garbage, as a part of the environment. The results of the questionnaire verified the need to teach students how these elements are present in and have impact on their environment.

Second, several school teachers completed a graduate-level environmental science course where they learned teaching methods useful in integrating environmental activities with existing disciplines, such as science, math and social studies. Third, all teachers in the school system were appraised of the project staffs planning functions via a newsletter with a response form . Thirty teachers completed the form indicating interest in planning environmental education activities. All responses were followed up by the project staff, and 12 resulted in study activities that were nutrition oriented .

Elementary school. Environmental activities were planned with the project staff and teachers and integrated with existing science and art disciplines so students in grades K-3 could grasp the concept: environment is wherever you are . The development of this concept led to follow-up activities with students exploring different environments. The farm environ­ment was selected as an excellent location for exploring in unison the food chains and the students' position in that chain. For example, the cow was studied as an environmental system. Students found that they could substitute any object for the cow, including the human being, and analyze inputs and outputs into that object, e.g., calories and nutrients eaten and produced. Food sources representing inputs and outputs for various systems were used in the construction of a food­groups chart. In addition , students studied the geography of regions where food sources originated . As a follow-up on field trips to the MSU dairy, students investigated the use of animal outputs or products in making new products with altered nutrient values. Related classroom activities such as ice cream and cheese making followed the field trips.

At the 4th grade level, students learned to determine the calorie value of food separately and in combination through playing a game , developed by the project staff and called "Calorie Detective." Environmental problems generated from overnutrition and undernutrition became a topic of discussion.

Middle school. A teacher of a 7th grade coeducational home economics class requested an environmental activity in which students could apply previously acquired knowledge about the food groups and general nutrition . Several activities to apply classroom learning in the local community were planned and offered to students for academic credit. Activities included:

I Working with a food cooperative (co-op) and bakery 2 Making and tasting different food products such as

breads that contained foods from all four food groups 3 Shopping and comparing co-op food items and super­

market foods 4 Constructing vegetarian diets with food stocked at the

co-op . Nutrition and career education meshed with many disciplines here. For example, shopping comparisons involved mathe­matics, inflation and general economic concepts. Students

Environmental education is the educational process dealing with man's relationship

with his natural and manmade surrounding and including the relation of population,

pollution, resource allocation and depletion, conservation, transportation, technology and urban and rural planning to the total

environment.

Environmental Education Guidelines Committee

working and shopping at the co-op interacted with local populations and learned cooperative theory .

An 8th grade science teacher planned visits to the MSU animal nutrition laboratories and discussed with students how food influences an animal in his environment. Additionally, students and teacher conducted modifications of simple animal experiments abstracted from journals and related findings to the human popUlation (See Suggested Readings: Jakebezak, Levitsky and Simonson.) .

Environmental Activities Booklet All environmental activities planned with teachers have

been published in a booklet: Environmental Conservation Program Design - 1976. The booklet has been provided to those participating teachers to assist them and others in inte­grating future environmental and nutrition activity into their curriculum. Additionally, several of those activities that were nutrition oriented were adopted in a second school district during Spring 1975. A curriculum-integrated interdisciplinary guide for nutrition activities was constructed. Teachers requested university students and nutrition education materials to assist them in program continuation for the 1975-76 school year. 0

Notes A sample format of the curriculum-integrated interdisciplinary

guide is available from James Rye. The booklet Environmental Conservation Program Design -1976

may be obtained from Agriculture and Natural Resources Education Institute, 412 Agriculture Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, price $2.00.

Suggested Readings George, R. W., Environmental Conservation Program Design-1976,

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich., 1976. Parents Nursery Schools, Kids Are Natural Cooks, Houghton Mifflin

Co., Boston, 1974. Jakebezak, L. F., Effects of age and activity restriction on body weight

loss of rats , Am. J. Physiol., 216:1081,1%9. Levitsky, D. A., Feeding patterns of rats in response to fasts and

changes in environmental conditions, Physiol. Behavior, 4:79, 1969. Simonson, M. and B.F. Chow, Maze studies on progeny of underfed

mother rats, J. Nutr., 100:685, 1970.

April-June 1977 Vol. 9 No.2 Journal of Nutrition Education 75