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Cary
Conference VIII Convened: April 27 - 29, 1999 Institute of Ecosystem Studies Millbrook, NY |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Marc Breslav |
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CITIES ARE ECOSYSTEMS!:
EDUCATORS, SCIENTISTS JOIN IN NEW TREND TO STUDY URBAN AREASEmbarked on a major new trend, educators and scientists are joining forces to build a more comprehensive, interdisciplinary understanding of cities as ecological systems.
With 79% of the American population now living in metropolitan areas according to the most recent U.S. Population Estimate, urban sprawl making headlines as it races ever outward, and environmental justice at the fore of many environmentalists' agendas, some might say it is not a moment too soon.
Previously, ecologists favored study sites as untouched by human influence as possible--the more remote the better. And when urban educators taught ecology and had the opportunity, they would bring their students outside of the cities to find "nature."
Now, both groups are beginning to realize that cities are a part of nature--that cities, like rainforests or coral reefs, are ecosystems.
Further, rather than seeing humans solely as the dominant organism in those ecosystems and a subject of their study, some ecologists are now welcoming people as participants in research. They are also embarked in unprecedented multi-disciplinary cooperation with social scientists and educators. Educators are seizing or themselves creating opportunities for participatory, project-based and service learning. They are excited by the potential variety of learning experiences, and the real-life relevance of learning based in urban students' own neighborhoods. Some educators believe that urban ecosystem education is a potential model for education reform, bringing interdisciplinary learning, standards of excellence and equity of quality to otherwise lagging city schools.
Such was the crux of the discussions at the eighth Cary Conference, held late in April, 1999, at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (IES) in Millbrook, NY.
The conference is thought to be the first to bring together worldwide leaders in the biological, physical and social dimensions of the nascent field of urban ecosystem research with top education researchers, administrators and teachers. Those in attendance included key representatives from the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, National Research Council, National Science Foundation, NASA, UNESCO, U. S. Department of Education and U. S. Forest Service. Also included were leading teachers and administrators from Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, among other places.
IES' Cary Conferences, begun in 1985, are among the most prestigious international environmental meetings. Dr. Diana Wall, incoming President of the Ecological Society of America and Director of the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory of Colorado State University, said: "The Cary Conferences have been extremely important in focusing science on new, emerging areas in ecology, bringing together notable scientists in a process of assessment and synthesis that is unique among conferences."
But the IES conference is only one example of the new trend in urban ecosystem research and education: The National Science Foundation (NSF), a leading federal agency funding environmental research, recently added the first two urban programs--Baltimore and Phoenix--to its existing list of 18 under its Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) effort. Begun in 1980 with six sites, the LTER effort represents an extraordinary commitment to the focused study of ecological change over time. The initial grants for each of the two cities are for more than $4 million over six years, but NSF's commitment to such projects is longterm. Many scientists believe that to discover and understand the changes in our environment we must study ecosystems for long time periods.
IES administers the new LTER in Baltimore, which involves the collaboration of over two dozen organizations and agencies from Baltimore and elsewhere. IES Director Dr. Gene E. Likens was a founder of an early LTER program at Hubbard Brook in New Hampshire's White Mountains, among the places where the idea of long-term ecosystem research was pioneered.
Today, Hubbard Brook is the longest continually operating comprehensive ecosystem study in the nation, a project begun in 1963. The two urban LTERs involve new, interdisciplinary collaborations between natural and social scientists and others, drawing as much on sociologists, geographers, economists and educators as on ecologists. Both projects seek public help in monitoring and interpreting the environment. For example, in Baltimore, teens will plot the location, identity and size of trees onto computer maps of city neighborhoods, helping scientists to better interpret satellite images of the city. This in turn will help a local community organization focus its efforts to protect the whole urban forest and thereby enhance neighborhoods.
Other examples support the idea that urban ecosystem research and education is a new trend:
- Urban Ecosystems, a new scientific journal, began publication less than two years ago.
- In 1998, urban environmental education was the theme of the North American Association for Environmental Education annual conference.
- Internationally, there is a new focus on ecology, social science and participatory research in the sustainable cities efforts of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, and in government-funded efforts from Germany and Great Britain to South Africa.
- The Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fund has funded over $25 million in multi-year initiatives since 1994 to support the expansion of urban parks and greenways in twelve cities , particularly in under-served neighborhoods.
- Environmental justice tops the agenda among many environmentalists today. Environmental justice advocates are concerned with disproportionate exposure of minority and low-income communities--often in urban areas--to environmental hazards. President Clinton signed an Executive Order in 1994 requiring federal agencies to focus attention on environmental justice issues.
- The President's executive order helped spur the development of the Urban Resources Partnership (URP), a cooperative program between six disparate federal natural resources agencies to bring their expertise to bear on environmental problems in a group that has increased to 13 cities.
- The federal Institute of Medicine has just published research, education and health policy recommendations toward environmental justice, encouraging citizen involvement at every step.
Such a model was presented by IES conference participant Randall E. Raymond of Detroit Public Schools. He directs several environmental education efforts using cutting-edge satellite- and computer-based technologies and involving inner city youngsters in multiple collaborations with agencies and organizations. Earlier this spring, Raymond and his students mapped data on over 5000 students who had elevated blood levels of lead--what an ecologist would see as one step in describing the cycling of a heavy metal in an ecosystem. Raymond said his students found what may be a troubling correlation among neighborhoods with high poverty, incidence of poisoning and concentration of special education students. Given the finding, officials at Detroit Public Schools are now wrestling with how to increase lead screening to understand the connections between their students and their local urban ecosystem.
Scientists and educators at the IES conference saw the trend toward urban ecosystem research and education as an essential harbinger for a more comprehensive public understanding of cities and the web of interrelationships within and between cities and other ecosystems. Interdisciplinary "systems thinking" by scientists and citizens alike, they say, will be necessary in the coming century for life on this planet to be sustainable.
A book growing from the IES conference is planned for publication next spring. To be notified about its publication or other products that may result from the conference, e-mail berkowitza@ecostudies.org or call Dr. Alan Berkowitz at (845) 677-5358.
Further immediate information is available at http://www.ecostudies.org/caryconference8.html
June, 1999