Cary Conference VIII Convened: April 27 - 29, 1999 Institute of Ecosystem Studies Millbrook, NY
Cary Conference VIII Sessions Each session in Cary Conference VIII addresses one of the goals of the Conference and a series of related questions. The sessions include plenary talks and discussions, more informal poster paper forums, and discussion group meetings. One of the Conference Conveners will facilitate the preparation and coordination of each session, and also will take the lead in preparing the corresponding section in the Conference book. Overview of Conference Sessions: Session I Session II Current Fronties Forum - Urban Ecosystem Research Session III Current Frontiers Forum - Urban Ecosystem Education Practice Session IV Link to Authors and Titles

Session I. The Importance of Understanding Urban Ecosystems

• Goal: Establish the importance of urban ecosystem education and the need to foster among all people an understanding of cities as ecosystems.
  

• Key questions:
  
1. Why is it important for all people to understand cities as ecosystems?
   
2. How can people use an understanding of urban ecosystems?
   
3. What practical improvements can we expect if such understandings are developed broadly?

• Plenary papers and authors:
  
  • What is the current level of public understanding of urban ecosystems?
    Francis P. Pandolfi, National Environmental Education and Training Foundation
    
  • Why is understanding urban ecosystems important to people concerned about environmental justice?
    Bunyan Bryant and John Callewaert, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan
    
  • The role of understanding urban ecosystems in community development.
    Jack K. Shu, Office of Community Involvement, California State Parks
    
  • How can teaching about urban ecosystems be a vehicle for education reform?
    Celestine H. Pea, Education Reform Division, National Science Foundation
    
  • How can increased public understanding help urban planning?
    Anne Whiston Spirn, Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania
    
  • Why is public understanding of urban ecosystems important to science and scientists?
    Steward T.A. Pickett, Institute of Ecosystem Studies

These papers serve several purposes. First, they set a baseline for where we're starting, establishing common ground and motivation among the very diverse group of Conference participants and readers of the Conference book. Second, they develop a cogent set of arguments that could be used by academics or practitioners as rationale and guidance for their work in urban ecosystem education. Finally, knowing "why" understanding is important for different people helps inform our thinking about "what" people need to know and "how" they can acquire this knowledge. The diverse perspectives and backgrounds represented in this session set an important foundation for the Conference and the book.

• Synthesis Discussion Group topics:
  
  • From your personal perspective, what new ideas and insights have the initial session triggered about the importance of fostering an understanding of cities as ecosystems?
    
  • How can we use these ideas and insights to promote understanding of urban ecosystems?

• Convener: Alan R. Berkowitz, Institute of Ecosystem Studies

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Session II. Conceptual Foundations and Intellectual Frontiers in the Natural and Social Sciences

• Goal: Develop the conceptual foundations and explore the intellectual frontiers of urban ecosystem understanding.
  

• Key questions:
  
1. What do we mean by understanding cities as ecosystems?
   
2. What are the most important big ideas or conceptual frameworks people need in order to understand urban ecosystems?
   
3. How do we know these are important?

• Plenary papers and authors:
  
  • Natural ecosystems in cities - a model for cities as ecosystems.
    Anthony D. Bradshaw, School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool
    
  • Education, social ecology, and urban ecosystems, with examples from Baltimore, Maryland.
    J. Morgan Grove, Northeastern Research Station, USDA Forest Service and Karen E. Hinson, Social Studies Department, Western School of Technology and Environmental Science
    
  • An ecosystem approach to understanding cities: Familiar foundations and uncharted frontiers.
    Nancy B. Grimm, Department of Biology, Lawrence J. Baker, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Diane Hope, Department of Biology and Center for Environmental Studies, Arizona State University
    
  • The historical dimension of urban ecology: frameworks and concepts.
    Martin V. Melosi, Department of History, University of Houston

In these papers, natural and social scientists present a synthesis of the big ideas they feel everyone needs to know and current frontiers in developing an understanding of urban ecosystems. We've asked each author to reach beyond her or his own expertise and develop a synthetic view that cuts across disciplines, resulting in overlapping frameworks rather than separate pieces. Authors relate their ideas to the development of the intellectual foundations for urban ecosystem education.

• Current Frontiers Forum posters and authors:
  
  • Abstracting the fundamentals of watershed form and function: Modeling along the urban to rural gradient
    Lawrence E. Band, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina
    
    
  • Human dimensions of urban ecosystems
    Paul H. Gobster, North Central Forest Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service
    
    
  • Models of sustainable development and environmental citizenship
    Carolyn Harrison, Department of Geography, University College London
    
    
  • Animal wildlife in urban ecosystems.
    Maciej Luniak, Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences
    
    
  • Understaing the Urban Eco-Complex Concepts and Practics in China.
    Rusong Wang, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
    
    
  • Urban cultural ecology and anthropology: what they contribute to an understanding of urban ecosystems.
    John B. Wolford, Missouri Historical Society
    

• Synthesis Discussion Group topics:
  
  • What are the most important big ideas or conceptual frameworks people need in order to understand urban ecosystems?
    
  • What gaps exist in matching the ideas from session II with the needs from session I?
    

• Convener: Charles H. Nilon, University of Missouri

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Session III. Foundations of Urban Ecosystem Education from Education Theory and Practice

• Goal: Develop the conceptual foundations and explore the intellectual frontiers of urban ecosystem education.
  

• Key questions:
  
1. How do different ages and types of students acquire the important concepts, skills, attitudes, values and motivations that enable them to build a comprehensive understanding of urban ecosystems and apply those understandings in their lives?
   
2. What evidence do we have regarding how to organize educational systems, and what evidence shows we are achieving our goals?
   

• Plenary papers and authors:
  
  • Psychological and ecological perspectives on the development of systems thinking.
    Kathleen Hogan and Kathleen C. Weathers, Institute of Ecosystem Studies
    
  • Applying research on teaching and learning to improving ecological literacy: Implications of Project 2061 science literacy reform tools.
    Jo Ellen Roseman, Curriculum Director, and Luli Stern, Research Associate, American Association for the Advancement of Science
    
  • Cities for children and children for cities: Learning to know and care about urban ecosystems.
    Louise Chawla, Whitney Young College, Kentucky State University
    
  • Teaching systems thinking: A model from Israel.
    Shoshana Keiny, Moshe Shachak and Noa Avriel-Avni, Ben Gurion University
    
  • Approaches to urban ecosystem education in Chicago: Perspectives and processes from an environmental educator.
    Carol Fialkowski, Field Museum of Natural History
    
  • Development of environmental management systems as a tool for promoting a holistic understanding of urban ecosystems amongst local decision makers and stakeholders in Durban, South Africa.
    Debra C. Roberts, Durban Metropolitan Council, South Africa

These papers develop the conceptual foundations for how teaching and learning about urban ecosystems can take place. Two sets of papers highlight contributions to urban ecosystem education from: 1) cognitive psychology and learning theory, and 2) sociology and anthropology. The first paper in each set (i.e., Hogan and Weathers, and Chawla) will present the big ideas that explain how people develop understandings of complex ecosystems like cities, based on the literature and current research. The following papers give in-depth looks at programs or initiatives that demonstrate how theory is being applied in practice.

• Current Frontiers Forum poster papers and authors:
  
  • Ecosystem management education: teaching and learning principles and applications.
    Henry Campa III, Delia F. Reymer and Christine Hanaburgh, Michigan State University
    
    
  • "Campus ecology" as a means to urban ecological literacy.
    Bruce W. Grant, Departments of Biology and Environmental Science, Widener University
    
    
  • How Project del Rio helps teachers and students develop understandings of the local river/watershed as a system.
    Lisa LaRocque, Project del Rio
    
    
  • Urban Resources Partnership project models for fostering an understanding of urban ecosystems.
    Susan Mockenhaupt, Urban Resources Partnership, USDA Forest Service
    
    
  • Youth-based tree inventory and GIS analysis for urban ecosystem education.
    Joseph Poracsky, Portland State University, James Gillen, Green City Data Program, Saturday Academy/Oregon Graduate Institute, Kim Wilson, Audubon Society of Portland, and Douglas Saulter, Portsmouth Middle School
    
    
  • Urban environmental education in Detroit - connecting the schools and community through the education of students in geographic information systems.
    Randall E. Raymond, Department of Strategic Planning and Resource Analysis, Detroit Public Schools
    
    
  • Understanding the local environments.
    Bora Simmons, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Northern Illinois University
    
    
  • The California Guide for Environmental Literacy: Creating sustainable communities and environmental literacy using systems thinking, hope, and developing a sense of place.
    Gary C. Smith, California Department of Education
    
    
  • The local, urban environment as an integrating context for a school’s curriculum.
    Daniel Strauss, High School for Environmental Studies, New York City

• Synthesis Discussion Group topics:
  
  • What can we learn from education research, theory, and practice about how people learn about, come to value and take action to improve urban ecosystems?
    
  • How can we integrate the perspectives of natural and social scientists with those of educators to build a comprehensive conceptual foundation for urban ecosystem education?
    
  • What next steps are needed to strengthen these foundations, and to build on them in practice through formal and informal education?

• Convener: Karen S. Hollweg, North American Association for Environmental Education

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Session IV. How Can the Promise of Urban Ecosystem Education Be Achieved?

• Goal: Identify needs and make recommendations for integrating urban ecosystem education into formal and informal education systems.
  

• Key questions:
  
1. How can we synthesize perspectives from science and education to work towards broad implementation of effective education programs about cities as ecosystems?
   
2. What challenges and obstacles stand in the way?
   
3. What assets and gaps exist in our intellectual foundations and practical applications?
   

• Plenary papers and authors:
  
  • Out the door and down the street - enhancing children's play and work environments as if adulthood mattered.
    William R. Burch, Jr., Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Jacqueline M. Carrera, Parks and People Foundation
    
  • Integrating urban ecosystem education into educational reform.
    Rodger W. Bybee, Center for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Education, National Research Council
    
  • Urban ecosystem education and school reform: Creating a democracy of excellence in education for the 21^st century
    James Kohlmoos, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education

These papers address how the promise of urban ecosystem education can be achieved. The authors build on science and education theory in describing their visions for the future. While elaborating these visions, we undoubtedly will identify important needs and challenges. Do we need more research on how people learn and develop understandings about complex systems like cities? Do we know how to integrate a theme like urban ecosystems into the K-16 system so that it is not an added on, peripheral topic? How can the next generation of teachers be better prepared to teach ecology in a way that truly embraces urban ecosystems and effectively integrates the relevant disciplines? What must happen for mainstream curricula and textbooks to focus on urban ecosystems?

• Synthesis Discussion Group topics:
  
• How can we synthesize perspectives from natural and social science and education to work toward broad implementation of effective education programs about cities as ecosystems?
  
• What challenges and obstacles stand in the way?
  
• What assets exist and gaps need to be addressed to enhance our intellectual foundations and practical applications?

• Next Step Discussion Group topics:
  
• Action topics will be generated by the participants, but might include: 1) generating an agenda for future research in teaching and learning about urban ecosystems; 2) proposing new funding initiatives; 3) elaborating a vision for partnerships between scientists, educators, community members and teachers; or 4) clarifying specific ideas that were developed during the Conference.
  
• Job-alike groups will be formed as well to discuss concrete actions they could take within their professions, for example: 1) ecological researchers, 2) undergraduate teachers, 3) school system educators, 4) non-formal educators, 5) educational researchers, and 6) education policy makers.
  

• Convener: Alan R. Berkowitz, Institute of Ecosystem Studies

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