Science, environmental, educational needs

Needs in environmental education derive directly from the dozens of problem areas which need to be addressed and trtiich all share certain charateristics. They are portions of a continuum. Study of a toxics problem may start at any point for example, with the chemical process by which a toxic is first made, or with impact on aquatic ecosystems. But societally useful knowledge means learning about the entire continuum, not just details of a specialized portion. Environmental education directed toward toxic substances must extend beyond a chemical technology and its direct impact to the full range of Impacts and options — what will make them "safe", their internal and external costs, and the way they may fit into the fabric of society — all such knowledge must reach decision-makers. The fact that such problems exist, and that past education has not prepared a generation well to deal with them, leads to the rationale behind UCLA s Environmental Science and Engineering. 

The Table of Contents for this collection will facilitate this discussion. Notice that the papers are grouped into the categories of Atmospheric, Aquatic and Terrestrial Components, Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change, and Global Environmental Science Education. The reader may want to consider the various chemical species studied in each paper. Next, the reader may wish to group the papers by whether they address the source or the receptor, the transport or transformation processes for the chemical species. Finally, the reader needs to establish the time scales and the spatial resolution used. 

The remainder of this paper will address the broader preparation of the environmental professional which fits needs derived from the several environmental legislative mandates, and which by its nature is particularly well suited to the specific needs of TSCA and the environmental chemical professional. The basis for discussion is a graduate level program in the application of environmental science developed over more than a decade at UCLA. Our experience suggests that if TSCA-like concerns are to continue and to be met, educational approaches such as this one will likely assume a growing importance. 

The need for change in science education practices has emerged for me particularly while researching controversy and environmentalism in one community (e.g., Roth Lee, 2002), on the one hand, and while researching in urban schools where approximately 90% of the students are from home conditions of relative poverty (e.g., Roth et al., 2004), on the other. In the first instance, I came to realize that it is not necessary for every citizen to know how to balance a chemical equation. 

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