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Conservation Education

Into the Field: Naturalistic Education and the Future of Conservation MARK A. HAYES School of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 80639, U.S.A., email [email protected]

Abstract: Some educational psychologists and researchers have argued that there are multiple ways of being intelligent. In the early 1980s, Howard Gardner presented a theory of multiple intelligences by proposing that humans can be described not by a single kind of intelligence, or intelligence quotient score, but rather by a variety of kinds of intelligence. This idea of considering multiple views of intelligence has helped educators look at intelligence from a less rigid, more expansive perspective. I considered how the relatively new concept of naturalistic intelligence, which is the cognitive potential to process information that is exhibited by expert naturalists, might influence the design of undergraduate biology curricula. Naturalistic intelligence can be fostered in undergraduate biology students by emphasizing the need for well-rounded scientific naturalists; developing curricula that involves students in outdoor inquiry-based projects; and helping students learn how to observe both the natural world and their own learning, skills that are essential to developing expert naturalistic knowledge. Professors, graduate students, and administrators can improve the naturalistic intelligence of undergraduate biology students by giving these students opportunities to be involved in outdoor research. Time spent outdoors alone and among people with expertise in natural history, ecology, and conservation biology will have important influences on the knowledge and skills biology undergraduates learn, the careers they pursue, and the contributions they make to conserving Earth’s biodiversity.

Keywords: content knowledge, curricula, naturalistic education, naturalistic intelligence, outdoor education, skills, undergraduate Hacia el Campo: Educaci´ on Naturalista y el Futuro de la Conservaci´ on

Resumen: Algunos psicólogos e investigadores de la educación han argumentado que hay múltiples maneras para ser inteligente. En la década de 1980, Howard Gardner present´ o una teor´ıa de inteligencias m´ ultiples al proponer que los humanos pueden ser descritos no solo por un tipo de inteligencia, o valor de coeficiente de inteligencia, sino por una variedad de tipos de inteligencia. Esta idea de considerar m´ ultiples inteligencias ha ayudado a que los educadores vean la inteligencia desde una perspectiva menos r´ıgida, m´ as amplia. Consideré c´ omo el concepto relativamente nuevo de inteligencia naturalista, que es el potencial cognoscitivo para procesar informaci´ on que es exhibida por naturalistas expertos, puede influir en el dise˜ no de planes de estudio de licenciatura. La inteligencia naturalista puede ser fomentada en estudiantes de licenciatura en biolog´ıa enfatizando la necesidad de naturalistas cient´ıficos bien formados; desarrollando planes de estudios que involucren a los estudiantes en proyectos al aire libre basados en métodos emp´ıricos; y ayudando a que los estudiantes aprendan a observar tanto al mundo natural como su propio aprendizaje, habilidades que son esenciales para desarrollar conocimiento naturalista experto. Los profesores, estudiantes de posgrado y administradores pueden mejorar la inteligencia naturalista de los estudiantes de licenciatura en biolog´ıa proporcion´ andoles oportunidades para involucrarse en proyectos de investigaci´ on. El tiempo en el campo, solo o entre gente con experticia en historia natural, ecolog´ıa y biolog´ıa de la conservaci´ on, tendr´ a influencia importante en el conocimiento y habilidades que aprenden los estudiantes de licenciatura, las carreras que pretenden realizar y las contribuciones que hacen a la conservaci´ on de la biodiversidad de la Tierra.

Paper submitted July 20, 2008; revised manuscript accepted February 6, 2009.

1075 Conservation Biology, Volume 23, No. 5, 1075–1079 C 2009 Society for Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01302.x

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Naturalistic Education and Conservation

Palabras Clave: conocimiento pedagógico del contenido, educación al aire libre, educación naturalista, estudiante de licenciatura, habilidades, inteligencia naturalista, planes de estudios

Introduction Humans have been learning about the natural world and teaching each other what they learn for many thousands of years. The depictions of horses, lions, rhinoceroses, and other animals at Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave in France are thought to be roughly 30,000 years old. These and other depictions of flora and fauna in Paleolithic artwork indicate an intimate knowledge of the natural world. The human cognitive ability to learn about the natural world and apply what is learned has been a key factor in human dominance as a species. But until recently, the cognitive ability to perceive and learn about the natural world has not been considered explicitly when evaluating human intelligence. On the contrary, the standard-bearer for many intelligence tests has been the Stanford–Binet “intelligence quotient” test, which measures some of the following attributes: English language comprehension, vocabulary, knowledge of common items, memory, and mathematical reasoning. In the early 1980s, Howard Gardner (1983) presented his theory of multiple intelligences by proposing that human intelligence could be described, not by a single kind of intelligence or IQ score, but rather by a variety of kinds of intelligence. Gardner initially proposed a set of seven intelligences: musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logicalmathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences. Gardner (1999: 33–34) defines intelligence as “a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value to a culture. . .” His intelligences “are not things that can be seen or counted. Instead, they are potentialities— presumably, neural ones—that will or will not be activated, depending upon the values of a particular culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decisions made by individuals and/or their families, schoolteachers, and others.” Gardner later proposed three other intelligences: spiritual intelligence, existential intelligence, and naturalistic intelligence and defines naturalistic intelligence as the potential to process information that is exhibited by naturalists. Gardner (1999:49) believes “the naturalist’s intelligence [is] as firmly entrenched as the other intelligences” and that “[t]here are. . .core capacities to recognize instances as members of a group (more formally, a species); to distinguish among members of a species; to recognize the existence of other, neighboring species; and to chart the relations. . . among. . . species.”

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When considering historical and contemporary figures who have exhibited naturalistic intelligence as defined by Gardner, many names come to mind, including Carolus Linnaeus and Charles Darwin. Henry David Thoreau would also be on my list (e.g., see his unfinished and recently published “wild fruits” manuscript; Thoreau 2000). Jane Goodall is a contemporary example of a person with naturalistic intelligence. George Schaller personifies and has spoken eloquently about the attributes of the naturalist and field biologist. John Muir wrote passionately and well about nature. In 1869, just 10 days after setting out on his first trip into the Sierra Mountains of California (U.S.A.), Muir (1911:52–53) wrote in his journal:

Most of the ferns are in their prime—rock ferns on the sunny hillsides, cheilanthes, pellæa, gymnogramme; woodwardia, aspidium, woodsia along the stream banks, and the common Pteris aquilina on sandy flats. The last, however common, is here making shows of strong, exuberant, abounding beauty. . .. I measured some scarce full grown that are more than seven feet high. . .The broadshouldered fronds held high on smooth stout stalks growing close together, overleaning and overlapping, make a complete ceiling, beneath which one may walk erect over several acres without being seen, as if beneath a roof.

It is interesting to contemplate who would be considered to have high naturalistic intelligence in other cultures and who have lived on the landscape before us. The Southern Arapahoe, for example, spent winters in the Boulder Valley and Left Hand Canyon in Colorado, (U.S.A.). The name Left Hand is from a prominent Arapahoe Chief. I grew up in a subdivision in Boulder, Colorado, named Arapahoe Ridge and had formative nature experiences in the same geographic area as an Arapahoe boy would have in the early 1800s. But my naturalistic intelligence developed in significantly different ways than they would have for a Southern Arapahoe. The Arapahoe ate cattail roots and used porcupine quills for sewing, willow branches for bedding, and dried chokecherries, squawberries, and currants for winter food (Coel 1981). At the age of 14 years, I had never even considered, or been exposed to the idea, that such naturally occurring botanicals within a short walk of our home could be used in these ways. My brother and I spent seemingly endless time outdoors, wading through the nearby creek hunting crawdads, climbing the old cottonwood tree on the bank, and watching for dragonflies. But the naturalistic

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intelligence of my brother and I would surely have been considered poor by the Arapahoe. In recent years there have been significant developments in what is known about how people learn, and Gardner’s ideas about multiple intelligences have influenced theories of how the human mind works and how learning occurs. In particular, the theory of multiple intelligences has had a significant impact on the field of education and has begun to influence the development of secondary and tertiary curricula. U.S. National Research Council (2000a:82) states: “Understanding that there are multiple intelligences . . . may suggest ways of helping children learn by supporting their strengths and working with their weaknesses.” Beard and Wilson (2006) incorporated Gardner’s ideas about multiple intelligences in their handbook on experiential learning and provide phrases to stimulate thinking about naturalistic intelligence, such as “naturalist experiential work: . . . alone in wilderness/natural landscapes, studying natural plants and animals, identifying species, . . . real environmental projects for learning, . . .walking barefoot in the snow” (p. 220). Wilson (2006) encourages the development of naturalistic intelligence in young students and has written a chapter in a recent book titled “How to Raise a Naturalist” in which he suggests ways to stimulate naturalistic intelligence in children. Louv’s 2005 book, Last Child in The Woods: Saving Our Children From NatureDeficit Disorder is having an important impact on our views about the role of outdoor play and exploration on the cognitive and personal development of children. As someone interested in conservation biology and biological education, I have been curious about how Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences might influence how biology curricula are designed. Specifically, I have wondered how an understanding of multiple intelligences might be used to foster knowledge of natural history and related skills in undergraduate biology students with interests in conservation. This is not just a point of curiosity; there has been a call of late for ways to help undergraduate biology students become well-rounded naturalists. For example, in 1994 the evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma gave the presidential address to the American Society of Naturalists. Futuyma argued that “scientific naturalists” are needed in all fields of organismal and conservation biology (Futuyma 1998:2). In his address, Futuyma said:

I think of a scientific naturalist as a person with a deep and broad familiarity with one or more of the groups of organisms or ecological communities, who can draw on her knowledge of systematics, distribution, life histories, behavior, and perhaps physiology and morphology to inspire ideas, to evaluate hypotheses, to intelligently design research with an awareness of organisms’ special peculiarities.

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Futuyma concluded his remarks by suggesting that it is the ethical responsibility of all evolutionary and ecological biologists to make efforts to conserve the Earth’s biodiversity. But if there are not talented field biologists and naturalists in the field studying organisms in their native ecosystems, one cannot reasonably expect to be successful. Gardner’s ideas about multiple intelligences are helping educators think more holistically and broadly about human cognitive capacities. Gardner’s proposition and definition of naturalistic intelligence as one of the multiple intelligences provides educators, students, and others with a useful framework and vocabulary for discussing the content knowledge, cognitive skills, and process skills that exemplify well-rounded naturalists and field biologists. Gardner (1999) clearly states that intelligence can be seen as a potential—not as something that is fixed—and this potential is either stimulated or diminished by the cultural, environmental, and social setting a person experiences. With this framework in mind, what can educators do to help biology students improve their naturalistic intelligence? Fostering Naturalistic Intelligence in Biology Students Perhaps one of the best things educators can do is articulate to students the need for well-rounded scientific naturalists. As Futuma (1998:5) suggests, “. . . conservation efforts absolutely require individuals who really know plants (or birds or mollusks and so forth)—their taxonomy, habitat requirements, biogeography, patterns of endemism.” Students can be introduced to biologists, especially in the student’s geographic region, that are also well-rounded naturalists who can serve as role models. Reading the works of naturalists and field biologists can provide students with in-depth accounts of what it is like to be a naturalist and ask meaningful biological questions. Students should also be exposed to the philosophical underpinnings of science as a way of knowing about the world and discussing what it means to be a scientific naturalist. Students should also learn how to write and keep field notes. Where appropriate, keeping field notes should be incorporated into the work required of students. For example, in an undergraduate ecology course taught by Rick Adams at the University of Northern Colorado, students are required to keep a field journal throughout the semester and must make at least 10 entries, handing entries in weekly. Students are provided with a rubric that details how the field notes will be assessed. Toward the beginning of the course, the class makes a full-day field trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, where students gain experience making field observations and writing field notes under the guidance of the professor and a teaching assistant. Students are then encouraged to visit nearby nature areas, make field observations on their


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own, think about the content knowledge and process skills they are learning in the classroom, and contemplate how this material relates to what they are observing outdoors. Students are also encouraged to reflect on and write about concepts with which they may be struggling. This helps students develop metacognitive skills that are essential in developing expert knowledge. The student’s weekly field note submissions also provide the instructors with ongoing opportunities to informally assess how the students are progressing. Another way to foster naturalistic intelligence and metacognitive skills is to ask students to write conservation autobiographies. Jurin and Hutchinson (2005) used “ecological autobiographies” to help students in an American environmental history class explore the genesis and development of their own ecological worldview. As a final project for the course, students wrote a paper detailing their worldview and placed it in the context of ecological worldviews studied earlier in the semester. Similar, but shorter conservation autobiographies, in which students are encouraged to integrate ideas about their own naturalistic intelligence, including the people and experiences that have been significant influences, could be incorporated into undergraduate biology classes. Such an assignment would fit well in a unit exploring conservation ethics and values. Inquiry-based instructional and learning methods can be used to foster naturalistic intelligence. There is an increasing body of research that supports this approach to teaching (U.S. National Research Council 2000b). Students use what they already know to develop new knowledge (Vygotsky 1978), and the social and environmental situation in which learning takes place is important (U.S. National Research Council 2000a; Bronfenbrenner 2004). Students also learn best when they take control of their own learning (U.S. National Research Council 2000a). Feinsinger et al. (1997) provide an introduction to inquiry-based learning targeted toward primary and secondary learners and adults in real-world settings. These authors provide a model for using inquiry in ecological education. The U.S.’s National Research Council (2000b) also provides an inquiry-based instructional model for secondary science students that could be extended for use in undergraduate biology courses. The Biological Sciences Curriculum Study has developed respected inquiry-based curricula for undergraduate biology students (BSCS 2006). These inquiry models, for example, could be used to guide development of a semesterlong conservation inquiry project whereby students, by themselves or in groups, design and carry out their own conservation field-research projects. It is useful to incorporate ideas about multicultural science education into our attempts to foster naturalistic intelligence in biology students. The book Multicultural Science Education: Theory, Practice, and Promise (Hines 2003) provides an introduction to the topic. By


tapping into “native” knowledge of natural history and worldviews, an instructor could make connections between past and present, school and home, and classroom and society that are bound to make the topic at hand more interesting and pertinent. Finally, Carl Wieman, the Nobel prize-winning physicist and educator, has challenged science educators to use the scientific method to improve undergraduate education. In a recent paper Wieman (2007) describes steps educators can take to use the scientific method to improve the presentation of material and assessment of scientific content knowledge and process skills.

Personal Reflections There are tendencies in academia to pigeon-hole intelligences into mutually exclusive categories: one person may have verbal intelligence, whereas another may have quantitative intelligence. Someone else may have welldeveloped naturalistic content knowledge and skills combined with a strong interest in conservation, but not score well on a standardized test. As a result doors to academic and professional advancement may be closed. Howard Gardner’s idea of considering multiple views of intelligence has helped educators look at intelligence from a less rigid, more expansive perspective. The challenge for educators is to try to look for individual talent and enthusiasm and strive to identify what will nurture these qualities and at the same time not place a student in one intellectual category while disregarding their potential in other areas of cognitive development. At undergraduate and graduate academic institutions, it is tempting to classify cognitive capacity into a small number of categories so the job of identifying who has talent is easier and less time-consuming. A pervasive example of such compartmentalization in the United States is the selection of graduate students based largely on their performance on Graduate Record Examination verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing scores. Drawing such rigid boundaries is at once helpful from an administrative perspective and at the same time restricting from the perspective of the student’s potential intellectual development and the development of future naturalists. What may be needed in conservation biology is a more dynamic problem-solving ability, what might be called “fluid ability.” Can the person take a problem and solve it? Can a student take what is learned during academic course work and extrapolate to new situations outside the university? Can a person work with various groups from diverse backgrounds and cultures to make progress on issues that are important to their society and culture? But how should these qualities be measured and assessed? This certainly presents a challenge to those who attempt to assess naturalistic intelligence and related cognitive abilities and process skills.

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To foster naturalistic content knowledge and process skills interested students need to get into the field and come to understand that conservation biology is as much a way of being as it is an academic pursuit. Do they like being outside hiking, camping, cycling, skiing, observing nature? Do they enjoy the quiet conversations while fishing or sitting in a camp chair waiting for bats or birds or fireflies to emerge? Undergraduate students that participate in field work with professional biologists, professors, and graduate students will take pride in the work they are doing, and this will generate enthusiasm for the field of conservation biology. Students who spend time involved in conservation research will gain confidence in their abilities and will develop specialized expertise. How many undergraduate students have the opportunity to spend a week or a month in the field with instructors and biologists of like minds who they admire and respect? Mentors who bring undergraduates into the field will be giving their students a glimpse of a professional life that is available to them. These educators will be providing their students with a naturalistic education and in so doing will be developing the future of conservation. The paintings of flora and fauna in Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave and other Paleolithic sites remind us that naturalistic knowledge can take many forms and a naturalistic education is also a social education; naturalistic knowledge, when shared, is likely to increase the knowledge that others possess. An undergraduate biology curriculum that keeps students in the classroom, lab, and in front of computers and does not get them outside for significant periods of time is unlikely to foster naturalistic intelligence. Times spent outdoors alone and among people with expertise in natural history will have important influences on the content knowledge and process skills biology undergraduates learn, the careers they pursue, and ultimately the contributions they make to the conservation of Earth’s biodiversity.

Acknowledgments This work was funded by the School of Biological Sciences at University of Northern Colorado and by a

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U.S. Department of Education GAANN Fellowship. I appreciate the thoughtful comments of C. Brewer, L. Jones, L. Bonewell, and R. Adams and am particularly indebted to G. Hayes for numerous discussions that helped shape some of the key thoughts expressed in this paper. Literature Cited Beard, C., and J. P. Wilson. 2006. Experiential learning: a best practices handbook for educators and trainers. 2nd edition. Kogan Page, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. BSCS (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study). 2006. Why does inquiry matter? Because that’s what science is all about! Kendall/Hunt, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bronfenbrenner, U. 2004. Making humans beings human: bioecological perspectives on human development. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California. Coel, M. 1981. Chief Left Hand. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Feinsinger, P., L. Margutti, and R. D. Oviedo. 1997. School yards and nature trails: ecology education outside the university. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 12:115–120. Futuyma, D. J. 1998. Wherefore and whither the naturalist? The American Naturalist 151:1–6. Gardner, H. 1983. Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences. Basic Books, New York. Gardner, H. 1999. Intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences for the 21st century. Basic Books, New York. Hines, S. M., editor. 2003. Multicultural science education: theory, practice, and promise. Peter Lang, New York. Jurin, R. R., and S. Hutchinson. 2005. Worldviews in transition: using ecological autobiographies to explore students’ worldviews. Environmental Education Research 11:485–501. Louv, R. 2005. Last child in the woods: saving our children from naturedeficit disorder. Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Muir, J. 1911. My first summer in the Sierra. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Thoreau, H. D. 2000. Wild fruits: Thoreau’s rediscovered last manuscript. W. W. Norton, New York. U.S. National Research Council. 2000a. How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. Expanded edition. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. U.S. National Research Council. 2000b. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: a guide for teaching and learning. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. Vygotsky, L. 1978. Mind in society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wieman, C. 2007. Why not try a scientific approach to scientific education? Change September/October:9–15. Wilson, E. O. 2006. The creation: an appeal to save life on Earth. W. W. Norton, New York.
