A guest post by Dr Paul Ganderton
Just over 50 years ago, one of the most innovative and remarkable syllabuses in modern English education came into being. Its story, how it started, flowered, and then died have lessons for us all today.
There seems to be two points commonly made about teaching environmental/ecological concepts to school students: it’s mostly absent in syllabuses and it hasn’t been done. The former is certainly backed by evidence, but the latter is largely untrue. This story, and what we can learn about it, are the focus here. The great push comes from a determined and unlikely source, but let’s go back a bit.
English education has had an interest in “nature studies” from the earliest times of educational technology. The BBC Natural History Unit was producing radio programmes from the late 1950s onwards. However, this was mostly aimed at primary schools. We would have to wait for the 1960s to see further progress. At this time, curriculum innovation was being strongly supported which led to numerous initiatives of which one was a semi-academic/practical approach to Rural and Environmental Studies ‘O’ level run through the University of London’s Schools Examination Board (ULSEB). An early proponent of this subject, Sean McB Carson (a Hertfordshire local education officer), saw the need for a more academic, higher-level qualification. This turned into a committee which eventually produced the first A level (again to be taken up by ULSEB) called, not un-naturally, the Hertfordshire Syllabus (compare/contrast this with a current version!). From 1972 to 1992, this became, and remains, one of the most innovative syllabuses in secondary science. It’s worth noting that McB Carson went on to refine his ideas in another influential book, Environmental Education.
What was so novel about this syllabus? Looking back, I think it was the confluence of a number of factors:
- Sociological – McB Carson as a driving force, ULSEB as a supporter, an innovative Ecologist as Chief Examiner (Dr PD Coker). There was also significant student interest in the senior secondary years;
- Geopolitical – the general move towards environmental awareness and concern characterised (earlier) by Silent Spring and later by the Stockholm Conference in 1972;
- Educational – a syllabus unlike others that demanded deep knowledge that was integrated into a systems-thinking approach with an exam system that demanded you demonstrate it!
How did it work? There were a few minor changes over the years but this gives an accurate overview:
- Topics:
- Natural environment and limits of the resource base: solar systems and the transport of energy; atmosphere; hydrosphere; lithosphere; biogeochemistry;
- Ecosystems: climatic and soil factors; population and community ecology; population control
- Man-Environment Interactions: Human requirements for life, developmental ecology, societal development, domestication of plants and animals, environmental pressures from industrial revolution onwards;
- Field Study – environmental conflicts and pressures;
- Pedagogy – One of the most daunting (and wonderful) aspects was that there was no set textbook! Students (and staff) really had to know about a wide range of topics from the workings of the solar system to fundamental ecology, to planning law and all topics in between! Standard books of the time include Odum’s Fundamentals of Ecology, Ehrlich’s Population, Resources, Environment but there were many others often just covering a particular part (Cullingworth’s early Town and Country Planning was invaluable). The fundamental aim was to make sure that students had a sound background knowledge, both theoretical and applied, that would allow them to analyse a question from any perspective;
- Assessment – Leaving aside the internal assessment, the external exam comprised 3 aspects – fieldwork to be assessed internally and sent off for adjudication, paper 1 – 3 hours on basics of the entire syllabus and paper 2 which has two essays requiring integration from all of the syllabus and a planning question. This last, innovative exam gave students an Ordnance Survey map and a planning issue to solve e.g. site a new town. It demanded a knowledge of planning law and practice. Ironically, our local authority planning department gave their planners the task and all failed!
So much for the technical side. What of the impact it had? As an educator and student, it demanded (and the exams tested) both core knowledge and its application. It was taught in the novel ideas of systems thinking and connectedness. Students were (in my college at least) fiercely proud of the subject and considered themselves environmentalists. Many went on to take degrees in ecology, environment, and related topics. Some became planners, others academics. We have some who have risen to prominence in the global conservation community, an international prize-winning photographer as well as those who went on to others field of endeavour. As a subject it rose in importance as a result of Stockholm in 1972 and was, alongside companion ‘O’ level seen as a vital subject to study. Sadly, the following years of warfare, oil price shocks (the first but not the last) and the rise of Thatcher meant that the subject was stumbling just as it started to take off (environmentalism, then as now, didn’t trump oil and commerce – or Thatcher’s dislike!). It’s interesting to speculate where it might have been were that not the case. Personally, I taught the course for almost all of its years and was a ULSEB subject panel member, question writer, examiner and part of the team developing interest in the course. I was also, sadly, the last person standing as exam board politics saw it dispatched in favour of topics with more political support.
If you’ve read this far, thanks! What message would I like you to take away from this? That it existed, that it demonstrated that you could have a meaningful and very rigorous subject and exam that could allow students to debate with knowledge and care for the planet. It opened up students’ eyes to the possibilities of doing things differently. Perhaps if this subject had developed as it should, we wouldn’t be needing school strikes today, 50 years after the subject started to debate the same thing I taught in 1975!