What should every citizen know about ecology?

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org F than 20% of Americans are sufficiently literate to read a science article in a major newspaper, understand a science-based television program, or comprehend a popular science book (Miller 2002). That leaves about fourfifths of the population insufficiently knowledgeable about issues that may affect their lives. Literacy in certain areas of science – the environment, for example (Glenn 2001; Coyle 2005), or evolution (Miller et al. 2006) – lags substantially behind expectations for an informed citizenry. While data are not abundant, there is evidence that the general public is not well versed in ecology (Magtorn 2005; Stone and Barlow 2005; Puk and Makin 2006). Performance of students on the ecology portions of national science assessments is poor (IES 2006) and in international science assessments, US students perform less well than students from many European and Asian nations (Gonzales et al. 2000). Ecological literacy is necessary for understanding the natural world and human interaction with it (eg Slobodkin 2003; Speth 2004) and for making informed decisions about the conservation and management of resources (Berkowitz et al. 2005). Given the rapid growth and development facing communities, ecological literacy must be part of a citizen’s lifetime learning experience, beginning in the primary grades and continuing through informal adult learning experiences. Indeed, the goals of the Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) Education Section include “to promote and enhance ecology education for students of all ages and for the general public” (ESA 1988). To promote dialogue about ecological literacy, we need some common language, and to measure educational achievement, we need some sort of metric. Here, we therefore pose the question: “What should every citizen know about ecology?” Without expert guidance, formal and informal educators cannot determine which concepts are essential for ecological literacy; thus, there is a need for national reform documents (Rutherford and Ahlgren 1991; AAAS 1993; NRC 1999; Brainard 2007). While ecologists’ voices were heard during the development of general science standards (AAAS 1993; NRC 1999), educators need focused guidance to promote ecological literacy. They also need up-todate information as the body of knowledge changes. If we are to meet the goals of our own professional society, we need to explicitly define ecological literacy and detail its components. The time for this discussion could not be better, because environmental education and citizen science programs are spreading and national educational standards are being revised (Brainard 2007).