Science underpins our work in environmental education. Environmental issues are about complex, interconnected systems, and science informs all aspects of the field—from how ecological systems work to understanding the long-term implications of climate change.
Transcript:
My name is J. Drew Lanham, and I am an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University.
I think environmental education depends on science at the most basic level of observation and recording your observations. And then science depends on environmental education. It depends on people who are able to transfer those ideas to others so that they are appreciated and the role of sciences' value. So one without the other really kind of falls sort of empty and clattering on this room of disbelievers. Because I can spout empty facts all day from an educator standpoint, and sooner or later, somebody's going to say, "Well, that's not true, or how do you know that's true? Or how do you know that to be the case?" And if I can't back that up with science, well, guess what? I've done a disservice to the people that I'm trying to serve by telling them untruths or half-truths that aren't backed by science.
By the same token, if I'm just doing science and piling up publications, and they're just sitting there, and a few people are reading them that know how to decipher the complex statistics and analyses and all of those things. But I'm just piling up publications for the sake of building my career, then I think that's selfish hubris. And in the end, that also ends up falling on many empty ears and hearts because the science has been done for selfish motives from a conservation or environmental standpoint.
So I think science depends on environmental education and environmental education depends on the other. I think they're inextricably linked.