BES Education Research Hypotheses
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Question 3. How can people develop and use an understanding of the metropolis as an ecological system to improve the quality of their environment, and to reduce pollution to downstream air and watersheds?
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Hypothesis 3-1
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Ecosystem knowledge and environmental perceptions are asymmetrically distributed in the metropolis, with important functional consequences for individual behavior, and for management and decision making. Low knowledge or awareness may be due to a number of interacting factors:
1) Learning about and understanding complex ecological systems (e.g., the roles of exotics in ecosystems, multiple interacting causes, etc.) is intrinsically difficult.
2) Formal and non-formal education systems and the media pay only limited attention to urban ecosystem concepts or awareness.
3) Urban areas are not perceived as suitable for environmental education, depriving children of opportunities to learn about and explore nature in their neighborhoods.
4) There are significant legacies in the beliefs and values people hold towards the environment and science as well as in others’ perceptions of their beliefs and values.
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Hypothesis 3-2
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When students engage in activities where they actively explore questions, especially their own, and phenomena relevant to their everyday lives and local surroundings, they develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of the city as an ecosystem. Such inquiry-rich activities can also help students develop critical scientific abilities (scientific questioning, analyzing and synthesizing data, using evidence to make scientific arguments, communicating results).
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Hypothesis 3-3
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Formal education institutions and programs play an incomplete and variable role in fostering a useful understanding of the urban ecosystem, but they can play a vital role under the right circumstances. These include: a strong basis in the community focusing on issues of genuine interest and importance; working in collaboration with non-formal, out-of-school programs; and taking a partnership approach involving scientists (researchers), community members and educators, students, and managers and decision makers.
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Hypothesis 3-4
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Scientists play a pivotal but complex role in adoption of innovations within formal and non-formal education initiatives about urban ecosystems.
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Hypothesis 3-5
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The definition of urban environmental issues, who participates in urban environmental decision making, and who benefits from environmental management have changed significantly over the past 100 years.
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Hypothesis 3-6
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An understanding of the ecosystem services that tree canopy cover can provide in urban watersheds, replacing functions lost to hydrologic changes associated with urbanization, will result in improved management and environmental quality of the Baltimore ecosystem.
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