Matthew Cahn
Department of Political Science
California State University Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA  91330-8254
matthew.cahn@csun.edu
(818) 677-3488
 
 
 
 
 
 

The goal of the eco-literacy project is to facilitate knowledge, understanding, and critical thinking about environmental challenges and enhance access to complex and technical information by K-12 students in urban public schools.  Further, by developing mentoring relationships between university and K-12 students and building partnerships between the university and K-12 campuses,  the project seeks to introduce K-12 students to the university environment and encourage secondary students to work toward a university education.  Finally, the project seeks to improve basic skills among both university and K-12 students through the application of content based programs that pose environmental questions as a starting point, and utilize both quantitative and qualitative assessment tools in analyzing those questions.  Environmental questions provide a superb vehicle for critical thinking as well as for building basic skills.  The environment is at the nexus of traditional academic disciplines, maximizing opportunities for cross-disciplinary curricula.  For example, to understand the issues of air quality in the Los Angeles basin one must confront economic, geographic, political, anthropologic, and biologic questions.   Assessing content and consequences of air borne pollutants requires attention to the life sciences.  Exploring air quality trends requires facility with indexing, quantification, and data analysis.  The Eco-Literacy Project contributes to the teaching and study of science and technology by bringing enduring questions to bear in a manner that is relevant and meaningful to students in urban primary and secondary schools.  Further, by teaching students how to develop quantitative and qualitative frameworks for the understanding and assessment of these questions, the Eco-Literacy Project introduces methodologies that are instrumental for science education throughout one's lifetime. In addition, by developing mentoring relationships between university and K-12 students and building partnerships between the university and K-12 campuses,  the project seeks to introduce K-12 students to the university environment and encourage secondary students to work toward a broadly based university education.  Finally, the project seeks to train students in the use of  new communication technologies to maximize access to resources, texts, and data that are essential for assimilating a constantly and rapidly expanding body of knowledge.