Ecological
Literacy
A Foundation for Sustainability

The Visual Communication of Ecological Literacy
Jody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design
Why? Context Levels of Learning & Engagement
Presently humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds its regenerative
capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are 1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability
being run down as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated
the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, into existing system. Learning ABOUT change.
loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
What? Systems, Networks, Values
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions.
Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as
Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.
interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with
Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
complexity and think in terms of systems to address current
ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful
tools to help with this learning process. 3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education
Capacity building and action emphasis.
How? Transformational Learning Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities.
Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
The value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is
obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between
Stephen Sterling, 2009
our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to
address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project
uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This
approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice
based design work.
ECOLOGICAL
Actions
GOOD
DESIGN Ideas / Theories
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perce ption )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-
B: KNOWING (Conception) psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization A critical understanding of pattern, if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent,
that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first consequence and connectivity intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move Donella Meadows, 1982
towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to C: DOING (Action)
the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, The ability to design and act relationally,
so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the integratively and wisely. References
Fritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo. 2003
Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003
ecological sustainable systems of nature. Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Researching Transformational Learning. University of Gloucestershire. 2009
Fritjof Capra, 2003 Stephen Sterling, 2009
j.j.boehnert@brighton.ac.uk | jody@eco-labs.org
This poster can be downloaded on this website: www.eco-labs.org

ECOLOGICAL
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
We have to learn to see the world anew.
Einstein

‘The world is a complex,
interconnected, finite, ecological-
social-psychological-economic
system. We treat it as if it were not,
as if it were divisible, separable,
simple, and infinite. Our persistent,
intractable, global problems arise
directly from this mismatch.
Donella Meadows, 1982

We live in a profoundly
relational world, but our
perceptual, intellectual and
learning tools are inadequate
to properly see and appreciate
this reality, and to develop an
appropriate ‘systemic wisdom’.
Stephen Sterling, 2009

Content
1. Context
2. Basic concept
3. Key ideas
4. History
5. Development
6. Practice
7. Education

The volume of education has increased and
continues to increase, yet so do pollution,
exhaustion of resources, and the dangers of
ecological catastrophe. If still more education
is to save us, it would have to be education of a
different kind: education that takes us into the
depth of things.
Schumacher 1974

1. Context
Springer-Verlag. The New Scientist.

Living Planet Report 2008. WWF

Living Planet Report 2006. WWF

Earth’s Natural Wealth: an Audit. The New Scientist

The Oil Age. Information design by Dave Menninger. 2006

Global production of oil and gas
50
Non-con Gas
Gas
billion Gboe/a
40
NGLs
Production, barrels
Polar Oil
30 Deep Water
Heavy
20 Regular
10
0
1930 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050
Source: ASPO
The Oil Crunch
Securing the UK’s energy future
First report of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security (ITPOES)

2. Concept
ECOLOGICAL
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
The interlocking global crises of unsustainability requires
a far more fundamental social learning and educational
response than environmental education, as a largely
marginalized and contained body of thought and practice,
has yet been able to effect. Sterling 2005

The development of ecological
understanding is not simply
another subject to be learnt
but a fundamental change in
the way we see the world.
John Lyle 1994

Ecological Literacy
postmodern ecological worldview
shift from mechanistic metaphor and paradigm
towards an ecological metaphor and paradigm

The first step in our endeavor to
build sustainable communities
must be to become ‘ecologically
literate’, i.e. to understand of
the principles of organization,
common to all living systems,
that ecosystems have evolved to
sustain the web of life…

This systemic understanding
of life allows us to formulate a
set of principles of organization
that may be identified as the
basic principles of ecology
and used as guidelines for
building sustainable human
communities...
Fritjof Capra, 2002

We need to apply our ecological
knowledge to the fundamental
redesign of our technologies
and social institutions, so
as to bridge the current gap
between human design and the
ecological sustainable systems
of nature. Fritjof Capra, 2002

3. Key Ideas
SYSTEMS THINKING
SYSTEMS thinking argues that valid knowledge and
meaningful understanding comes from building up whole
pictures of phenomenon, not by breaking them into parts.
• shift thinking from objects to processes
• shift thinking about relationships from hierarchies to
networks

WHOLE SYSTEMS THINKING
= systemism + ecologism
= systems thinking + ecological thought
‘whole systems thinking’
• extension of perception
• connection in conceptual thinking
• integration of planning and action
Not all systems thinking is ecological.
Not all ecological thinking is aware of systems thinking.
Stephen Sterling

PERCEPTION
How we see and how we know
- perception is not ‘neutral’ but influenced by our belief
systems - our ideas about reality.

PARADIGM
- Thomas Kuhn: ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ 1962
- Paradigm: ‘a constellation of concepts, values,
perceptions, and practices shared by a community, which
forms a particuliar vision of reality that is the basis of the
whole the community organizes itself’. Capra, 1986
- A basic way of perceiving, thinking, valuing and doing
associated with a particular vision of reality. Harman 1988

Implicit in the notion of paradigm is the relative
unawareness of deep assumptions.
Paradigms are the ‘lens through which we look a the
world and it therefore determines what we perceive.
A paradigm is a set of beliefs or assumptions we
make about the world, normally beneath the level of
awareness and therefore mostly never questioned.
Stacey, 1996
Paradigms have a normative aspect – they tell people
what is important, legitimate and reasonable. Patton 1990

The gap between
Stephen Sterling, 2009
e actually doing to
on gap. This project
ues to action. This
rch and practice
THREE COMPONENTS OF ANY PARADIGM (Sterling)
ethos – belief, imaginal, dimension - epistemology
eidos – dimension of ideas / concepts – ontology
ECOLOGICAL
praxis – reflective intention and action – methodology
Actions
GOOD
DESIGN Ideas / Theories
SOCIAL
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perception )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
The world is a complex,
B: KNOWING (Conception) psychological-economic
ciples of organization A critical understanding of pattern, if it were divisible, sepa
b of life - is the first consequence and connectivity intractable, global probl
tep is the move
ical knowledge to C: DOING (Action)
d social institutions, The ability to design and act relationally,
n design and the integratively and wisely. References
Fritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: F
Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a B
Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Res
Fritjof Capra, 2003 Stephen Sterling, 2009
j.j.boehnert@brighton.ac.uk | jody@e
This poster can be downloaded on th

EPISTEMOLOGY
The study of the nature of knowledge, its origins,
structure and validity.
- ‘how we know’
- epistemic learning = transformative learning
Challenge of unsustainability requires a deep learning
response, which may be termed transformative or
epistemic learning

4. History
Gregory Bateson was the first to suggest we
suffer from ‘a fundamental epistemological
error’ in his classic text Steps to an Ecology of
Mind (1972).

Scientific revolution (17th century)
Radical change in epistemological position / paradigm
A: SHIFT AWAY FROM MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY
- end of the idea of a sacred world
B: COPERNICUS, GALILEO & ISSAC NEWTON
- geocentric view of the world displaced by astronomy
C: SCIENTIFIC METHOD: FRANCIS BACON & RENE DESCARTES
- empiricism & reductive thinking
- dualism: subject & object, mind & body, people & nature
- the whole was no more than the sum of the parts
- mechanical world- world as a machine metaphor
- facts and values are unrelated

• Enlightenment vision of the material
world as a great machine.
• Reductionism tries to gain
understanding of a phenomenon by
breaking it into the component parts.
• This works for study of computers and
cars but not natural systems.

‘Reductionist science is...at the
root of the growing ecological
crisis, because it entails a
transformation of nature such
that the processes, regularities
and regenerative capacity of
nature are destroyed’.
Vandana Shiva, 1988

The scientific revolution (mechanistic cosmology,
determinist, materialist, objectivist, positivist,
reductivist, dualist).... ‘spawned a mutually informing
nexus of ideas, assumptions, and methodologies
that become the expressions of the modern cultural
paradigm… all were, and largely still are in perhaps
more sophisticated forms – part of the architecture
of the modernist paradigm and the myth of progress.
The mutually reinforcing nature of these aspects of the
paradigm discourages awareness and questioning of the
paradigm itself, because reality and norms are defined
and constantly reiterated (not least by the media)’.
Sterling 2005

mechanistic,
dualistic,
rationalist,
objectivist,
and reductivist

Clash of paradigms
Dominant worldview as flawed, inadequate, dysfunctional

Mechanism Ecological
Objectivist Participative
Reductionist, Holistic,
dualistic integrative
Reductive Systemic
Stephen Sterling, 2009

Crises of perception
value driven
wholistic
systemic
empirical
objective
transdisciplinary
reductionist
mechanical
perception
ecological
cognition
participatory

Seeing differently

CRISIS of perception
Put simply, the case against the dominant Western worldview
is that it is no longer constitutes an adequate model of reality -
particularly ecological reality. The map is wrong, and moreover, we
commonly confuse the map (worldview) for the territory (reality).
Sterling, 1993

5. Development
70s - Donella Meadows, Gregory Bateson
80s - Fritjof Capra, Harman, Clark
90s - Orr, Laszlo, Hawkins, Kortean, Berman+
00s - Sterling, 100s+ Goethe
Einstein
Kant
Blake
Bateson
Capra
Orr
Shiva
Sterling

bio-dive
of
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loss
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rcity fish de
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llution e r t i fi c at i
po es
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hange rainfores
ec
t
td
clima
estructi
on
peak oil om
e l essn
es
h
s
urce de crime
so
re
ple
tion
inflatio n a t i on
l ie
n
a
ession pover t y u t r i t i on dep r ess
ec a ln
r
ion
m
de ob
bt
es
ity

Problems as symptoms of systemic failure,
rather than random errors requiring fixes.

lls
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-
psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as
if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent,
intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
Donella Meadows, 1982

Actions
Ideas/theories
Norms/assumptions
Beliefs/values
Paradigm/worldview
Metaphysics/cosmology
Stephen Sterling on transition from beliefs to actions: ‘Levels of Knowing’, 2009

What we already ‘know’ frames what we see, and
what we see frames what we understand.
The things we make are an extension of the
manner in which we think.

6. Practice

footprinting wicked problems
lifecyle analysis tipping points
cradle to cradle resilience
One Planet Living technology lock-in
biomimicry carrying capacity
embodied energy dematerialisation
rebound effect ecosystem services
energy descent externality costs
general systems theory ecological literacy

Values led to what we design
& designers subconsiously
embed values in to what
we make. But our value
system presently does not
acknowledge our dependence
on ecological support systems.

ECOLOGICAL
GOOD
DESIGN
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
Valu
A
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization
that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first
step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move
towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to
the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions,
so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the
ecological sustainable systems of nature.
Fritjof Capra, 2003

Some lessons from ecological systems for
design of human systems.
1. Diversity
2. Feedbacks
3. Resilience
4. Non-linear thresholds
5. Emergence

What? Systems, Networks, Values
Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as
7. Education
interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with
complexity and think in terms of systems to address current
ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful
tools to help with this learning process.
How? Transformational Learning
The value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is
obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between
our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to
address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project
uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This
approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice
based design work.

Levels of Learning & Engagement
1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability
Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated
into existing system. Learning ABOUT change.
ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions.
Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.
Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education
Capacity building and action emphasis.
Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities.
Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
Stephen Sterling, 2009

Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perc e ption )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)
A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Actio n)
The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009

A sufficient and whole learning response -
at personal, organisational and social levels -
requires shifts in the three interrelated areas of
human knowing and experience:
perception (Seeing – affective dimension)
conception (Knowing – cognitive dimension)
action (Doing – intentional dimension)
Stephen Sterling, 2009

10 ASSUMPTIONS
1 ‘To every problem, there’s a solution’
2 ‘We can understand something by breaking it down into its component parts’
3 ‘The whole (of something) is no more than the sum of its parts’
4 ‘Most processes are linear’
5 ‘Most issues and events are can be understood by examining the components.
6 ‘It is acceptable to draw your circle of attention or concern quite tightly, as in ”that’s not my concern’
7 ‘We can define or value something by distinguishing it from what it is not, or from its opposite’
8 ‘Objectivity is both possible and necessary to understand issues‘
9 ‘We can understand things best through a rational response. Any other approach is irrational’
10‘If we know what the state of something is now, we can usually predict future outcomes’
Stephen Sterling 2009

10 ASSUMPTIONS
1. problem-solving
2. analysis
3. reductionism
4. cause-effect
5. atomism
6. narrow boundaries
7. objectivism
8. dualism
9. rationalism
10. determinism

10 ASSUMPTIONS OF LINKING THINKING
1 As some ‘solutions’ just produce more problems, we need to develop ‘solutions that generate further solutions’.
2 We often need to look at the whole, and at the larger context.
3 Complex systems show emergent properties; i.e. qualities that emerge from the interaction of the parts e.g.
health in a human body.
4 We need to attempt to look at multiple causes, ‘knock-on’ effects, and feedback loops involved in change.
5 Most issues/events can only be understood in relation to other issues/events or contexts.
6 Complexity means that we need to expand our view of the world and be more aware of our boundaries of concern.
7 We need to see so-called ‘opposites’ in relationship rather than in opposition eg. ecology and economy,
people and nature, facts and values.
8 Total objectivity is impossible. Better to recognise how our subjective self is involved in perception and
interpretation of the world.
9 Intellect needs to be balanced with intuition, and rationality with non-rational ways of knowing.
10 In most human and most natural systems it is impossible to predict outcomes. We need to be more
flexible, accept uncertainty, and not try to control everything but participate in and learn from change.
Stephen Sterling 2009

An emerging ecological (relational/systemic)
paradigm presents a sane and hopeful evolutionary
pathway, necessary to the conditions we now face,
with the power to transcend the disintegrative
effects of modernism and the disempowering
relativism of deconstructive postmodernism.
Stephen Sterling
2009

Two ways of thinking...
Problem-solving Reframing /alleviation
Analysis Synthesis
Reductionism Holism
Closed cause-effect Multiple influences
Atomism/segregative Integrative
Narrow boundaries Extension of boundaries
Objectivism Critical subjectivity
Dualism Pluralism / duality
Rationalism Rational / non-rational
Determinism Uncertainty, ambiguity

KEY CULTURAL WORLDVIEWS
Metaphor Mechanism Ecology/living
systems
Epistemology Objectivist Participative
Reductionist, Holistic,
Ontology
dualistic integrative
Methodology Reductive Systemic

EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM MAP
Educational Positivist Interpretivist; Critical; Poststructural Participative
paradigm Constructivist radical
Role of Instruction Facilitation Critical Deconstruct- Mediation,
educator pedagogy ion mentoring/
transformative ‘invitational’
intellectual’ leadership
Curriculum Prescribed Constructivist; Issues based Pluralist Indicative,
emergent
Pedagogy Delivery Learner Critical Deconstructive Co-inquiry
centered pedagogy
Transactional
Cultural worldview/metaphor
Mechanistic..............modernist…………….Postmodern….........

Our machines, our value systems, our
educational systems will all have to be
informed by (the) switch, from the machine
age when we tried to design schools to be
like factories, to an ecological age, when we
want to design schools, and families and
social institutions in terms of maintaining
the quality of life not just for our species,
but for the whole planet.
Mary Catherine Bateson, 1997

Ecological literacy creates
the conceptual framework
to give value to different
types of knowledge.

‘It is better to do the
right thing wrongly,
than the wrong thing
better and better…’ alienation
inequity &
social
Russell Ackoff

We can’t solve problems
by using the same kind of
thinking we used when we
created them.
Albert Einstein

Lev
tive
ms are 1st:
ate in Cont
tion, into
ms ACC
pend.
2nd
Addi
s
Deep
th
Learn
l
3rd:
Capa
Expe
Learn
is
en
Steph
to
ect
s

ECOLOGICAL
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
www.eco-labs.org
Further Reading:
Capra, Fritjof. 2002. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo, 2003.
Jackson, Tim. Prosperity without Growth. London: Earthscan. 2009.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. The Upside of Down. London: Souvenir Press.,2006.
Orr, David. Ecological Literacy. Albany: State of New York Press, 1992.
Sterling, Stephen. Sustainable Education. Totnes: Green Books, 2002.
Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm
Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003