Why is environmental education is getting a bad rap? Who could argue with one of the major goals of the environmental movement? Isn't making people aware of problems, solutions, and alternatives the one sure way to produce an "environmentally literate" population?

For environmental educators this has been a given for over three decades. But now, more and more, the media are filled with news that this "given" is on the verge of being taken away. All this despite, or because of, the fact that the 90's have seen an explosion in mainstream interest in environmental education.

According to the National Environmental Education Advancement Project, as reported in their Fall 1996 issue of the Environmental Education Advocate, much of the criticism seems to originate from organizations and individuals who seem dedicated to criticizing the current state of environmental education. Some are thinly disguised "fronts" for organizations that have long resisted environmental initiatives of many kinds. Others are media organizations with well-documented conservative philosophies. The Advocate reports that an analysis of the criticisms indicates six major areas of attack:

• Environmental Education is often based on emotionalism, myths, and misinformation.
• Environmental Education is often issue-driven rather than information driven.
• Environmental Education typically fails to teach children about basic economics or decision making processes, relying instead on mindless slogans.
• Environmental Education often fails to take advantage of lessons from nature, and instead preaches socially or politically correct lessons.
• Environmental Education is unabashedly devoted to activism and politics, rather than knowledge and understanding.
• Environmental Education teaches an anti-anthropocentric philosophy - man is an intrusion on the earth and, at times, an evil.

How true! Or, how true? Good questions. There is little doubt that many environmental educators are guilty as charged. Quality control and scientific rigor have not always been scrupulously observed. However, there are also countless examples of programs founded in fact and presented professionally and dispassionately. This diversity is to be expected, and promoted, since the environmental education tent is a big one. It brings together a professional , volunteer and activist community involved in education from preschool to postdoctoral levels.

The emergence into the mainstream has politicized environmental education. No surprise here, any topic as important and far-reaching inevitably becomes fodder for political debate. And, like most political debates today, this one suffers from a lack of civility and a less than slavish devotion to facts on the part of devotees and opponents alike.

With this in mind Issue #5 of OUR ENVIRONMENT - ONLINE is devoted to an overview of environmental education on the Web. Here we present a "sampler" of sites representing a variety of organizations and perspectives. We hope you will explore and view them and make your own judgments on the state of environmental education. It is also our hope that no matter which side of this barbed wire fence we reside on, we will choose to participate. Environmental education is still mainly the province of volunteer, mission-driven organizations. Very few of them will not benefit by more support and, hopefully, constructive criticism. This issue's WHAT WE CAN DO feature will give you some leads on getting involved in your community.

As always, our thanks to our loyal readers for making OUR ENVIRONMENT - ONLINE a pleasurable and successful venture. We would also like to thank the producers of the Discovery Channel's new offering - Animal Planet. We recently learned that they have chosen to include a link to our publication in a new CD-ROM which will be made available to their viewers.

Aloha for now,

Jeff Stark,

Publisher - OUR ENVIRONMENT -- ONLINE