Environmental Service Learning is the opportunity to blend environmental consciousness, stewardship and connection with informed, empowered and passionate action through critical pedagogy. 

Though “the environment” is often used in reference to “the natural environment,” we encourage students to place themselves in the context of the ecosystems that surround us: natural, built, social, political and economic. This expands our understanding of the many layers of the environment and enables us to to think of the many systems that weave our world together. 

Through systems thinking, students consider the dynamic and interactive quality of the environment: the relationship of factors surrounding organisms, communities and other systems that mutually influence one another’s growth, development and survival.

As we develop an understanding of these many systems our ecological literacy grows. We define ecological literacy as the development of a person’s sense of place in relationship with the environments that s/he inhabits.  The exploration of this critical lens allows a person to see themselves in the context of a multitude of other systems and feel the connection between self and environment.  

All the while, students honor the seven elements of service learning through an ecologically literate lens: curriculum integration, meeting community needs, collaboration, student voice, civic responsibility, reflection, and evaluation.