EnviroTech: Enhancing Environmental Literacy and Technology Assessment Skills

Several Standards for Technological Literacy (ITEA, 2000) share common elements with environmental education guidelines (NAAEE, 2010) including the standards/guidelines that speak to examining the environmental impacts of technologies and technological systems and to developing inquiry and analysis skills. However, technology teachers may be ill-prepared, lacking the pre- requisite knowledge and skills they need to integrate environmental concepts and processes into their curriculum and teach technology assessment skills. The EnviroTech project—with its use of distributed webinars, semester-long engagement, and local implementation of guided inquiry projects—demonstrated a viable model for addressing these professional development needs. EnviroTech focused teachers and their students upon a single contemporary consumer decision (adoption of CFL vs. incandescent lamps) and then provided the information, resources, and examples they would need to help their students assess the impacts this decision might have upon the environment and human health.