Ours is an historical moment. The scope and range of human impacts on Earth are unprecedented. Yet, so too are the possibilities to build a secure foundation for a sustainable and sustaining future. Never has so much depended on our wisdom, foresight, and the quality of our thinking. Higher education must make a strategic contribution to rediscover ancient truths, to create new ideas, and to empower and inspire the rising generations. These require mobilizing the research, educational, and organizational resources of the university community. The Center at Florida Gulf Coast University is designed to meet these challenges and opportunities boldly and creatively.

Mission Statement

The Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education will work toward realizing the dream of a sustainable and peaceful future for Earth through scholarship, education, and action. The Center will advance understanding and achievement of the goals of environmental and sustainability education through innovative educational research methods, emergent eco-pedagogies, and educational philosophy and practice based on ethics of care and sustainability. The Center will elevate the environmental mission of Florida Gulf Coast University and serve the university community, the local community of the Western Everglades and Barrier Islands, and the wider community of scholars.

 

Rachel Carson's work is the inspiration for the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education. Her contribution to human understanding of our environment is unparalleled. Silent Spring has been called the most important book of the twentieth century --- it launched the environmental movement. Rachel Carson's contributions, most relevant to the mission of the Center, are public policy based on sound science and ethics, active participation of an ecologically literate citizenry, and appreciation of the natural world through the literary arts and environmental education.

 

"Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life."

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

 

 

Grateful acknowledgments to Clyde Butcher for the use of his photography