When we were reading Leopold this past week I took a special interest in the way he spoke about how upsetting the way science was being taught (especially biology) in the educational system. Dissecting dead animals in order to understand the whole of the natural world (though vital and less cruel then dissecting a live animal) does not give a broad view of the world and all it's unique properties. I never actually thought about the fact of how separate we are from nature in education then when I started reading that section in Leopold's essay.
I mean, now we at least have classes like environmental science or environmental aesthetics and even in Future Farmer's of America in high school, but a lot of the time our natural environment is not appreciated. I think this stems more from the fact that most grammar and secondary schools are so rigid-- thinking critically about our world or taking a moment to 'breathe' and go for a walk to enjoy nature seems incredibly trivial in the long run.
I personally found it refreshing when we went outside for class and just observed our surroundings trying to see things we didn't necessarily pay attention to before because we didn't take the time to really look. I feel that such excursions whether in a philosophy class or otherwise might be of some relief to students. Because even though having a structured class is necessary everyone once in a while you have to break the pattern and I especially think that Leopold makes a great case for the scientific community to do such things. That's my thought at least.
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