Social Ecology as Innovative Tertiary Environmental Education

Abstract

Social ecology as expressed by the Social Ecology Centre, (Faculty of Agriculture & Rural Development, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury), is an emerging field of learning concerned with improving the quality of the interrelationships between people and between people and the environment. The essence of this improvement is powerfully depicted by Albert Einstein, with this plea for people to widen their sense of compassion and concern to all life:A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.Social ecology then is concerned with recognising and transcending this ‘optical delusion’ of which Einstein speaks.In 1992 the Social Ecology Centre will be offering, through the introduction of the Bachelor of Applied Science (Social Ecology) [B. App. Sc. (Soc. Ecol.)] program, a substantively new and different approach to environmental education at a tertiary level. The establishment of the B.App.Sc. (Soc. Ecol.) will provide for the first time learning opportunities in social ecology at undergraduate level.