Jim Watson has a long history in science that includes teaching high school biology, earth science, geology, physical science, chemistry, environmental science, ecology, applied science – everything, he says, except physics. Today, the 35-year veteran science teacher is one of the most noted environmental educators in the Chattanooga area.
Watson received his bachelor’s degree in natural science education from the University of Tennessee, and a master’s degree in environmental education from Glassboro State College in New Jersey. He taught at high schools in Hamilton County for most of his career, and retired from full-time teaching four years ago. However, once a teacher, always a teacher. On any given day, you may find him leading a wild cave tour with a high school science class; presenting at science teaching conferences; developing earth science curriculum; organizing teacher training workshops; and spending time with family at their beach house in New Jersey.
“I have been trying to foster environmental education for a long time – in my classroom and now with teacher training,” says Watson. “Environmental education was really big in the '70s and '80s, but it died down because of standardized testing – there is no standardized test for environmental education so it got pushed aside. Today, there are no requirements for environmental education in Hamilton County or as part of teacher training.”
Watson gave up long ago trying to change the world of environmental education through Big Initiatives – the work of government, school boards and such. While he serves on the board of directors for the Chattanooga Arboretum & Nature Center and North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy, his diligent and personal approach to environmental education aims to change one person at a time. The words of William James, an American psychologist, professor and author, resonate with his philosophy: “I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.”
The goal of environmental education is, in general, to create an environmentally literate citizenry, individuals whose actions are based on a broad understanding of how people and societies relate to the natural world. Environmental literacy requires awareness, knowledge, skills and attitudes that incorporate appropriate environmental considerations into daily decisions about consumption, lifestyle, career and civics, according to the Campaign for Environmental Literacy.
“Environmental education builds positive environmental ethics and creates people who will take care of the natural world,” Watson says.
Often, environmental science is mistaken for environmental education, and the two are not one in the same, says Watson. “Environmental science is a science class, while environmental education is interdisciplinary and applies environmental attitudes toward specific disciplines: if it’s cooking, then it’s a lesson on dolphin-safe tuna; if it’s English, then a course on environmental literature,” he says.
As a part-time environmental science teacher at Ivy Academy and part-time dual-enrollment geology teacher at Signal Mountain Middle/High School, planning field trips for students is one of his greatest joy, as well as one of his most serious endeavors. “Planning field trips is the most serious thing I do because I know that is going to make an impact on the kids,” he says. Over the course of his career, Watson had taken more than a thousand students on environmental education field trips, including adventures to the Rocky Mountains, a dolphin research center in the Florida Keys, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
“The main thing about teaching environmental education and taking field trips into nature is that you never know what the end result is going to be,” he says. “I have had kids tell me later in life that they took a career path because of a field trip I took them on. The trips can help shape their future decisions in so many ways.”
Watson’s eyes light up when he talks about his annual teacher training workshop at Sapelo Island Reserve along Georgia’s coast. The four-day educational excursion, “Incorporating Environmental Education into the Present K-12 Curriculum,” includes a stay at the University of Georgia Marine Institute and studies in Sapelo Island’s cultural history, coastal wildlife, and complex beach and dunes system. Last summer, Volkswagen Chattanooga sponsored 16 teachers to attend the training session.
“This workshop helps teachers incorporate environmental education into their present curriculum,” says Watson. “This experience gets them into the habit of looking for environmental twists to their lessons. It also creates a network of teachers who can share ideas.”
Currently, Chattanooga does not have an environmental education networking organization. Watson uses a Facebook page, called the Sapelo Island Educators of Tennessee, to connect past workshop participants and to create an awareness of other environmental education workshops available for teachers.
Despite an already busy schedule, Watson hopes to expand his teacher development field excursions in the future. “There are so many environmental education professional development opportunities for teachers,” he says. “However, there is little money for it because it doesn’t focus on standardized test scores. We have to help teachers fit environmental education concepts into their current curriculum and see that it can be a part of everyday life in the classroom.”
For more information about environmental education, contact Jim Watson at jwats134@hotmail.com.
Jenni Frankenberg Veal enjoys writing about the natural world and the people who work to protect it. She is rarely found without her daughters and a pair of shoes appropriate for hiking and rock-hopping in creeks. Visit her blog at YourOutdoorFamily.com.
