Form Follows Function: Interpretive Wisdom for Environmental Educators

Abstract

A review of the literature reveals that interpreters’ emphasis on individual connection to the resource offers environmental educators key strategies to promote engagement and addresses critiques of environmental education practice as too generalized, behaviorist, manipulative, or negative. Interpreters serve as the nation's front-line environmental educators, with the foremost opportunity to inspire adults to engage in the free-choice learning that may, at best, motivate deeper ecological awareness and personal environmental activism. Pairing interpreters with teachers can extend the same opportunities to students.