Environmental Science/Studies: Friend or Foe?Author(s): J. C. GoodridgeSource: Area, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1978), pp. 315-317Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20001381 .

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Environ mental sciencelstudies: friend or foe? J. C. Goodridge, School of Environmental Sciences, Plymouth Polytechnic

Summary. The past decade has seen a rapid growth of a diverse, often experimental, group of undergraduate courses entitled environmental science/studies. Should geographers view these developments as a source of possible competition and conflict in the potentially difficult years ahead, or as an opportunity to co-operate with a near neighbour in the spectrum of academic disciplines?

A survey undertaken by P. H. Forrest for the Department of Education and Science into the number of degree, postgraduate and post-experience courses relating to the environment available in 1975/6, revealed a total of 97. This followed a list of 74 College of Education courses in environmental science and environmental studies published in 1975 by Sean Coker' from which he then went on to compile a list of environmental first degree courses in polytechnics, giving a further 92. All three of these surveys interpreted ' environmental '

rather widely, and included courses of the more traditional type as for example honours degrees in geography, geology and biology as well as more recent additions to the range of courses offered such as in rural land economy, land scape architecture or environmental health.

It was in order to gain a somewhat clearer picture that the Joint Committee of the IBG and the GA on Geography in Higher Education in the Universities and Polytechnics undertook its own survey of the field of environmental science (studies) degree courses at undergraduate level on offer in 1977. For this survey three criteria were adopted. First, the course had to possess the title ' environ

mental science/studies' for at least a major part of, if not the complete pro gramme. For those outside the field of environmental education, whether they are applicants, administrators or employers, the title of the course will be their starting point for further enquiries and decisions and their point of entry into the entire area. However, such titles are often the result of a compromise, not always strong in academic motivation. Lest too much should depend upon this, two further criteria are adopted in this survey: the courses should be attempting to develop a new academic discipline by virtue of a wide breadth of relevant contributory subject areas and, thirdly, should attempt purposeful integration of these contributions in both syllabus design and in teaching. Students could be counselled in their choice of subject combinations to reinforce these character istics. Even using these three criteria, a wide variety of courses was included ranging from ' B Tech.' at the University of Bradford, a 4 year course, with the third year in an industrial placement and offering options in environmental

management and pollution management, to the proposed BA honours (CNAA) combined studies degree at the Worcestershire Institute of Higher

Education, in which options include earth studies, British history and eco systems and man.

In total, 48 courses were offered to students with an anticipated enrolment of 860 students. Only a handful of these courses existed 10 years ago, and the rate of development has been facilitated undoubtedly by the CNAA in the poly

315

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316 Environmental science/studies

technics and spurred on by the academic diversification programmes in many of

the colleges of education, in which the new courses are academically validated

by universities. The field has grown rapidly, is very diverse and plainly often still experimental.

To some the scale and rapidity of these developments is disturbing and they

view the appearance of this newcomer to the academic scene as posing something of a threat to the future of geography in higher education. Their fear is that as

the number of 18 year olds in the population begins its slow but long decline after

1982, to a point where the numbers will have declined to approximately two

thirds the 1982 peak before beginning to recover around 1998, the struggle for

scarce resources and increasingly scarce students will only be exacerbated by this newcomer. This assumption rests very directly on the proposition that those

who choose to enter environmental science degrees are equally acceptable for geography degrees. From the breadth and variety of A level subjects which they

are prepared and indeed often looking to accept, it is clear that some of the 860

planned enrolments will also be in competition with degree courses other than geography. For those for whom the choice is either geography or environmental science the question then raises itself as to the extent to which they are similar

and competitors, or different and merely two neighbours in the spectrum of

academic disciplines. It is in this area that the picture is least clear despite the issue having been

broached nearly a decade ago by Hare2 in 1969. At that time he saw no specific role for geography as a co-ordinating, integrating subject in the midst of a group

of environmental sciences. This view is shared by Clayton who observes on the

other hand that geography can play a critical but not central role by its ad

herence to the proposition that man should be studied alongside and together with his environment.3 Emmelin4 on the other hand has no such reservations and

recommends strongly the experience of geography in 'turning pluridisciplinary courses into interdisciplinary education'. This would seem to be more in accord

with the role seen by Wise for geographers in which ' when called upon to take

part in interdisciplinary activities we should not stand aside ... employing as

profitably as we can the full range of geographical concepts and techniques '.5

This is a view also shared by Lawton who also usefully reminds us of the estab

lished acceptance of environmental studies in lower and middle schools, a trend

which might well be reinforced if the N and F level proposals of the School

Council do replace the A level examinations in the mid 1980s.f For some this

view would increase the apparent overlap or even duplication of the two subjects for as Clayton makes clear much of the current curriculum of geography is

included in the environmental science programme at East Anglia.7 Partly this

is to provide graduates with the opportunity to enter the teaching of geography in schools, but also to benefit from the academic advances of geography. Nor

is any space between environmental science and geography more clearly defined by the proposal of Newbould8 that a ' unifying theme [for environmental

science] would be to take man as a starting point and to study all environmental

systems in terms of their influence upon man or vice versa', especially when

this is compared with the view of Wooldridge9 who states ' in broad terms it is

evident that geography concerns land and man. The field can be approached therefore from the side of either land or man, and it is unprofitable to debate

which is the better approach. Providing indeed that the final viewpoint compre hends both, there is little to choose between them'.

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Environmental science/studies 317

Perhaps the answer lies in part in the way and the context in which environ

mental science developed during the 1960s as Cass10 makes plain '... . the emergence of the environment as a public issue of the highest importance should be reflected in the rapid and widespread emergence of environmental programmes in education'. Partly also, the answer must lie in the view that the environmental sciences are ' likely to remain a federation of subjects for a long time to come '.1 This would seem to postpone the day when, in seeking to establish the extent of both common ground and of space between geography and environmental science, one might remember that ' an older and perhaps

more fundamental way of defining the fields of particular disciplines is to ask not what materials they study, nor what techniques they use, but for what kind of problems in human experience have they been invented to provide the answers '.12

Meanwhile, might it not be prudent to consider and to debate where the distinctive contributions of the two subjects lie, both in relation to each other and to the overall field of higher education? Thus one might maximize co-opera tion with a friend and minimize competition with a foe?

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Prof. W. Kirk and to Prof. R. Lawton for valuable comments and suggestions on the draft of this article.

Notes 1. Coker, P. (1976) ' Environmentalfirstdegreecoursesin polytechnics', Environ. Educ. 5,48-57 2. Hare, K. (1969) ' Environment: resuscitation of an idea', Area 1, 52-5 3. Clayton, K. (1970) 'Environmental science', Area 2, 5-6 4. Emmelin, L. (1975) Environmental education at university level (Strasbourg) 53-4 5. Wise, M. (1973)' Environmental studies: geographical objectives', Geography 58, 293-300 6. Lawton, R. (1978) 'Changes in university geography', Geography 63, 1-13 7. Clayton, K. (1973) ' Environmental science at the University of East Anglia', Environ

mental education at university level (Paris) 100-7 8. Newbould, P. (1973) ' The teaching of environmental studies at university level', Environ

mental education at university level (Paris) 107-18 9. Wooldridge, S. W. and East, W. G. (1951) The spirit andpurpose of geography (London) 27

10. Cass, J. (1973) ' Introduction', Environmental education at university level (Paris) 3 11. Clayton, K. (1973) op. cit. 104 12. Kirk, W. (1963) 'Problems of geography', Geography 48, 357-71

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