Just talking about today's great ecological challenges can stir up big emotions, from fear and anxiety to love and affection.
The tough emotions, such as fear and anxiety, can cause people to close down and become unable to learn more or take action. Yet the reality is that we are at a turning point in history when it matters very much what we think and feel and do. That is why the Center for Ecoliteracy understands that to effectively educate people about sustainable living we need to bring emotional and social intelligence to our ecological pursuits.
In collaboration with Daniel Goleman, the internationally known psychologist and author of the bestselling books Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, the Center for Ecoliteracy has developed a new integration of emotional, social, and ecological intelligence. You can learn more about it in the 2012 book Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social, and Ecological Intelligence, coauthored by Goleman and the Center's Lisa Bennett and Zenobia Barlow.
Read below about how becoming ecoliterate advances academic achievement, ecological well-being, and resilience. Learn about five ecoliterate practices. And meet community activists, educators, and students who are using emotional, social, and ecological intelligence to creatively engage in food, water, oil, and coal challenges from the Arctic to Appalachia and New Mexico to New Orleans.
