Nature is a title that has been around for decades, but recently it has become an endangered title. Since the 1990’s the nature heading has fallen by the wayside. Programs that taught animal habits and habitat or forest protection, dropped their nature heading, and replaced it with environmental. Same subject matter, new heading. There are a few problems with this is. One is, the reason the word environmental is heard so much today, has very little to do with programs that continue with the same subject matter they’ve used for decades, but replaced the nature heading with environmental. Bigger problem is, programs addressing the reason environment is heard so much today, never began. Although animal, forest, ocean etc. preservation is important, the environment is not the oceans, forest, rivers and wildlife you can see. The environment is the unseen. You can’t see the invisible sea of gases that surround the planet In the troposphere some of these gases trap heat, which creates earth’s natural greenhouse effect, making Earth livable. But since you can’t see the sea of gases, you can’t see the build up of greenhouse gases in the troposphere, trapping more heat, creating global warming, yet it goes on right over your head. Above the troposphere, you can’t see the stratosphere, or the ozone layer that resides in it, or the invisible CFCs, which a component of destroys ozone, right over your head everyday. This is subject matter that deserves the title environment, as does human habits that affect the natural balance of this invisible environment. As highlighted in the disposable product week of the Environmental Educator in this website, using disposable products the most environmentally abusive of all human actions. Addressing this subject matter deserves the title environment, but not animal habitat programs, because that is nature. 

A bigger problem with nature programs being titled environmental is, the audience leaves feeling good about caring about and protecting animal habitat, but this program leaves them with no responsibility to the individual, and every environmental expert will tell you our problems are a direct result of our daily actions. The same daily actions a nature program teacher probably did during their presentation. I see it all the time. They drive up in an irresponsible car, with a disposable coffee cup and lid. This event could have had refreshments, meaning lots of disposable products. When people leave this, they would never believe these actions are irresponsible because their environmental teacher was just doing them. But thing is, most who teach nature programs are as environmentally illiterate as the general public, because it is a completely different subject matter they also have never been taught.

Bottom line is, nature needs to remain nature and environmental subject matter needs to be presented. When people are environmentally educated, this differentiation will be crystal clear.