Children’s Embodiment of a Land Ethic

Abstract

Aldo Leopold’s (1949/1966) A Sand County Almanac offers its readers a glimpse into the natural history and ecology of the natural communities of his lived experiences. Along with the works of other nature writers, its essays helped to guide and motivate the environmental movement in the mid-twentieth century and confirmed ecology’s place within science. Leopold invites readers to review and expand on their understanding of community to one that is inclusive of all elements – soils, waters, plants, and animals – that comprise our natural world, collectively identified as the land. Leopold extends his thinking of the land and our place within it in his outlining of a land ethic in which he calls for a change in our role as “Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it” (1949/1966, p. 240). The land ethic embodies a respect of all community members and of the inherent relationships between those community members. This chapter grows from Leopold’s notion of the land, and how the land and a land ethic are understood and embraced by elementary school children as we explore how children engage with and think about the land.