Stephen Schneider, climatologist, popular author, and educator, states that it is "an unattainable goal to expect students to gain a detailed knowledge about the content of all environmentally relevant disciplines." Instead, he proposes that students should be taught how to ask three questions to the experts that include "what can happen," "what are the odds," and "how do you know." 2 He argues that students do not need to know the technical aspects of opposing views, but they should have the skill to evaluate the credibility of the process. Though we agree with much of what Schneider discusses, our thrust in the curriculum is that to understand the answers to those three questions, the student needs a basic level of understanding about the science, technology, and policy associated with the issues.
From this discussion, we conclude that environmental literacy is the capability for a contextual and detailed understanding of an environmental problem in order to enable analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and ultimately sound and informed decision making at a citizen's level. This means that "environmentally literate" students will have the knowledge, tools, and sensitivity to properly address an environmental problem in their professional capacity, and to routinely include the environment as one of the considerations in their work and daily living.