Human Ecology Curriculum

Scholars in the field of curriculum studies investigate and support a variety of interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches to education. Human ecology is an interdisciplinary field of study and research that encompasses a variety of disciplines from the ecological sciences to the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The term can refer to virtually all aspects of human experience and the interrelationships within and between human communities and natural and human-constructed environments. The human ecology curriculum covers a broad range of issues including the human impact on the environment, how environmental conditions shape the human experience, environmental problems and some of their solutions, and environmental art and design. Human ecology programs and courses of study are mostly housed in institutions of higher education at the undergraduate, master's, and doctoral levels, and studies lead to certificates, [Page 455]options, specializations, or degrees. In K–12 education, ideas from human ecology are sometimes embedded in family and consumer science courses, but there is no concerted, nationwide effort in the United States to institute programs in human ecology in public schools.

In the United States, the academic field of human ecology is indebted to a number of early scholars. Harlan Barrows (1877–1960) was a historical geographer and chair of the department of geography at the University of Chicago from 1919 to 1942. He was influenced by Frederick Jackson Turner (1861–1932), a historian who explored the connections between culture, history, and the environment, especially around issues of westward expansion, and Ellen Churchill Semple (1863–1932), an early proponent of the idea that geography influences, even to some extent determines human society. In the early 1920s, Barrows shifted his focus from the effort to scientifically determine geographic influences on human society to a broader emphasis on human ecology, which laid the foundations for the current interdisciplinary field. His presidential address to the Association of American Geographers in 1922, “Geography as Human Ecology,” remains one of the most frequently cited historical works in the field. Following Barrows, R. D. McKenzie used the term in a paper titled “The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Community,” in a 1925 book. Although human ecology in its inception was considered a subdiscipline of sociology, it is now also associated with anthropology, psychology, political science, or the ecological sciences, among other disciplines, depending on the school of thought, institution, or country.

Human ecology as a field of study also has roots in home economics or domestic science, itself an interdisciplinary area of study that emerged in tandem with the Cooperative Extension Service, administered by the land grant institutions. The institutional history of the field can be illustrated by the development and evolution of a representative program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The department of home economics began at Madison in 1903; became the School of Home Economics in 1951, within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences; and in 1973, became an independent unit first named the School of Home Economics, then the School of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences, and finally, the School of Human Ecology. These shifts represent increasing awareness of the interconnectedness of human activity and the environment as well as the global impact of local, domestic decision making and practices.

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