by Richard Kool
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost In information?
-- "Choruses from The Rock," T.S. Eliot
I've always advocated that we -- both teachers and students -- should try to figure out what is going on in the world and then get on with whatever we can do to make things better, wherever we are and whatever our means. There are several ways of arriving at an understanding of what's going on. We can follow our own feelings, trusting in the subjectivity that some feel is the only thing we can know for sure. We can accept what someone else tells us, whether that be government, industry or environmental groups. Or we can examine data collected by what we hope are reliable researchers, and use that data as a basis for asking and answering our own questions.
At a recent conference on global change and education, someone wrote that "data is sacred." Well, that may be a bit over the top, but data sure is interesting. I'm not an uncritical fan of computers or of the Internet, but one thing I do like is data. And you can find lots of it on the net. A few issues ago, I told you about web sites where you can find datasets complied through environmental monitoring programs. This issue, I refer you to large analytical datasets that are global in scope and encyclopedic in depth. From population to global greenhouse gas emissions, these sets of numbers can give us a good indication of global and regional conditions. All of the data is downloadable, either in html (the standard language of the World Wide Web) or, often better, in pdf format (you'll first need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader) (1). This allows you to put the data into spreadsheets and do things with it. Significant discoveries and analyses can be made by mining these datasets and combining them with other sets to look for illuminating relationships.
A major dataset for any student or teacher looking for information on a range of subjects is that of the World Resources Institute (WRI) (2). Every two years the WRI publishes a World Resources report which analyzes the state of the world's resources, and while they don't give the book away, they do give away the data that is the basis of the book. These fabulous datasets for investigation include world data (from every country and, in some cases, region) on global population and development such as trends in births, life expectancy, fertility, age structure and population growth. And the detail is also there, for every country on the planet, under headings such as atmosphere and climate, biodiversity (how much of each country is in protected areas), forest and land cover, freshwater, oceans, economic indicators, human health. If you can come up with good questions, your students, with some understanding of simple statistics, can make some very provocative analyses and come to very interesting conclusions.
Another interesting site, which can lead you to the best of the on-line datasets, is the Which World web site created by Allen Hammond in support of his book Which World? Scenarios for the 21st Century.(3) This site looks at the nature of scenarios for the future, and posits three: a market world where economic and human progress is driven by the liberating power of free markets and human initiative; a fortress world where unattended social and environmental problems diminish progress, dooming hundreds of millions of humans to lives of rising conflict and violence; and a transformed world where human ingenuity and compassion offer a better life, not just a wealthier one, and seek to extend those benefits to all of humanity. Within this interesting site are on-line scenario generators (for those with web browsers capable of handling applets), and a library of links to, among other things, the major sources of data for the creation of the scenarios.
Looking at global datasets is a humbling experience and I have a lot of respect for the folks who assemble them. There is no reason why our students, and we ourselves, cannot breathe life back into the bones of these dry numbers.
Diverse Sites for Data Diggers
1.http://www.adobe.com/acrobat -- The Adobe Acrobat Reader located at http://www.adobe.com/acrobat can be downloaded free from this site. You will find this software useful in viewing many web sites, not just those mentioned here.
2 .http://www.wri.org -- Home page of World Resources Institute, 10 G St NE, Suite 800, Washington, DC, (202) 729-7600. A menu of on-line datasets is located at http://www.wri.org/sdis/data-tbl/. The current edition of the WRI World Resources 1998-99 is available in the U.S. from WRI Publications, 1-800-822-0504 (US$24.95); in Canada from Renouf Publishing, (613) 745-2665 (Cdn$40).
3. http://mars3.gps.caltech.edu/whichworld -- The Which World site located at http://mars3.gps.caltech.edu/whichworld allows exploration of scenarios of the future, based on Allen Hammond's book Which World? Scenarios for the 21st century (Island Press, 1998, ISBN 1-55963-575-4).
Richard Kool is the Interpretation and Education Officer of BC Parks, British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, in Victoria, British Columbia. His address is rkool@cln.etc.bc.ca