Thirty, twenty-nine, maybe thirty-two? How many days until we start our summer break? If you have a fabulous summer vacation planned, you are probably aware of the exact number! Maybe you plan on hiking one of the U.S. national parks or rafting a wild river. Or perhaps your plans take you to more exotic locales like a tropical rainforest, a coral reef, or a glacier.

In any event, how much thought have you given to the environmental impact of your plans and those of everyone else you’ll meet there? What kind of carbon emissions are you emitting as you jet to your destination? What about that four-wheel drive vehicle you’ll rent? And the convenience meals with their excess packaging you’ll eat a greater proportion of?

The growing industry called ecotourism is all about awareness of environmental impact. A recent NYtimes.com article, Growth of Eco-Tourism Raises Concerns, describes the paradox associated with the concept.

“I think it’s fair to say that ‘sustainable tourism’ is an oxymoron,” said Auden Schendler, the executive director of sustainability at Aspen Skiing Co. in Colorado and the author of a new book Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution.

Other topics discussed in the article include policy, such as regulation of tourism in the Antarctic to minimize impact, as suggested by Hilary Clinton, U.S. secretary of state, at a recent international conference. The article also points out that ecotourism is responsible for raising awareness regarding conservation, as ironic as that may be.

The impact of rather dense ecotourism on macaques in China is documented in an article from National Geographic News. The presence of humans and the food they put out to attract the macaques contributed to increased violence and infanticide among the animals. The same article reports that while the macaques are negatively impacted by ecotourism, Rwandan gorillas were most likely saved from extinction by ecotourism.

The difference in impacts is due to many variables, but probably the most important are (1) the number of humans allowed to view the gorillas, a couple hundred a year, vs. a couple hundred a day for macaques, and (2) the acclimation process used with the gorillas to get them comfortable with a few humans around. No such process is implemented with the macaques.

So the debate regarding the value of ecotourism and the accompanying oxymoron it represents is not likely to end soon. As individuals, we have a responsibility to be conscious of our actions and take the path of least impact whenever possible.

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

The following suggested activity will take about a regular class period. It reinforces science skills of classification and scientific argumentation. It raises personal awareness of one’s place in the natural world and the reflexive relationships among all beings and things on the planet. Thus at least two content standards of the National Science Education Standards are manifested: Science as Inquiry and Science in Personal and Social Perspectives. Students must remain civil and focused on the subject of discussion, while refraining from comments directed at persons.

Over their school careers, students occasionally take a special trip with their family or with a school organization. You can orally survey kids and create a list on the board of places they have been, how they got there, and what they did while they were there.

Ask students to categorize the trips, putting the trips into at least two groups, maybe even three or four, depending on what criteria they decide to use to classify. Help them make the categories mutually exclusive if possible. Some possibilities are: visit relatives, outdoor recreation, education, or sports and entertainment, including professional sports events and theme parks. But allow the students to come up with names of categories, rather than making suggestions for them.

Then tell students you are imposing another criterion: environmental impact. Ask students what you might mean by that. Then have them rank their existing categories from most to least  environmental impact. Expect a lot of discussion and debate with this one! Have students elaborate on their reasoning and provide support and evidence for their rankings. Finally, as a means of reflection and assessment, you could have students respond briefly to the following prompts: “This is what I understand ecotourism is . . . ” and “My thoughts on vacationing have changed some in the following way . . . .”

Note: An Internet search using the term “ecotourism” pulls up a number of interesting links including the web site of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), mentioned in the NYTimes.com article, and an article from Conservation International on ecotourism.

The following are some related resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Beyond Polar Bears and Penguins: Polar News and Notes Antarctic Tourism and The National Caves Association Welcomes You.

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