Sci & Educ (2011) 20:10391053 DOI 10.

1007/s11191-010-9325-0

Towards a Critical Re-Appraisal of Ecology Education: Scheduling an Educational Intervention to Revisit the Balance of Nature Metaphor
Tasos Hovardas Konstantinos Koratis

Published online: 30 November 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract The Balance of Nature metaphor is a pervasive idea in ecology. However, the scientic community acknowledged during the last decades that equilibrium conditions are rare, while disturbance events are not uncommon. We suggest that the exclusive teaching of the Balance of Nature metaphor produces cultural, scientic and learning misconceptions about the structure and function of nature. We outline an exemplary educational intervention for high school students to exhibit that the use of computer simulations could serve important educational goals in ecology and environmental education, such as the liberation of the concept of balance of its metaphysic burden, the comprehension of the dynamics and the systemic nature of ecological processes and the appreciation of the mutual relation between society and nature.

1 Introduction It is, nowadays, widely accepted that science education is not just about knowledge construction. On the contrary, it is emphasized that science education should include elements about science, its nature, its methods, as well as its social, ideological and historical aspects (Jordan and Duncan 2009; Matthews 2009). Teaching thus incorporates positions about the epistemological underpinnings of scientic knowledge and shapes the understanding of the nature of science, which enhances students abilities to critically evaluate scientic claims and participate in the debates surrounding scientic developments (McComas 2008; Matthews 2009). Another important aspect held as indispensable for science teaching is the representational elements of scientic knowledge, i.e. the elements which offer ideas of how the world is like. Such representational elements have been called by various names,
T. Hovardas (&) Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly, Argonafton & Filellinon, 38221 Volos, Greece e-mail: hovardas@uth.gr K. Koratis School of Education, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus e-mail: korati@ucy.ac.cy

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stman 1998), worldviews (Matthews 2009), or metaphors such as companion meaning (O (Cooper 2003), and it is argued that they have important consequences for the way in which students look upon and treat nature and other human beings (Koratis et al. 2004). Within the above line of reasoning a growing interest on the representations derived from the science of ecology has appeared in recent years. Ecology, as the science that describes how nature works and how we are interrelated with it, has given power to various metaphors serving as popularizing forms of knowledge which contribute in informing the public about natural mechanisms and processes, such as the Web of Life metaphor, the Mother Nature metaphor and the Balance of Nature metaphor. Greater attention is paid to the Balance of Nature metaphor and its implications for scientic practice, philosophy of science and education (Cooper 2003; Mappin and Johnson 2005; Walter 2008; Ibarra and Gil 2009; Ladle and Gilson 2009). Ecology and the environment comprise an important part of science education curricula in many countries around the world (Koratis et al. 2004; Ross 2007; Ferguson 2008). Furthermore ecology affects the eld of environmental education by providing tools for studying nature and more importantly affecting environmental worldviews (Koratis 2005). However, it is pinpointed that ecological concepts used in educational practice are often out of date, represent incorrect science, while some of them are not derived from science at all (Mappin and Johnson 2005). The result is the generation of misconceptions about ecological concepts not only among students, but among developers, educators and environmental activists as well. Moreover, ecology and environmental studies are presented through the textbooks as descriptive naturalistic activities and not as a scientic enterprise. Students remain unaware of the tools and methods used in ecology, and maintain a generic image that deviates from ecological research in for e.g. the role of control of variables, repeatability, and reliability in non-laboratory settings (Jordan and Duncan 2009). It is argued that this tendency in the presentation of ecology in the media, textbooks etc., creates the conditions for an uncritical transition from the facts of ecology to analogies, metaphors and symbols which present learning obstacles in the frame of science education (Mappin and Johnson 2005). The objective of the present paper is to delineate the Balance of Nature metaphor and demonstrate how this metaphor contributes substantially in the generation of learners misconceptions. Further, we will present the deviation of instruction and curricula content in ecology from modern theoretical and methodological advances within the eld of ecology, and we will try to demonstrate their inability to face learners misconceptions. Next, we will outline an educational intervention for high school students grounded on the management history of the vultures populations in a Greek protected area using ecological models for data analysis and processing. We will show how this intervention can be supported by simulation of population dynamics by using students friendly educational tools, such as the STELLA software. All our positions converge at an attempt to a critical re-appraisal of ecology education and to scaffolding educational practice to cover the gap with the current trends in the science of ecology. Further, we wish to support learners heuristics in investigating dynamic processes when they examine ecological systems. The intervention we are about to propose will hopefully assist in developing critical thinking and supporting environmental literacy.

2 The Balance of Nature Metaphor Metaphors are conceptual representations of the world created by humans in order to be able to account for what the world is (Koratis et al. 2004). To serve their purpose,

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metaphors involve the transfer from a familiar, concrete and clear area of experience to an unexplored, abstract or complex one. Therefore, a metaphor consists of three parts; a target domain, a source domain, and a relation between the target and the source domain (Lakoff 1987). The target domain is unfamiliar and presents the challenge of the metaphor, namely to render the unfamiliar, familiar. The source domain provides an experiential basis and comprises familiar iconic content. Therefore, it is immediately comprehensible. Source and target domain are linked by a mapping where structural similarities between target and source are ltered. The abstract target domain thereby becomes intelligible in terms of its similarities with the concrete and iconic source domain. In this sense, a metaphor is a projection of selected properties of the structure and meaning of the source domain into the target domain (Wagner et al. 1995). Such a projection often leads to an ontologization, where the abstract target domain may be represented as if it was readily perceivable by the senses (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Therefore, metaphors perform a major cognitive function, by being a major process of human understanding, but at the same time an ideological one, by controlling perception (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Environmental metaphors have a strong normative character, by being used as models for human society (Haila and Levins 1992). In the case of the Balance of Nature metaphor which is on the focus of this article, balance belongs to the source domain of the metaphor and nature to the target domain. Thus, the specic metaphor highlights nature as a stable, benecent and ordered force, whereas imbalance is associated with chaotic and unpreferable situations (Koratis et al. 2004). The Balance of Nature metaphor is considered among the oldest and most pervasive ideas in ecology having shaped scientic and environmental management practice (Cooper 2001; Cuddington 2001). It is also one of the oldest ideas of human culture persistent in almost all ancient religions and cosmologies (Worster 1994). In that sense, ecological science and culture were in agreement with each other with respect to views of the world (Jelinski 2005). According to this metaphor, nature is conceptualized in an unchanging balanced state, which is upset any time humans intervene in natural processes (Sander et al. 2006). Natural ecosystems tend towards a point of relative stability. A system in equilibrium tends to resist change and when it is disturbed, natural forces work to return to a point of equilibrium (Des Jardins 2005). The notion of balance was deeply rooted in the prevailing scientic paradigms in ecology during the 20th century, namely ecosystem ecology and population ecology (Kolasa and Pickett 2005; Koratis 2005). Ecosystem ecology focuses on matter cycles and energy ow, where organisms are integrated as producers, consumers or decomposers. On the other hand, population ecology addresses patterns and causes of change in the distribution and abundance of species populations in space and time. According to scientic readings of the term as well as popularized versions of balance, populations and ecosystems have a strategy of self-regulation that is coordinated by a homeostatic system able to respond to positive feedbacks (Cooper 2003). Balance at the population level is related to the fact that populations are considered to be regulated through density dependent mechanisms (Walter 2008). At low population densities, resources are sufcient and population growth is not constrained. As population size increases, however, individuals within the population begin to compete for limited resources and there is a corresponding decrease in the rate of population increase (negative feedback due to the development of intra-specic competition). Eventually, the population stabilizes at a level where resources are used at the same rate as they are supplied (known as the carrying capacity for the given species in the given environment). The above process

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is described by the so-called logistic model of population growth which comprises the cornerstone of population ecology (Kingsland 1995). The issue of balance becomes more complicated as one moves from its simplest application at the population level to the higher-order communities and ecosystems levels (Sarkar 2005). In the case of plant communities, for instance, the dominant vision was that plant communities grow from pre-mature stages to a well-dened climax stage that is considered as an equilibrium point. In this deterministic succession trajectory, disturbance is considered as unnatural, usually as the result of human agency, and its effects would diminish over time as soon as human intervention faded out and the plant community was let to return to balance (Worster 1994; Des Jardins 2005). According to McIntosh (1985), those deterministic and teleological ideas on succession were widely adopted and incorporated by inuential textbooks because the holistic and harmonic messages imbued in the theory of succession made it pedagogically attractive. It is noteworthy that another preeminent ecologist, H. A. Gleason, who has proposed, since the 1920s, an alternative hypothesis for the evolution of plant communities, stating that the process of plant succession is largely accidental and unpredictable, was faced almost as a heretic and his views were largely ignored until the second half of the 20th century (McIntosh 1985; Nicolson 1990). Odum (1959), another well-respected scholar in the eld of ecology, also acknowledged homeostasis as a general trait of biological systems. According to his position, balance in nature was conceptualized as the natural norm whereas change was attributed to unexpected disturbance of ecological systems. According to a prominent interpretation of the Balance of Nature metaphor, the very idea behind the metaphor is that the balance in nature is rarely upset as stability would be achieved and maintained through various feedback mechanisms and cybernetic-like information networks (Jelinski 2005). The only long-lasting disturbances are in fact only the human caused ones. If the disturbance caused by humans is removed, nature is capable of returning to balance due to its self-regulating processes. These beliefs are deeply engrained in the Western perception of nature (Worster 1994) and have been reported as being accepted without question across socio-demographic characteristics: Zimmerman and Cuddington (2007) found out in a survey of college students beliefs concerning the balance of nature that participants tended to believe that balance of nature is a real phenomenon, rather than a merely metaphoric description, as well as that balance is inherent to nature, rather than the result of some specic causal mechanism or biological interactions. What is more, it turned out to be that these ideas did not signicantly change with a semester-long instruction in ecology. In other studies, with participants with totally different demographic characteristics (namely: rural inhabitants of protected areas), it turned out to be that they also tended to adopt an image of a balanced and unchanging nature (Hovardas 2005; Hovardas and Stamou 2006a; Koratis et al. 2009). It is such the faith in the Balance of Nature metaphor and its diffusion in other disciplines outside ecology that the idea of a balanced nature that should not be disturbed by humans is used even in widely accepted questionnaires (e.g., the New Environmental Paradigm questionnaireDunlap et al. 2000) to assess pro-environmental worldviews. As indicated by the comments mentioned above, an important ingredient of the Balance of Nature metaphor is the segregation between society and nature, in the sense that humans are perceived as an external to nature element and as a factor of disturbance. Various social studies have depicted the diffusion of this idea in society (Storey and Oliveira 2004; Ross 2007). Hovardas and Stamou (2006a), for instance, showed that nature was perceived by residents of the DadiaLefkimiSoui Forest National Park in Greece as in contradistinction to society. Namely, human absence was thought as a

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prerequisite of natures authenticity. Examining the representation of visitors of the Dadia LefkimiSoui Forest National Park on the same social object (Hovardas and Stamou 2006b), it was found that they shaped nature on the basis of an idyllic scenery, where humans were allowed to enter only as observers. Based on these studies, iconic features of balance and nature are totally compatible with the specications of the Balance of Nature metaphor as it was described in textbooks. The Balance of Nature metaphor has been frequently used by proponents of the ecological movement to advance nature conservation (Mappin and Johnson 2005). Often environmentalists have applied the Balance of Nature metaphor to promote a supposed pristine state of ecosystems. For instance, the Balance of Nature metaphor can legitimize any effort to remove human inuence such as domestic grazing and low intensity res (Jelinski 2005). Preservationists assume that biological assemblages will tend towards stability and will thus remain unchanged if disturbance is prevented (Ladle and Gilson 2009). In this regard, any disturbance is perceived as originating from human intervention. Non-intervention and freedom from human interference are thus management ideals for preservationists. Under the motto leave nature untouched, environmental management enterprises in many cases strived to impose a supposed stability (Haila and Levins 1992; Fall 2002; Robbins 2004). For many environmentalists, such a clear-cut separation between nature and society is promoted by the designation of protected areas and will allow nature to take its course and self-regulate its processes under the spirit of the Balance of Nature metaphor (Hovardas 2005). Environmental managers strived to restore natural conditions that supposedly have existed before they were disturbed by human activities (Wood 2000). This separatist doctrine guided the environmental management agenda in the 1980s, where primary sector activities were seen as incompatible with nature conservation, which led to harsh park-people conicts (Hovardas and Stamou 2006a). Quite paradoxically, the dualist position that matched society against nature was invalidated by the very history of protected areas. An elucidating example was the suppression of re in US forests, in order to prevent disturbance and thereby maintain a supposed balance in forest ecosystems. The result of this choice was an accumulation of biomass that eventuated in severe res which, unlike controlled burns of low intensity, caused severe degradation of the forest ecosystem (Kolasa and Pickett 2005).

3 Changing Scientic Paradigm in Ecology Since the 1980s, a more dynamic vision of the natural world has been gaining ground in the scientic community (Jelinski 2005). It became increasingly acknowledged that equilibrium conditions are rare, and that disturbance events are so common that most ecological systems are unlikely to reach any balanced stage (Pickett et al. 1994; Wu and Loucks 1995). Ecosystems came to be recognized as inherently dynamic and heterogeneous, presenting multiple equilibria, stochastic processes, and destabilizing forces, where there is no unique natural state to return to if a perturbation occurs (Des Jardins 2005; Kolasa and Pickett 2005). At present, ecological practice pays more attention to the consideration of heterogeneity, the consideration of spatial and temporal scales and the study of the effects of disturbances. At the same time the Balance of Nature metaphor has been criticised as unproductively vague and non-representative of ecological systems (Zimmerman and Cuddington 2007). The most important outcome of the new trend in ecological research is that balance is considered not as an organizing principle of nature,

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but as the result of materialistic forces acting under specic conditions and specic temporal and spatial scales, and in any case there is no single or persistent balance of nature (Pickett et al. 1994; Kolasa and Pickett 2005). This shift has profound implications for environmental management as well. If nature is dynamic, changing and complex, then conservation goals need to be responsive to such a complexity; maintaining stability at a historically derived optimum prior to human intervention may no longer be legitimate (Grumbine 1997; Wu and Loucks 1995). Gradually, environmental management priorities acknowledged the compatibility of agricultural practices for biodiversity conservation (Kati and Sekercioglu 2006) and highlighted the need for local peoples participation in protected areas governance (Hovardas and Poirazidis 2007). The shift towards a managerial approach seeking a balance between environmental conservation and sustainable development has been well documented in the recent conservationist literature (Hovardas and Koratis 2008). Further, conservation decisions must often be made while information is incomplete and management outcomes uncertain. Management has therefore to be developed as an iterative process, while its effects have to be continuously assessed and fed back into a continuous decision-making system (Ladle and Gilson 2009). Despite the fact that the Flux of Nature metaphor is a better approximation of contemporary scientic consensus, there has been virtually no use of this metaphor outside the scientic community, for instance in the news media (Ladle and Gilson 2009). The public representation of conservation is still lagging far behind ecological advances and is centered on simplistic messages of preventing change in order to preserve natures fragile balance (Ladle and Gilson 2009).

4 The Need for a Change in Instruction and Curricula in Ecology At school, we continue to teach and learn the Balance of Nature metaphor as a fundamental axiom of ecology, despite the many criticisms it received in the scientic community (Gough 2002; Jelinski 2005; Ibarra and Gil 2009; Koratis 2005). Simplistic assumptions about nature being imbued with restorative properties, self-regulated stability, appropriate and inappropriate states, or delicate and easily disturbed conditions as well as other unintended cultural, religious or historical meanings of the Balance of Nature metaphor could potentially hinder the learning of ecosystem concepts across the curriculum (Zimmerman and Cuddington 2007). A growing body of research provides evidence of the misconceptions that the Balance of Nature metaphor produces about the structure and function of ecological systems (Jelinski 2005; Ibarra and Gil 2009). More specically, the learning of ecological concepts may be hindered by students assumptions about causality in ecological systems (Grotzer and Basca 2003). Linear causality prevails in learners heuristics when addressing processes in complex dynamic systems (Assaraf and Orion 2005; Raia 2008; Demetriou et al. 2009). The metaphor of the balance of nature enforces misconceptions and learning difculties since it promotes teleological ideas (i.e., nature tends to balance) and simple linear causality (i.e., the natural course of systems eventuates in balance and any divergence from balance leads to destruction). For instance, the view that it still prevailing in much public discourse for prey-predator systems is that predators and prey are related in a mutual and synergetic partnership, under which they can coexist harmoniously (Jelinski 2005). Because of their belief on the balance of nature, students may have great difculty in accepting that predatorprey interactions may lead to extinction of populations, or that

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large population oscillations can lead to random changes in populations size. Indeed, randomness should be regarded as the most expected drift within population dynamics, rather than harmonic uctuations around some uniform average density (Zimmerman and Cuddington 2007). It seems that the Balance of Nature metaphor could act as a learning obstacle, which prevents scientic knowledge to be established even after specialized instruction (Zimmerman and Cuddington 2007). In the same manner, an urgent need for changing instruction and curricula in environmental education refers to the call for public participation in environmental management and protected area governance. In order for stakeholder groups to contribute effectively in conservation policy and practice, it is essential that scientic information about variability and ux, including the limitations and uncertainties of the scientic claims involved, is discussed (Koratis et al. 2009). A summary list of learners misconceptions and corresponding educational goals regarding the balance of nature is presented in Table 1.
Table 1 Learners misconceptions based on the Balance of Nature metaphor and objectives of the educational intervention proposed Topic Number of points where nature is found in a balanced state Balance as an aim of environmental management or nature conservation Balance conceptualized as in contradistinction to change Misconceptions There is only one point where nature can be found in a balance state Objectives There can be more than one balance points, which might have different consequences for population dynamics Balance in the case of unstable equilibria is not desired, since it is related to the possibility of the population to go extinct Balance in population dynamics is dened as the state at which net rate of change in population density is zero; demographic events continue to be recorded

Balance is always desired as a state of nature

Balance in nature presupposes the absence of change

Balance vs. change as a rule in nature Humans vs. nature as the cause of imbalance

Balance in nature is permanent unless Balance is impermanent and transient; nature is disturbed by humans the rule in nature is change, which can sometimes lead to balance Imbalance is always the result of human intervention Both balance and imbalance can be the result of natural mechanisms; humans are not the only cause of imbalance in nature

Reasoning concerning cause and effect in ecological phenomena Conceptualization of protected areas

Nature is equal to balance of nature Balance is not synonymous to nature itself; balance is a state that can be explained by causal mechanisms such as the Allee effect Protected areas comprise refuges of intact nature, where nature is left undisturbed to take its course Protected areas comprise areas of regulated land uses where ecological phenomena undergo causal mechanisms based on the mutual relation between society and nature

If intact nature is left undisturbed by Viable population sizes are not Dualist vs. dialectic guaranteed by some intact nature; position on the interplay humans, viable population sizes of they are facilitated by specic causal endangered species are guaranteed between society and mechanisms based on the mutual nature relation between society and nature

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Development of critical thinking is recognized as a pressing need in both science education and environmental education (Slingsby and Barker 2003; Miri et al. 2007). Applying a critical approach in ecology would lead to questioning very crucial assumptions of the environmental discourse, such as the Balance of Nature metaphor, images of an unchanging nature as well as images of humanity being the only cause of upsetting the natures balance. Environmental educators should acknowledge that nature is continuously produced and re-produced by society both as physical reality as well as mental repre -Peuralahti 2003; Bonta 2005). We have to appreciate humanity and sentation (Yliskyla nature as shaping each other (Evanoff 2005): human societies constitute and are constituted by nature. Critical thinking should involve critical judgment of scientic knowledge (Bailin 2002), which should be expanded to ecology as well. Critical thinking should also acknowledge the plurality and context-dependency of any scientic framework, including ecology (Koratis 2005). We maintain that both science education and environmental education could benet from a critical approach targeting ecology. Such an approach should involve questioning takenfor-granted images, like the Balance of Nature metaphor, studying the history of balance as a notion within the discipline, and examining the current degree of consensus within the scientic community regarding the notion of balance. Van Weelie and Wals (2002) proposed the use of ill-dened concepts (e.g., biodiversity) as the organizing principle of their instruction to show the normative character of such concepts. Accordingly, treating the balance of nature as an ill-dened concept should be the overarching principle of educational interventions designed to facilitate a critical approach in the eld of ecology. In what follows we describe an exemplary educational intervention for high school students, trying to show that ecology as a discipline can offer a variety of means to restructure the teaching of ecology and that the task is to properly introduce them in the curriculum. Our proposal is based on the following facts: The science of ecology provides models suitable for educational purposes (for instance the Allee model, which is discussed in the following educational intervention). A sufcient number of modeling and simulation tools has been developed for educational purposes, which allows the suitable transformation of scientic models in forms easy for students to grasp, as well as the elaboration of data in a friendly for students manner (for example the software STELLA, which is proposed in the present article). A great array of easily accessible real world cases exists, which are considered more attractive for learners to deal with (for instance the case of the protected area of the Dadia Forest, which we study in the present example). Last, but not least, educational research has developed scientic inquiry learning processes that help students to actively explore scientic concepts and processes, rather than passively receiving an authoritys explanation.

5 Vulture Population in a Protected Area as an Exemplary Case for Scrutinizing the Balance of Nature Metaphor 5.1 Objectives of the Educational Intervention The proposed intervention is targeted at high school students, since it corresponds to the educational level where the ecological concepts included in the proposed learning activities

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are taught. Further, high school students gain the necessary mathematical background needed for elaborating ecological models and their computer simulations (NRC 1996; McComas 2002; Wilensky and Reisman 2006; Jungck et al. 2010). The aims of the proposed intervention are to help high school students to: Acknowledge that there can be more than one balance points, which might have different consequences for population dynamics. Recognize that balance in nature is not permanent but impermanent and transient. By studying the Allee effect, as we will outline below, learners should be able to discern cause and effect in discussing the dynamics of ecological phenomena and, consequently, to better comprehend the systemic nature of natural phenomena and processes. Comprehend that both balance and imbalance can be the result of natural mechanisms, as well as of human intervention, and that humans are not the only cause of imbalance in nature. Moreover, protected areas should be perceived by learners not as refuges of intact nature but as places where land uses are regulated and ecological phenomena undergo causal mechanisms based on the mutual relation between society and nature. 5.2 Allee Effects and Multiple Equilibria in Nature The ecologist W.C. Allee (1931) was one of the rst who explored the ecological signicance of animal aggregations, and, because of this, the positive, at low population density, relationship between population density and the reproduction and survival of individuals, which is known as the Allee effect. According to the Allee effect, a small population is in fact in a very unstable situation which could cost its extinction. Allee introduced a hump-shaped relationship that occurs between per capita growth rates and population sizes in the case of populations whose dynamics are determined by the Allee effect. Figure 1 depicts the birth and death rate curves of such a population. The birth and death rate curves cross at two points, which signify two types of equilibrium. At low population sizes, departure from Nt1 causes centrifugal trends: populations that drop below this critical threshold go extinct (death rate higher than birth rate), whereas increased density leads again away from Nt1 towards larger population sizes (birth rate higher than death rate). Such a threshold value is the dynamical manifestation of an unstable equilibrium (Stephens et al. 1999). In biological and ecological terms, the risky situation of a small population could be explained as a result of, for e.g., the difculties of individuals to nd mates, or of the effectiveness of larger (up to a point) bird ocks to detect and face predators, etc. (Stephens et al. 1999; Penteriani et al. 2008). In the case of the Allee effect, the density of a population at the unstable equilibrium point is known as critical density and the Nt1 equilibrium point is also called a threshold because it separates two different kinds of dynamic behavior (i.e. growth from extinction). The situation is reversed at larger population sizes, where departure from Nt2 generates centripetal trends that restore density at the point of departure. Therefore, Nt2 is characterized as a stable equilibrium. The Allee effect, and the explanatory schema behind it, has proved very helpful in describing real world situations and planning conservation measures of small populations as usually are the populations of rare species and of species in protected areas (Hurford et al. 2006; Penteriani et al. 2008). Besides, the Allee effect is a quite proper theme for

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educational purposes as well, since it is a phenomenon quite simple to study and interpret, both in biological terms and in terms of its mathematic elaboration. 5.3 The Vulture Population in the Protected Area of the DadiaLefkimiSoui Forest National Park The DadiaLefkimiSoui Forest National Park is a protected area situated in northeastern Greece, established in 1980. The protected area was later included among the Greek NATURA 2000 sites. Dadia is most known for its raptor fauna; thirty-six out of thirty-eight European raptor species can be observed in the reserve. The conservation of the Black Vulture (Aegypius monachus) is the central subject of forest management in the region (Poirazidis et al. 2004). The Black Vulture is considered a globally endangered species; Greece is the only south-eastern European country holding a breeding population. The numbers of this large scavenger showed a dramatic decrease through the last century, zar 2005). The reasons reaching extinction in most of its former range (Carrete and Dona for this decline have been breeding habitat loss and a decrease of food availability paired with changes in livestock-raising practices (Hallmann 1998). Black Vultures in Dadia faced a shortage of feeding sources, primarily due to a substantial decline in animal husbandry as well as a decrease of the total surface of forest openings, which are of critical importance for the maintenance of their foraging habitat. This was coupled with an increase in the density of forest road network, which inuenced vulture populations adversely, along with hunting and illegal poisoning. The population of the Black Vulture in Dadia increased steadily since 1987, when a feeding station was established in the big core of the protected area. While the population in 1980 amounted to no more than 10 breeding pairs, the maximum number of birds last counted in the reserve is around 90 birds, including more than 25 breeding pairs (Skartsi 2002). Vultures nest within the cores of the reserve (Poirazidis et al. 2004). By providing food supplement in a vulture feeding table and conserving the nesting and foraging habitat of black vultures, birds were conned within the core areas of the reserve. Since population sizes are a function of area, this led to an increase in the population density of the species in the local area, despite the fact that the number of vultures in the region remained unchanged. Obviously, this had a crucial effect: if the species in the 1980s had been close to the threshold of a viable population size, the forest management regime shifted Black Vultures from unstable to stable equilibria. Namely, the concentration of the same number of vultures in lesser area (i.e., core areas) caused the population size of the species in Dadia to move from Nt1 towards Nt2 (Fig. 1). Interestingly, this change was induced not by enlarging the reserve or creating corridors; it was zoning and the connement of vultures in core areas, which led to the recovery of their population density.

Fig. 1 The Allee effect. A1 and A2 represent equilibrium points for population densities Nt1 and Nt2 respectively

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5.4 Modelling Vulture Populations with Computer Simulations It is stated that the use of computer modelling tools in science instruction can be the key to the development of an understanding of natural systems and their behavior (Wilensky and Reisman 2006). Modelling-based learning engages students in using models for exploration, prediction, and knowledge construction (Papadouris and Constantinou 2009). The purpose of modelling is to conceptualize the target domain and predict its behavior. In this regard, pedagogical scenarios emphasize the development of epistemological and metacognitive awareness about models and the modelling process. Data gathered through simulation runs are contrasted to expected results. A further contribution associated with the modelling capacity pertains to the development of systems thinking, where students are given the opportunity to observe how changes in individual components of a system affect the behavior of the remaining components and the system as a whole (Evagorou et al. 2009). Concerning the case presented in this article, populations that undergo dynamics determined by the Allee effect can be modeled by means of educational simulation programs such as STELLA (High Performance Systems 1984). STELLA allows a population to be reconstructed as a dynamic system. Learners construct the model of the population in the map layer of the computer environment (Fig. 2). They denote the population size by a stock (i.e., quadrate). Total number of births and deaths are represented by ows (i.e., stopcocks). Converters (i.e., cycles) stand for birth and death rates. Connectors (i.e., arrows) are used to denote the relationships between parameters. For instance, the total number of births is equal to the product of population size and birth rate. In the equation layer, learners create a list of all equations that make up their model. Then, they

Fig. 2 A model created by the STELLA software depicting a population, whose dynamics are determined by the Allee effect

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proceed to simulations of selected variables. Using real data from vulture populations of the Dadia Forest, students can nd out which population size represents the unstable equilibrium point for the population and which the stable one. They are able to investigate the conditions that protected populations underwent during the past and to evaluate the conservation measures. They are also able to check how easily the population can depart from the unstable population point even with minor changes in the rate of births or deaths. At the same time they will discover how much more resilient to changes is a population when its size corresponds to the stable equilibrium point. In this regard, learners can examine changes in the population size acknowledging the existence of different types of balance, comprehending the dynamic character of processes that create balanced situations and exploring negative and positive feedbacks in closed loops of causality.

6 Conclusions As Kolasa and Pickett (2005) pointed out in their article about the changing academics perspectives in ecology:
most scientists are comfortable with the notion that few things are certain and that scientic understanding is constantly evolving. The public, on the other hand, seems very uncomfortable with uncertainty and very eager to view science as unchanging fact.Nevertheless, bridging this gap may be one of the most important tasks ahead for education (Kolasa and Pickett 2005, p. 61).

In the present article we stated that the Balance of Nature metaphor has produced cultural, scientic and learning misconceptions about the structure and function of nature. The faith on that kind of metaphor is reinforced by the fact that ecology is mostly taught in schools as a kind of natural history, not following any scientic method and without the provision of any scientic tool. Teaching ecology requires a pluralistic and complete picture of the important traits of the discipline such as the scientic method(s) that ecology implements with rigor and devotion. Ecology has developed from what once regarded as natural history into a science with a rich array of theories, concepts and models and this image should be embodied in educational processes (McIntosh 1985; Slingsby and Barker 2003). We propose that the use of tools such as computer simulations accompanied with real data could serve important educational goals in ecology and environmental education, such as the liberation of the concept of balance of its metaphysic burden, the comprehension of the dynamics and the systemic nature of ecological processes and the appreciation of the mutual relation between society and nature. Addressing patterns of change in educational theory and practice would better satisfy the scope of science and environmental education. However, attempts to implement in educational practice a science-critical approach in ecology have been extremely limited. Especially for environmental education, the reluctance of the eld for a critical re-appraisal and teaching of ecology renders itself inconsistent with its own declarations concerning criticism of modern science (Koratis 2005). To cover this gap, the educational intervention we outlined focuses on the paradigm of population ecology and presents a critical revisit of the Balance of Nature metaphor. Following the exemplary case of the Dadia LefkimiSoui Forest National Park messages promoted through environmental education should focus on the interplay between society and nature (Hovardas and Stamou 2006b). Environmental education programs should not be conned to mere descriptions of

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biodiversity; instead, they should address the compatibility of certain types of human interventions in concrete spatial and temporal contexts with environmental conservation (Hovardas 1999). For instance, ecotourism development could compensate locals for income lost due to the implementation of environmental management measures, provided that natural and social carrying capacities are not overridden (Hovardas 2010). Moreover, since the decline of primary sector activities might allow forests to expand over open spaces and lead to reduced habitat heterogeneity and biodiversity indices, park managers might support grazing, logging, and agricultural practices in order to create and maintain clearings in the forest (Catsadorakis et al. 2010). The ability to discuss these types of synergies is crucial for developing critical thinking to support environmental literacy and create a politically informed public able to handle complex environmental issues.

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