United States Distance Learning Association

to participate and share and exchange
and learn more rapidly.… Now with
these interactive linked tools we have the
opportunity for all individuals to become
engaged.… With this new opportunity to
link and share, the solutions, technically,
financially, economically I think are there,
but we need to seize these opportunities.
(Totten, 2006)
The reach of IT-based distance learning
also allows for the relative ease of inclusion
of instructors and materials from a broad
base of international learning institutions
and perspectives. Especially since the promotion
of Agenda 21 at the Earth Summit in
1992, (United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development, 1992), educational
institutions worldwide are becoming
involved with integrating environmental
concerns and issues into a broad range of
programs and course materials. The
instructional technologies and reach
allowed by computer-mediated distance
learning is of particular value in environmental
studies, the urgency of which
require an integrated, cross-disciplinary
approach reaching a diversity of learners
across borders of time and geography.
At the Oceanographic Center of Nova
Southeastern University, we offer an
online MS in coastal zone management, a
graduate certificate in coastal studies and,
together with Nova’s Fischler School of
Education, an online MS in education with
specialization in environmental education.
The Oceanographic Center has also
received approval to offer an online graduate
certificate in marine and coastal climate
change. Since the mid-1980s, I have taught
a range of e-learning courses on environment
and development issues to students
ranging in age from undergraduates and
graduates to “Third Age” (retirees) and
every stage in-between (adult learners,
working professionals). The students have
been based primarily within the United
States and Canada, but also within Europe,
Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
As Pretorius (2004) points out,
Since distance education allows students
to stay in their jobs while studying, there
is the opportunity for applying what is
learnt immediately. Given the urgency
with which environmental problems
should be attended to, especially in developing
countries, this synergy between
what is learnt and what is done in practice
is of particular importance. (p. 65)
As an example of how e-learning allows
for an immediacy of response across a
range of borders and cultures, one of my
online environmental policy courses
included a student based in the United
Arab Emirates (UAE). At the start of a unit,
she posted a message that there had been
an oil spill off the Persian Gulf coast. Students
pressed for more details, and she was
able to provide little information. The UAE
is a federation of seven emirates and not
much was being said in official circles. She
had heard rumors that the spill had come
from a pirate barge associated with the
embargo on oil from Iraq. A North American
student asked her why she didn’t go to
the library. She explained that as a female
in the UAE, she was only allowed into a
very restricted area of the library.
Asynchronous questions and discussion
soon came thick and fast, and in the
process students explored gender equity,
distributions of power, the reality of ability
to influence policy and take action for nongovernmental
organizations in different
parts of the world, a powerful illustration
of the direct experience of an oil spill (as
she sent us daily bulletins from progress
“on the front”), implications of embargoes
and blockades, and a host of related issues,
sometimes with gentle prodding and guidance
on my part to make sure that things
stayed “on track” in terms of environmental
policy perspectives. If this was a pirate
barge, where was the oil going What did
the students use oil for in their daily lives
Could they trace its route to their homes
Another student had colleagues who had
worked on the Exxon Valdez clean-up, and
shared their experiences, insights, and sug-
Volume 4, Issue 4 Distance Learning 37