May/June 1984 RAIN Page 13 ACCESS: Environment and Learning Do It with the Sun; A Multidisciplinary Curriculum on Energy with Emphasis on Solar Energy, by Edith Shedd and Alan Shedd, 1982, 207 pp., inquire for price from: Integrated Energy Systems Route 2, Box 61A1 Monroe, GA 30655 This solar energy curriculum consists of seven units: Solar Energy: Today's Technology, History of the Use of Solar Energy, Mythology of the Sun, Astronomy, The Physics of Energy, Energy Alternatives, and The Problems of Energy. The curriculum is designed so that teachers can start and end with any unit they like. Units consist of a student information section and text, a glossary, activities, and a teacher's guide. The teacher's guide provides the teacher with objectives, additional suggestions for activities, and a cross- reference of activities indexed by subject area and by the cognitive and affective skills they reinforce. The technical information presented in the student sections provides students with a working knowledge of solar energy. Several activities have students apply what they have learned by considering solar designs and applications to the classroom and school, as well as developing crossword puzzles, flash cards, and the like. The text seems to be written for upper-junior-high-school or high-school students, whereas the activities seem to be designed for fifth- and sixth-grade students. These units would be best used by high-school students, with the teacher upgrading the activities. My major concern with the Do It with the Sun curriculum involves the historical account of the use of solar energy and the mythology of the sun. The historical accounts consider invention and use only by Greek, Roman, Italian, German, French, and Arnerican cultures. They give minor attention to Third World countries' use of solar energy. If the curriculum would provide students with more information about cultures already neglected in historical accounts, it could develop a much-needed awareness and deeper respect for other cultures. My second concern with the curriculum is the poor representation of women as participants in the development of religious ceremonies, customs, culture, and technology. Both genders must be introduced and referred to; read the following statements and think of the first images that come to mind: "his need to have answers" or "part of his culture" versus "the people had a need for answers" and "part of their culture." Many educational projects are successfully addressing both genders in text and illustration. This lack is a major weakness of Do It with the Sun. In reading the historical accounts, I began to question not this curriculum but appropriate technology: How will we represent the history of A.T.? Although A.T. may empower people with a technology that will give them more "self- reliance," if we ignore contributions and misrepresent the past, we will be cutting people off from the power of their heritage. —SL Settling Things, by Allan R. Talbot, 1983, 101 pp., $10.50 ppd. from; The Conservation Foundation 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Settling Things provides a rare glimpse at how mediation was used to resolve six volatile environmental disputes. ■ In the Hudson Highlands of upstate New York, environmentalists, sport fishermen, public agencies, and utility companies waged a 20-year battle over plans to build a hydroelectric power station at Storm King Mountain. ■ In a small town in Wisconsin, residents were up in arms over a decision to locate a neighboring town's garbage-disposal site in their backyards. ■ In Port Townsend, Washington, old- timers and new residents fought over the proposed site of a ferry terminal. ■ A small Maine coastal community battled a small-hydro entrepreneur over how to regulate the water levels of the lake that it was dependent upon. ■ The city of Bellingham, Washington, was involved in a dispute over access to proposed park property through the Lummi Indian Reservation. ■ On the east side of Seattle, three communities disputed the location and uses of a new interstate highway. In each case, a mediator met, first separately and then jointly, with the contending parties, helped each side to understand the other's point of view, and worked with them to negotiate a compromise that all sides could live with. Talbot's study was commissioned by the Ford Foundation, which for many years encouraged the use of third-party mediation to resolve various environmental, social, institutional, and community conflicts. Since 1974, the foundation has granted some $2.2 million for efforts to apply the mediaton process to environmental disputes. To institutionalize mediation as a way of handling such conflicts, the foundation helped to establish the Institute for Environmental Mediation in Seattle and the New England Environmental Mediation Center in Boston. This fine report not only clearly and concisely documents the events of each dispute, it also describes the strategies used and the many problems encountered in each case. —TJ Than lames, who lives in Maine, ivas a RAIN intern in fall 1983. The City ofHermits, by Gina Covina, 1983, 219 pp., $7.75 from: Bam Owl Books 1101 Keeler Avenue Berkeley, CA 94708 I've read many boring pontifications that say that to survive we humans must rediscover nature religions and perceive other species as being as valuable as we are. This book presents those truths not as ideas but as experiences, and it isn't boring at all. It's friendly and funny, easy to read, extremely well written, playful, and has some good sex. It also has horses and redwoods and ferns and a hermit who really knows how to kiss and the Curls and Swirls Beauty Salon and a great big earthquake. 1 like The City ofHermits a lot and think everybody in the world should read it, especially you. —Anne Herbert Amje Herbert, who lives in California, writes the Rising Sun Neighborhood Newsletter.
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