From Fairy Tales to Science

The stage is now set for an ongoing series of learnings - not rote memorization, but learning that is based on process, integration, imagination, context, emotion, and teams. As children move forward from the fairy tale, they can begin to apply systems thinking to real world problems. As this occurs, the need for deeper learning in multiple disciplines will become evident. The stage is set for further inquiry and learning, and it is likely that the child will be eager for this deeper and more specific learning. Because the ZERI fairy tales include realities based on science, the child no longer has to walk away from his childhood dreams at age 8 or 9 - the dreams can continue, and can become ever more deeply involved in the child's further learning.

As the child begins to learn lessons of ecology, the relationships between the five kingdoms and their ecosystems will become part of the evolving dream for the future. It will be part of the design parameters for any idea and initiative the children, now adolescents will imagine.

The five design principles of nature become apparent when we study the 5 kingdoms of nature, and when we analyze the results of our trials and errors made when implementing pioneering zeri projects:

1. Waste of a species is always a nutrient or an energy source for a species belonging to another kingdom.
2. Whatever is a toxin produced by one species, it is always a nutrient or an energy source for a species belonging to another kingdom.
3. Whenver there is a virus threatening the life of a living species, that virus has no chance of survival in species belonging to at least 2 other kingdoms.
4. The more local, the more diverse, the more productive, the more resilient
5. When species from all 5 kingdoms live and work together, they will integrate and separate all matter at ambient temperature and presure.

Download the .doc file of the five basic laws of waste management.

This learning feeds the child's dreams of reinventing the world, and leads to the desire to learn more. Today's typical adolescent resentment of the adult world, and of all of the ways in which that world does not make sense, is replaced by a sense of empowerment.

As the student moves from fairy tales that teach systems, to thinking of systems from a more scientific standpoint, some of the projects that ZERI has developed around the world can become part of the curriculum. Shown below is a ZERI flowchart for the coffee crop in Colombia, which responds to coffee farmers´ needs. This one becomes in one of the best examples of an open system.