Page 106 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

Chapter 7
Engaging the Environment: Relationships
of Demography, EcoJustice, and Science Teacher

Education in Response to Wolff-Michael Roth

Kurt Love, Teddie Phillipson Mower, and Peter Veronesi

Kurt: Wolff-Michael Roth provides a valuable description and analysis of students
working in their own community to be part of a democratic, ecologically based
dialogue. At the core of this community activism is a movement away from top-down
traditional teaching practices, or even liberal/progressive teaching practices that
steer students toward the “right” answer, one that is often decontextualized from the
students’ own natural, social, and cultural communities. As community activism is
inferred, this type of teaching, namely, using one’s community as the curriculum,
is a real and necessary departure from a curriculum that exists everywhere and
nowhere. This begs the question of how future science teachers can be prepared and
how current science teachers can be supported to develop teaching practices that are
strongly rooted in connections between science, culture, social hegemonic struc-
tures, and ecological identities. A question follows. During a time when science
education is often specifically named in political rhetoric to developing more workers
in science-related fields largely driven by corporate agendas and ultimately the
profit motive, how can science teacher educators and science teachers create an
effective learning experience that is not significantly overcome with corporate and
political motives?
Teddie: In his chapter, Roth states that he comes to know about ecojustice and
place-based (science) education not through a doomsday perspective, but from an
emotional attachment of caring, which he describes. This sensitivity emerged when
Roth was a child and was reinforced throughout his life, through interactions with
physical and social environments. Traditionally, environmental educators intui-
tively subscribe to the myth that environmentally appropriate behavior begins with
knowledge of the environment, which in turn, leads to awareness and then action.

K. Love
Central Connecticut State University
T.P. Mower
Louisville University
P. Veronesi
Brockport University

D.J. Tippins et al. (eds.), Cultural Studies and Environmentalism, 83
Cultural Studies of Science Education Vol. 3, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3929-3_7,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010