Page 109 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

86 K. Love et al.

Ecojustice offers a holistic philosophy and framework for science education such
that the consequences of living near a landfill or Superfund site can be defended as
morally and ethnically wrong.
As I see it, there are at least three major arguments in Roth’s work. First, local
science matters. Second, local experiences with nature trump classroom science
experiences, and third, a marriage between the former and latter arguments seamlessly
weaves together a so-called sense of place. Consider the following. I can imagine a
child spending their childhood summers pulling up stones in a frequently visited
stream to find a crayfish. While the child may not know it at the time, he or she is
doing a solid “Explore Phase” of the 5Es Learning Cycle that will come in handy
during a habitat unit for school curriculum designed around the local community at
some future date (Lawson 2001). This scenario is only one of many extracurricular
experiences that a child will pull from in order to understand the conception, habitat.
And, while this experience may well have been completed during a summer vaca-
tion, it is still nonetheless an experience.
However, for more than a decade now, the constant and growing pressure from
high-stakes testing consistently displaces these types of authentic learning experi-
ences (pulling up stones in streams to locate a crayfish) as Roth describes, not only
on a backburner, but more effectively “removing the pan completely off the stove!”
Ecojustice theory reminds us to focus on places where nature still has a strong influ-
ence and where people are more likely to understand natural processes. Ecojustice
also reminds us to embrace local inhabitants, to understand science in ways that will
bind our communities together. When students find themselves in a science class-
room, the connections between experiences they have and science competency
become stronger than connections made by students in more abstract settings that do
not have the same strong influence of these more natural experiences.
Living in rural areas, Roth argues, does not have to hinder high-quality science
education. Frozen ocean, estuary, the need for fuel, and fishing, have numerous
scientific competencies associated with them. Roth richly describes the diverse,
natural world that exists in remote or more rurally developed areas. Observable
natural-world phenomena abound in these settings! Designing a rural-school cur-
riculum that uses the platform of local science important to students makes sense
intuitively and can be elaborated to have roots in Vygotskian “constructivism”
(1978). A science teacher recognizing this idea can use the context of a local stream
where students fish to logically produce a sense of motivation from the students’
vantage point and build on what these students construct as a meaningful experi-
ence. While living with nature’s bounty and using that living experience to explore
the natural world aids in students’ finding that “sense of place,” the very cultures
and traditions of the communities where they live should also be considered as rela-
tive reasons for the full development of this tremendous sense of place.
Many cultural groups that never moved into urban settings have longer histories
of respect for their land. Native Americans, for example, and of course with few
exceptions, embrace the natural rhythms developed with a deep connection with the
land to survive the pollution of Hagan Creek, as Roth describes it. This example is
one of a community with a more limited voice who “pay” for the benefit of a few.