Page 228 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

202 D. Karrow and X. Fazio

lamenting some arbitrary “fall from grace.” There is no moralizing tendency behind
our argument. Rather we delve into the meaning of human existence and its relation
with place as we currently experience it. Before concluding this section, it is necessary
to introduce our conception of PBE. Although we have already argued for a
conception of place-as-being, we articulate how this might relate to education.
Meanings of place-as-land, place-as-community, or place-as-diversity share a
commonality. They each approach the object of place from the standpoint of a
subject, an irresistible modern habit. We wish, through our conception of PBE to
dissolve this tendency by advocating for a blurring of the object/subject distinc-
tion. This is accomplished, we believe, in a couple of ways. First, our philosophi-
cal position, hermeneutic phenomenology, is premised upon erasing subject/
object dichotomies. Second, the language we choose to “name” our conception of
PBE is distinctly different. “Educating-within-place” appears hyphenated in an
effort to convey a sense of ongoingness, intimacy, imbeddedness, the active,
inevitable, evocation of the possible. Also, we hedge against using the word “edu-
cation” as a noun as if something has occurred opting instead for “educating” as
a verb, in an effort to convey the sense as described previously. Conveying a sense
of the education’s dynamism Fox (1983) adds: “Education is ek-static, a move-
ment beyond what already is, a reaching out to the new life around us in a way
that keeps open the possibility ‘that people of this precious Earth ... may live’ ”
(p. 9). Our use of language, in this way, may seem strange and peculiar; however,
it is not without precedence. Speaking of the unusual character of Heidegger’s
language, of some influence on us, Abram (1997) notes: “[H]e [Heidegger] is
trying to avoid the use of nouns, of nominative forms that would freeze the tem-
poral flux” (p. 212). All in all, educating-within-place is the conceptual structure
reflecting the continual, ongoing, intermingling, and complex phenomenon
3
between place, being, and educating. It is not something acted upon a place,
rather something that occurs within place.

NatureWatch and Place-Based Education

To this point, we have introduced NatureWatch as an example of a citizen science
program, explored various meanings of place and their influence upon PBE theory,
and advocated for a conception of place-as-being to foreground the ontological
realm within PBE theory. We now wish to illustrate the degree to which
NatureWatch, as it is typically implemented, reflects aspects of current PBE theory.
We recognize that in its existing form, NatureWatch does instill rudimentary experi-
ences around place. There are, however, other place experiences of the ontological

3 Our intent within this chapter is not to provide an account of the derivation of educating-within-
place, but to elaborate theory around PBE by considering ontological realms. For a more detailed
account of its origin, see D. D. Karrow (2003).