Page 295 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

Chapter 21
River Advocacy: Valuing Complex Systems
as the Groundwork for River Relationships

Tina Williams Pagan

The students reach a small, flowing stream that dissects a forest trail behind the school; this
day is like many others as Ms. Douglas’ high-school environmental science students collect
water-quality data as part of a long-term, student-led stream monitoring project.
Upon arriving at the stream, Steve immediately catches sight of a large crawfish moving
near a rock in the streambed and shouts, “Look, can I catch it and have it for dinner?” The
class laughs as each group opens their water-quality test kits. The initial excitement for
collecting monthly water-quality data has subsided, and the private group conversations
that once revolved around the stream morph into basketball and dating talk. When asked
who wants to put on waders and collect aquatic invertebrates using nets, the group goes
silent. Ms. Douglas calls on a student. Susan puts on the waders in a less-than eager fashion
and does as she is told. After returning to the bank with stream leaf packs, a few students
bend down and begin to sort through the debris for the presence of macroinvertebrates.
After an hour, with biological and chemical data jotted on their papers, the students leave
the forest and return to their classroom.
Environmental educators commonly make use of stream studies to develop their
students’ understanding of the interrelationships of the natural world and provide
them with an authentic context for investigating problems associated with our
resources. By engaging in local stream monitoring, students become familiar with
riparian systems and water-quality standards that scientists and regulators use to
assess the health of a water body. Although water-quality standards provide the
legal backing to address impairments, an educator’s aim of collecting and analyzing
numerical water-quality data reduces the complexity of a river to the degree that it
limits how students relate to and understand biological systems. If educators desire
to guide students to share in responsibility for what occurs in our society, teachers
should reconsider how to effectively foster a conscientiousness of nature and build
connections with biological systems as part of their instruction. In this chapter, I
suggest educators ought to move toward curricula reforms that delve into the com-
plexity of living systems and focus on the underpinning question of a river’s rights
to accomplish their environmental education goals.
Part of the difficulty in developing students’ conscientiousness of nature is try-
ing to understand how they may possibly connect with a river. To examine the

T.W. Pagan
University of Georgia

D.J. Tippins et al. (eds.), Cultural Studies and Environmentalism, 269
Cultural Studies of Science Education, Vol. 3, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3929-3_21,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010