Page 298 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

272 T.W. Pagan

romantic relationships with rivers which could so easily be scrutinized (Fig. 1).
Struggling with how to decenter themselves, I nonetheless argue that advocates are
closer to an Earth-centered view emerging out of a similar belief that rivers are living,
connected, biological communities that sustain everything.
[The river] sustains everything. It sustains the fish, the birds, the alligators, the grasses, the
trees. You gotta have it, I mean you gotta have oxygen, too, but we can’t see oxygen. We
can see the water. (Scarlett, Fig. 2)
In the spirit of ecojustice, children should engage in society and the environment
(Mueller 2009). This includes growing in their ability to reduce their impact on the
environment so that “others” (people, animals, and plants) can prosper – requiring
members in biological communities not to infringe on the interests and ability of
even rivers to function (Shiva 2005). Taking into account how river advocates con-
ceptualize a moral tenet of granting rights to nature (Cullinan 2008) entails the view
that a river has its innate value and right to support life – a fundamental legal right
which hinges on acknowledging a river is more than an owned object. This idea
opposes current property rights and entitlements allowing property owners to sell,
alter, or threaten the integrity of rivers as they deem desirable. Students ought to
recognize rivers as a “subject” asserting that rivers are living, complex systems and
deserving of rights. A moral principle can be taught, in part, by expanding how
students come to learn about nature, specifically our rivers. Consequently, school
science ought to position students to share some responsibility for what occurs in
our society. How can we teach conscientiousness of nature? For some river advocates,
it requires eliminating ideals that truncate a person’s experiential knowledge of a
nonhuman entity in support of exclusive token science; it allows for multiple forms
of knowing and engaging with rivers. By extending their heightened awareness of

Fig. 2 A Georgia river advocate’s attentiveness to the flowing water and ever-changing dynamic
of a nearby estuary (Scarlett). Visual data collected as part of a River Advocacy study