Page 307 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

Chapter 23
River Advocacy as a Case of/for Novelizing
Discourse in Science Education

Michiel van Eijck

Introduction

Tina Williams Pagan addresses stream studies that environmental educators
commonly use to develop their students’ and river advocates’ understanding of the
interrelationships of the natural world. She provides these individuals with an
authentic context for investigating problems associated with resources. Her critique
focuses on educators’ aim of collecting and analyzing numerical water-quality data,
which reduces the complexity of a river to the degree that it limits how students
relate to and understand biological systems. She suggests that we shift toward river
advocacy as an overarching aim of reform involving stream-based activities.
Accordingly, curricula should be designed in ways which enable students to iden-
tify and associate with attributes of the river that speak to them and educators
should help students connect with rivers to identify injustices and analyze their
underlying assumptions regarding river rights.
My understanding of place-based approaches in education such as river advocacy
results from research on similar topics – namely, stream and marine stewardship and
conservation studies in the context of education – informed by cultural-historical
perspectives (e.g., van Eijck and Roth 2007a). From this standpoint, I agree with
Pagan’s suggestions of curricular reform. As a form of place-based education,
I think that river advocacy has the potential to link students, their life worlds, and their
experiences in particular settings to formal science education. Ultimately, harvesting
this potential may help students to reach an understanding of how crude scientific
tools dealing with water-quality standards provide the legal backing to address
impairments relevant to their own life and that of others in their community.
However, curricular reform toward river advocacy is not an easy task. Because
the discourse of the natural sciences is established deeply in current science educa-
tion, harvesting the potential of place-based education also weighs difficult for river
advocacy. This is exemplified by Pagan, once she points out how the complexity of

M. van Eijck
Eindhoven University of Technology

D.J. Tippins et al. (eds.), Cultural Studies and Environmentalism, 281
Cultural Studies of Science Education, Vol. 3, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3929-3_23,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010