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3 EcoJustice Education for Science Educators 19

indigenous peoples, for example, as they teach us about their ancient belief systems
and practices as models of more sustainable ways of living (Longboat et al. 2009).
It means that we introduce our students to a way of thinking about economics
beyond the usual liberal ideologies and systems that dominate modernist cultural
ways of knowing. Students learn to analyze the ecological consequences of differ-
ent economic approaches, identifying ancient and existing economic ideologies and
relationships that are operationalized by the specific needs of communities first, as
opposed to those market liberal systems where the accumulative demands of the
market rationalizes production and frames social life.
Further, and perhaps most important of all, ecojustice insists on reconnecting
students and teachers to their own local communities: to the shared relationships
and assets within neighborhoods, landscapes, and with the more than human crea-
tures that often go unnoticed as primary sources of knowledge and life-sustaining
support. In the analysis that follows, we use the “cultural and ecological commons”
as concepts that can help us pay attention to the nonmonetized relationships and
practices that diverse groups of people in our communities and across the world use
to survive and take care of one another on a day-to-day basis. The “commons” is a
concept that allows us to recognize both the interactions between cultural and
ecological systems, and the ways that certain practices, beliefs, and relationships
are oriented toward the future security of both. These include nonmoney-based
economic and social exchanges including work-for-work, strong communitarian
beliefs/practices/relationships, alternative forms and spaces of education, demo-
cratic decision-making, and efforts to create more sustainable, ecologically sound
relationships with natural systems. Aimed at protecting the ability of both human
communities and natural systems to live well together into the future, these are the
sorts of day-to-day relationships and practices that function to nurture the larger
communicative system of intelligence – or Mind – to which Bateson refers as
essential to life.
Two points are key to defining the commons: (1) They are not owned. They
belong to everyone; and thus, (2) they do not require money to be accessed.
Ecojustice scholars and teachers are interested in the ways the cultural and environ-
mental commons intersect, and in this case, in the traditions, beliefs, and practices
that are aimed at protecting the larger life systems (Martusewicz 2009). This
includes an acknowledgment of the vital nature of each – human cultural practices
and natural systems – as well as their mutual dependencies, and represents our
attention to security, and to social and ecological well-being. The purpose of education
within this context is thus systemic wisdom, where learning is oriented toward
understanding of and acknowledging the ways in which we interact with, depend
upon, and impact a larger system of intelligence.
The environmental commons are often easier to identify since they are desig-
nated by our shared relationships to land, water, and air that we share in order to
live. The cultural commons may include food cultivation and preparation, medici-
nal practices, language and literacy practices, arts and aesthetic practices, games
and entertainment, craft and building knowledge, decision-making practices, and so
on. A particular practice, skill, or tradition has value in our estimation to the degree