Rock Stories: Developing Onto-Epistemic Heterogeneity in Order to Understand Climate Change

• In Event: 25.082 - Fairmont Royal York Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: 25.082-4 - Centering the Critical in Place-Based Education: Intersectional Opportunities in Environmental Education

Abstract

Climate change education is seen as problematic due to a number of factors. This paper deals with two of those, psychological distance from the phenomena, and understanding complex ecological systems within the context of a larger project developing climate change curricula intended to prepare Indigenous youth and their families for anticipated changes in the world’s climate systems. The timescale of climactic shifts has been identified as a barrier to understanding climate change (Moser, 2010) with people being unable to grasp the magnitude of the time involved. This is supported by findings that geologic timescales pose an ontological challenge for students (Cervato & Frodeman, 2012; Cheek, 2010; Clary, Bruzek, & Wandersee, 2009; Libarkin, Kurdziel, & Anderson, 2007). Indigenous scholars such as Deloria (1979: 2003), Wildcat (2009), and Smith (1999) have noted that in many Indigenous conceptions of time there is no significant distinction between ‘place’ and ‘time’, and that there is a tendency to think in terms of cycles. By contrast, Western ways of thinking about time have favored linear progression (Gould, 1987) and have been concerned with affixing space and time in absolute, quantifiable categories.
Concurrently, there is an established body of literature that details students' difficulties in understanding complex ecological systems (Assaraf, Dodick and Tripto, 2013), but there is also literature that suggests that ecological systems thinking difficulties may be related to epistemic views and that Indigenous students have a tendency to think in relational (rather than taxonomic) terms when looking at the natural world (Medin & Bang, 2014; Medin, Waxman, Woodring, & Washinawatok, 2010; Olsen, 2015). Implementing community-based design research (Bang, Farber, Gurneau, Marin, & Soto, 2016), the design team developed a series of lessons intended to foster onto-epistemic heterogeneity (Bang et al., 2013; Bang & Marin, 2015; Roseberry, Ogonowski, DiSchino, & Warren, 2010) and facilitate navigation between mainstream and Native sciences (Cajete, 2000). These lessons were implemented during a summer STEAM (STEM + Arts) camp for Indigenous students. Afterwards, microethnographic analysis of a series of video-recorded geology lessons was used to investigate the role that conceptions of time played in student sense-making about socio-ecological systems. Using Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, the researcher identified multiple overlapping timeframes that the students used simultaneously, both combining and moving back and forth between various Western and Indigenous worldviews.
The ability to hold and integrate multiple perspectives is a high-level complex systems thinking skill that is not always recognized in science education, yet is used by practicing scientists. Developing onto-epistemic heterogeneity and facilitating onto-epistemic navigation are key for Native student success in science education and careers, especially if they are to develop the necessary skills to manage a changing climate and lead us towards just, sustainable, and healthy futures.

Author

• Megan C. McGinty, The University of Alaska - Fairbanks