Fostering an Intergenerational Community of Co-Learners of Environmental Sustainability: A Case of the Literacies for Environmental Awareness and Farming for Youth Project

• In Event: On the Ground Responses to the Anthropocene Context: Civic and STEM Engagement as Global Citizenship

Abstract

Literacies for Environmental Awareness and Farming for Youth (LEAFY) is a collaborative, intergenerational group engaged in place-based poetry and activities that highlight concepts, processes and issues related to the Anthropocene. Members include 15 preadolescents and 17 adults (three faculty researchers, an environmental educator, 3 graduate students, and 10 undergraduates), all of whom are positioned as co-learners. Each member offers knowledge, experiences, and skills that are potential resources and tools for engaging in co-creations of semiotic displays (e.g., creating logo designs), which in turn shape and affirm a shared identity of the LEAFY community. What does it take to foster an intergenerational community that actively engages in critical literacies and socio-environmental learning? This question guided our rich description (Geertz, 1973) of the evolution of a community identity.

Using Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT; Cole, 1996), we explored the roles and relationships among people, artifacts encountered and created by members with unique and shared responsibilities. This conceptual lens was constructed within the broader theoretical assumption that learning is necessarily social (Vygotsky, 1980), multimodal (Kress, 2003) and dialogic with tensions that are made visible through interactions and creative products across members (Bakhtin, 1981).

Guided by ethnographic epistemology, we focus on insider perspectives (Green & Bloome, 1997; Street, 2013). Throughout the academic year, facilitators of the LEAFY community (one faculty member and three graduate student coordinators) met weekly to discuss perspectives and prospective goals; summaries of these meetings served as an organizing mechanism for systematically exploring collected artifacts (e.g., digital “plant diaries” and co-constructed poetry) and recorded exchanges (e.g., audio recorded discussions). Through such semiotic exploration, we engaged in a rich, descriptive narrative of activities and accomplishments that made visible who was involved, whose perspectives counted, and potential revisions (or additions) to community practices.

Data included field notes from participating undergraduate co-learners estimating in 240 entries as well as written reflections from program leaders and graduate student coordinators captured via emails (110) and digitally recorded input from young participants (360). Weekly video/audio recordings and produced artifacts for 24 sessions served in providing contextual anchors and clarification for all written reflections.

Preliminary findings from our descriptive exploration suggest that open engagement with goal formation and consensus building among members led to a constellation of unpredictable tasks and projects that fostered a sense of cultural identity for the LEAFY community. New language (e.g., Leafple) and vision statements (our lives depend on their lives) emerged with new knowledge (e.g., amount of water and space necessary for plant growth). Equity of involvement did not translate into equal divisions of tasks; unique affordances of members were considered and critically evaluated by all members until reaching consensus.

Now more than ever, educators must take up the goal to raise responsible, critical consumers of socio-scientific information and natural resources on a rapidly changing planet. LEAFY is an example of how such engagement can support new shared knowledge and creative endeavors that in turn raise the critical consciousness of all members within a community.

Authors

• Diana J. Arya, University of California - Santa Barbara

• John Cano, University of California - Berkeley

• Sos Nazaryan, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Faith Hyun, University of California - Santa Barbara