Interrogating Food, Energy, and Water Decision-Making for Local, Regional, and Global Systems' Thriving (Poster 3)

• In Event: Collaborative Development of a Framework for Food-Energy-Water-Nexus Education

Abstract

Food, energy, and water (FEW) are often taught in isolation without explicit consideration of their interconnectedness to each other, as well as to local, regional, and global systems. Further, the exploration of FEW in STEM classrooms often focuses on decoupled human and natural systems, neglecting to consider the entangled nature of powered economic, social, and environmental decision-making. Isolated decision-making around FEW can also have a reverberating impact on larger socioecological and sociotechnical systems. Given this, our work is focused on the development of FEW instructional commitments and aligned pedagogical strategies for K-12 STEM education that engages students in critical practices. One example includes the critical practice of problem scoping with causal-loop modeling (Authors, 2023) to consider the systemic interrelations of FEW with the aim of helping students imagine and design for just and thriving futures in ways that minimize the unintended consequences of their designs, especially on marginalized communities and threatened ecosystems. Core theoretical perspectives to our instructional commitments are both speculative (Dunne & Raby, 2013) and pluralistic (Escobar, 2018) visions for design practices that prioritize the increased sustainability of systems organized around geographically proximal regions and the cultural heterogeneity of places. In this presentation, we plan to reveal our instructional commitments, connect these commitments to the literature, and map the commitments to pedagogical practices for engaging K-12 students.
One example of our instructional commitments is, "teachers should support student learning with interdisciplinary/integrated curriculum with social and community relevance using teaching approaches that center social and ecological justice and support complex systems thinking" (Authors, 2022). Among other pedagogical strategies for centering social and ecological justice and supporting complex systems thinking connected to this commitment involves teachers working alongside students to explore the following questions: When orienting to the most pressing local, regional, or global FEW issues or challenges, what historical and ongoing human actions and decisions created or contributed to the issues or challenges? What historic and ongoing decision-making led to these challenges? Who had the power to make the decisions that most contributed to these FEW issues or challenges? Who (including more-than-humans) has been most impacted by these decisions? What would a just future for humans and more-than-humans look like in relation to these FEW issues or challenges? (Authors, in press). The scholarly contributions of our work lies in our aim to support teachers in attending to equity in relation to FEW decision-making. One way we propose doing this, among others, is by explicitly recognizing and drawing on relational perspectives inherent in worldviews that are not Eurocentric, while also seeking to expand what counts as STEM as part of more fully human and inclusive endeavors (NASEM, 2019). Given that the FEW-nexus is part of larger socio-ecological and sociotechnical systems, orienting to questions of equity, sovereignty, and racial justice around FEW decision-making at local and regional levels further elevates commitments to place-based plural thriving.

Authors

• Todd Campbell, University of Connecticut

• Shondricka Burrell, Morgan State University

• Doug Lombardi, University of Maryland

• Veronica Cassone McGowan, University of Washington - Bothell

• Xavier Eric Fazio, Brock University

• Sarah Jennings Fick, Amplify Education, Inc.