Waterways and Pedagogical Entanglements: Teaching, Learning, and Relating to Water and Its Multiple Meanings

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In this symposium, we focus on how to fully engage the complexity of water in design of learning environments, education research methodologies, and water environments themselves. Environmental education must emphasize not only learning about water but also learning with and from water in order to support the resiliency of waterways and the human communities entangled with them. We explore three papers that examine water as a critical, layered, and nuanced entity in environmental education and research. Our exploration across the papers demonstrates how multivoicedness and epistemic heterogeneity are reflected in studies of water and how environmental learning with and from water might be an essential force for bridging the nature-culture divide and pushing beyond dominant science norms.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Environmental Education

Chair

• Natalie Davis

Papers

• Learning From the Lake: Exploring Human-Water Relations and Teacher Perceptions of Multispecies Justice - Marijke Hecht, The Ohio State University

• Science and Stewardship in the Creek: Multiple Pathways for Relating to Water - Christopher Jadallah, University of California - Los Angeles

• Water “of Other Spaces”: Analyzing Designs for Children’s Environmental Learning and Agency - Roni Barsoum, University of Michigan; Natalie Davis

• Ethics of Closeness: Boundary Formation With a Leafcutter Bee’s Nest - Amalie Strange, Arizona State University

• Plant-Human Relationships as a Source of Innovation for a Computationally Rich Urban Gardening Program - Michael L. Lachney, Michigan State University