Co-designing Place-based and Justice-Centered Climate Change Elementary Units in the Southeastern United States (Poster 5)

• In Event: Building STEM Teachers’ Social Justice Teaching Capacities: Future Directions for Teacher Education

Abstract

Subject/Problem.
Place-based and justice education is a form of environmental education that involves experiential learning in and about local natural and social settings and is grounded in justice work. It also fosters connections between students and their home communities (Semken & Freeman, 2008).

Design/Procedure.
Through a research-practice partnership (RPP; Coburn et al., 2013), I collaborated with three 5th-grade teachers to design and implement a place-based and climate justice curriculum unit that foregrounds humans’ impacts on the natural world and recognizes the interconnectedness of humans with all entities (Bang & Marin, 2015; Cajete, 2000; Learning in Places Collaborative, 2023; McGowan & Bell, 2022; Medin & Bang, 2014). We grounded the anchoring phenomenon of the climate change unit around endangered species in the local area; specifically, we examine monarch butterflies, as their migration is visible in the local area.

Participants and Setting.
The study was implemented with three elementary teachers in two rural and one urban school in a conservative part of the Southeast US. All three schools are Title 1 schools. The first teacher identifies as Latina, the second as White, and the third as African American.

Findings and Analysis.
The conclusions from this study highlight the value of the iterative process of co-authoring and co-designing with teachers as part of their navigational capital (Yosso, 2005). We grounded the anchoring phenomenon of the climate change unit around endangered species in the local areas, specifically monarch butterflies, as their migration is seen in the local area. The full paper will provide detailed examples of each design principle of the place-based justice climate unit and the iterative process of co-designing the unit.

Part of place-based teaching was planting a monarch butterfly garden in each school as part of our collective hope climate action project. We also included food composting as part of the justice-centered teaching component as it relates to food justice since composting diverts methane from landfills and would address the food waste cafeteria issue while feeding the community garden. In working closely with the three elementary teachers, we discovered a need to establish curricula grounded around the history of the places and communities the schools and teachers live in and to tie it to climate change. Further understanding of approaches to designing and enacting Indigenous pedagogies grounded in land, water, and kinship, conceptualized in networks of relationality, is needed to cultivate thriving generations in the present and future generations.

Contribution.
Pressure from climate-denial groups is influencing curriculum in many states (e.g., Prager University), causing doubt to be cast on climate science, effective solutions to the climate crisis, and the roles of everyday people in taking climate action; thus, examples of climate justice units centering place-based and justice education that foster support networks for educators in conservative contexts must be developed and shared.

Author

• Amal Ibourk, Florida State University