Expanding Avenues for Science Learning: Toward Socio-Ecological Thriving in a Mexican Immigrant-Led Community Garden

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Prioritizing Community Knowledge: Resistance, Re-Imagining and Reparations

Abstract

This paper explores how a Mexican immigrant-led community garden in California serves as a site for intergenerational, relational, and culturally grounded science learning. Challenging the dominance of Western science, we examine how garden activity enacts epistemic and axiological dimensions often marginalized in formal science education. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory and relationality, we present findings from an ethnographic case study of 12 families who cultivated the garden as a space of memory, autonomy, inquiry, and pedagogical interaction. Organized around place, affect, and participation, our analysis illustrates how science emerges through culturally meaningful practices rooted in el campo, awe, and everyday life. We argue for reimagining science education to include diverse epistemologies that support thriving, justice, and equity for non-dominant communities.

Authors

• Linnea K Beckett, Michigan State University

• Michelle Hernandez Romero, University of California - Los Angeles

• Samuel Severance, Northern Arizona University