“Life emerging from the ashes”: Systems thinking and emotional configurations in wildfire art and sense-making

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Friday 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Learning Sciences Poster Session

Abstract

Increasingly severe wildfires are a widespread global concern. To inform wildfire education, this study employs interviews and arts-based methods to examine how people make sense of wildfire as a complex socio-scientific phenomenon. Drawing on frameworks related to systems thinking and emotional configurations, we ask: (1) How do diverse sense-making groups express and develop holistic understandings of wildfire as a complex socio-scientific phenomenon? and (2) How do diverse sense-making groups enact emotions related to wildfire? Findings include that (a) systems thinking and emotional configurations related to wildfire mutually shape one another and (b) participants identified the development of more positive or complex emotional configurations related to fire as an important learning outcome and educational priority for the public.

Authors

• Molly L. Kelton, Washington State University

• Elizabeth Grace, Washington State University

• Patricia L. Saraniero, Moxie Research

• Kristin Saba Fisher, Washington State University

• Alex Lombardi, Eugene Science Center

• Dave Jordan, Eugene Science Center