Unifying Head, Heart, and Hand Through an Out-of-School Field Ecology Partnership

• In Event: Learning to Engage: Scientists, Engineers, Educators, and Youth in Learning Collaborations

Abstract

Purpose
The HERP Project (Herpetology Education in Rural Places) is a partnership between science and environmental educators, a biologist, and a field ecologist. We facilitate field studies of reptiles and amphibians (herpetology) for diverse high school youth, many of whom had few experiences with wildlife. Over five years, instructors learned to balance disciplinary commitments with responsiveness to youths’ positionality in relation to nature, wildlife, and science. We explored youths’ meanings of the summer herpetological research experience (HRE) to illustrate affordances of a responsive partnership.

Theoretical Framework
The HRE curriculum shifted from focusing solely on youths’ knowledge and understanding of reptiles and amphibians to a responsive approach, acknowledging the unity of physical, cognitive, and emotional experiences (Hedegaard, 2015). We use the construct of unification to study youths’ meanings, which is a major point of emphasis in sociocultural learning theories (Vygotsky, 1994), anthropology of education (e.g., Lave, 1996), cultural studies (Grossberg, 2005), and feminist studies of science (Barad, 2012).

Methods
We asked: In what ways, if any, did youth experience the HREs’ practices, norms and values as unifying cognitive, physical, and emotional components of learning? We developed a focus group protocol called a “chip sort”. Each chip listed one HRE practice, norm, value, or emotion; youth placed each chip on the “head, heart, hand” board and explained their meanings of those experiences as cognitive (head), emotional (heart), and/or sensory/physical (hand). Chips in the middle represented experiences they viewed as unifying head, heart, and hand, but they also had the option to put the chips in one area or in between two areas (e.g., head and heart) (See Fig 2).

Results
Youth experienced most HRE practices, norms, and values as highly unified. Taneesa’s narrative describing how the HRE taught her to “feel empathy for animals” is a great example:
[Feeling empathy is] about the ‘hand’ because for me to completely understand why it isn’t good to have deforestation, I have to do something hands-on. People say deforestation isn’t good, but you don’t really know until you get in the woods and see everything that’s going on… I went into the woods here, and I saw how cute the little frogs were, and when I held a frog, I was like, ‘This frog is so innocent’ …You should consider their habits and where they live to feel that empathy… When I saw the animals, when I held them, there was just a feeling that I got in my heart. It was emotional.
Taneesha’s narrative is representative of other youths’ narratives. The HRE’s unified approach to learning opened up a dynamic relationship between the youth and the natural world.

Significance
Fieldwork in schools is “under threat” (Dillon, et al., 2006). The Next Generation Science Standards make no specific mention of fieldwork as a productive context for youths’ learning (NGSS Lead Sates, 2013). Our results demonstrate the unique affordances of science that includes fieldwork, especially when scientists and educators partner in a way that is committed to disciplinary norms and responsive to youths’ positionality.

Authors

• Heidi Carlone, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Lacey Denise Huffling, Georgia Southern University

• Catherine E. Matthews, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Terry M. Tomasek, Elon University