Teaching Eco-Justice in STEM Methods Courses

• In Event: Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Public Scholarship Toward Social Justice and Sustainability in Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper provides concrete critical and ethical responses to dominant educational policies promoting the teaching of STEM fields. Recognizing how dominant discourses of modernity (Martusewicz, et al. 2015) work discursively to constitute STEM, this paper examines and exposes how STEM education is prioritized via funding in teacher education. As well, STEM is prioritized throughout state teacher licensure policies, to the effect that, e.g., all licensed elementary teachers are required to take STEM methods courses. This paper provides an example whereby the space that mainstream STEM creates can then be appropriated for radical, EcoJustice Education (Martusewicz et al., 2015). Specifically, this paper shares conceptual research theorizing the inclusion of Ecojustice Education in elementary science methods and elementary math methods courses. Building on the work of social justice education, this paper presents several practical considerations for including and EcoJustice perspective. Furthermore, the paper examines complexities and tensions that emerge from the fact that many students can, and often do, find this shift a disruptive practice that unsettles them at times to the point of shutting down. Ultimately, the authors of this paper suggest and share a curriculum for methods courses that provides students’ the opportunity to consider math and science content usefulness through exposure to a critique of the global marketplace and opens students to a potential in releasing the imagination for social and ecological change.

Authors

• Mark Wolfmeyer, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

• Rachel Luther, University of Southern Mississippi