Curriculum Design for Eco-Justice: Humanities Education to Analyze the Roots of Environmental Problems

• In Event: Roundtable Session 45
  In Roundtable Session: Competing and Compelling Curriculum: Posthumanism, Crowdsourced Knowledge, Eco-Justice, Multicultural Education, and Disrupting Close Reading

Abstract

In this paper I call for modes of curriculum design that prioritize cultural analysis of dominant worldviews and belief systems in order to interrogate their role in creating social and environmental crisis. I argue that modern environmental problems have their roots in culturally-constructed belief systems and values; that these belief systems must be interrogated in order to find more just and sustainable modes of living; and that our educational institutions should serve to equip students with the skills to conduct such interrogation. I discuss the design and implementation of my own set of curriculum materials aimed at the explicit goal of eco-critical cultural analysis, and share results of these materials’ impact on students.

Author

• Rita Turner, University of Maryland - Baltimore County