Laura's+Journal

In studying the broader environmental movement in the United States during the 1960's, Sylvia Noble Tesh argues that environmentalist epidemiology brings to the foreground constructionist critiques of science. Such critiques have framed "the world in terms of a broad network of intricate interconnections and one that recognizes the air, water, and soil are, in many parts of the world, probably dangerously polluted" (66).
 * 4.6**

Need for 'statistical significance' (not public health significance) may obscure the effect of pollutants on small populations.

 a. “Both the reliance on a linear model and the use an uncertainty factor seek to protect public health, and in that sense they are good policies. But they are only policies. They are no statements about the actual effects on people of exposure to the chemicals. Animal studies cannot deliver that information” (29).

 b. “So we have a paradox. Animal tests have an important function in risk assessment: they provide scientific data on the health hazards of chemicals. But the data the tests provide are not what risks assessors need to know.” (30)

[] []
 * 3.27**

In considering the relationship of my experiences in our class's research program for secondary students and the project I'm working on with secondary students at an urban-gardening program, a couple of seeming differences have arisen related to student participation and (perhaps) 'discipline' (?):
 * 3.26**


 * Movement**- students in the urban gardening program tend to move around the room in which we are having a lesson more often, whereas those students in the RPI program tend to sit in a given seat and only rise when they are told to or after asking for/being given permission to do so.


 * Structure of conversation**- students in the RPI program tend to respond in more succinct/concise and to-the-point ways, whereas the urban-gardening students tend to incorporate more storytelling, relating of personal experience in longer formats. They too tend to work off each others answers more often, whereas the students in the RPI program tend to look back to the facilitator after each statement/answer is given.

I do not know what most influences the differences I perceive, but I'm moved to think about the way 'discipline' (in Foucault's sense of the word) might play a role here. It is not possible to say the degree to which this comes from differences in the programs themselves or from other differences between the students, their myriad of experiences and other spaces they inhabit.

Yet, I might venture that the spaces of each program permit or send messages that to //some// (even small) degree influence these differences in (at least) //some// ways. The above are cursory observations at best, but they are a starting point for thinking about the ways we might connect our modes of communication and interaction, the spaces we help foster, to our ability to foster ecological orientations and approaches to issues.

In a wonderful small-world-coincidence last week an old friend of mine from Tanzania was putting on a workshop for young people in Troy to write and record socially reflective music. While there I ran into a student who works both at the Sanctuary on film recording and at the out-of-school time gardening program I'm working with. Though she had not been at the gardening program last week when we did the second lesson, she's normally there on Thursdays and will thus be a part of the YPAR project. In this 'happenstance' moment of running into her, we reviewed what the other students had discussed last time, the vision they's created of expanding the program, their identification of reasons, power dynamics and resources involved. We too spoke about the dissemination/presentation of the project, about the potential for her to use her media skills to creatively think about how to approach this part of research.
 * 3.22**

This moment speaks to the ecology and value of an interconnected community. Moments like these are spaces in which cross-disciplinary and creative connections can be made, in which relationship can become more multidimensional. Spivak speaks to the need for students and teachers to recognize and make available the many facets of self that they embody, this seems to me an important project as it brings us into cooperation with each other through the deepening of mutual recognition.

I started the Youth-Participatory Action Research Curriculum I've been working on this week. Though I've been involved in the out-of-school time gardening program I'm working with as a volunteer over the last couple years, I was still a bit amazed at the environment I walked into yesterday.
 * 3.17-19**

Because it's late winter/early spring, it's the time to start seeds indoors while the snow and frost dissipate. In the course of this planting activity, seedling trays had taken over the organization's open office space. Some trays lay empty in piles, some were being filled or were overflowing with soil, some were strewn on top of the long table running down one side of the room, some were placed across desks along the windows, others between the small office next door and the desks of a few staff members trying to do their own work for different parts of the organization. In between the trays and table space and other staff members, were twelve of the program's high school student participants and its own two staff members.

I immediately began chatting with one student who'd devised an ingenious method of using her long nails to plant pepper seeds, another who kindly corrected my pronunciation of a french-named variety of eggplant (she relayed that her and another student both had french as their second language at home), and a third student who also lived by the same small town I had some years back. All the while, at one end of the room a group of students were sweeping the overflow of soil off the carpeted floor and at the other end another small cohort was stamping, clapping and singing a Lordes song "..but everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece/Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash/We don't care..." It at once seemed [from my perspective] to be a creative and productive chaos- though perhaps slightly less productive for the other organizational staff.

As we moved into the conference room for a snack break and to begin the Y-PAR curriculum, the tone of student activity calmed a bit, but on the whole they continued to be relatively lively throughout- a contrast to the dynamic of the students that come to RPI for the research programs. This contrast made me think about discipline, about the reasons we so often employ it, about the effects it has (seen as both helpful and constraining at times).

At the beginning of the lesson we first did an ice breaker game- one where we each had to say what kind of plant we'd be and why- at the end of which, I needed to be reminded it was my turn. Though I would have gladly participated in this activity anyway, having just read Bell Hooks' "Teaching to Transgress" I thought in that moment of the importance of only asking of students what you are willing to give of yourself. //I'd be a carrot.//

As part of this first lesson the students took a reflective survey in order to give us a 'baseline', a starting point from which to consider the program's goals. As the students looked over the survey to see if they had any initial questions one person asked: "Why do these questions have to be long, like can't you just give us multiple choice?" //Why might I not give you multiple choice?// Another student, one who'd not been feeling well or saying much thus far said quietly: "Because then we can only choose the answers you give us even if that's not our answer. If we don't see our answer, than we still have to choose something." //Exactly, brilliant answer.// Another student asked: "Is there a right answer or a wrong answer then? Like what if we don't put down the goals that [staff member's name] talked with us about?" That staff member had poked their head in to the room at just that moment. //No, there are no right or wrong answers,// //only what you know and think and feel.// I looked at the staff member for a second and jokingly noted: //I like// //[staff member's name], but// //we're not interested in [staff member's name]'s opinion at this moment, this survey isn't about their opinion, it's about yours.//

This image comes from the National Environmental Education Foundation. I'm including it here as it echos some of the earlier concerns of framing I've discussed. While the title reads "STEM & Our Planet" all of the text within it relates to vocational and monetary goals not to ecological or environmental concerns. Why is this? Who are they trying to speak to/for? To what degree is this framing a conscious endeavor to invoke or activate a familiar frame? To what degree does it, in doing so, undermine the organizations' purported goals?
 * 3.14**

I came across an incredibly interesting article this week, one that ties back to my earlier post on framing. The article, published in the Brown Daily Herald, concerned a recent study out of Stanford University (coincidentally the same institution that published the Youth-Led Participatory Action Research curriculum I've been working with) regarding STEM education. What seems at once ironic and pragmatic is that while the researcher, Brian Donovan, makes a concerted push for emphasizing hands-on environmental education (particularly conservation & biodiversity) in STEM curriculum, he does so within an economic outcomes framework.
 * 3.6 **

//The “argument for why we teach science ends up shaping what is taught to whom and for what purposes,” Donovan said. “If we’re going to motivate science curriculum instruction from an economic standpoint, then we need to develop curriculums and instruction that deal with our environmental problems in a substantial way.” //

They too mention the "Next Generation Science Standards" as an example of how to integrate such experiential environmental learning. This seems an interesting piece for further consideration that might shed light on the degree to which economically framed/driven arguments have impact on curriculum material, and/or are effective strategies for convincing those more 'economically motivated' to get behind this type of learning. I'd be wary however of the ways in which this framing reinforces systematic values and biases at odds with the foundations of ecological education.

"[|Researchers urge increased environmental science education] Paper suggests emphasis on hands-on scientific exploration for students could yield economic benefits" []

One of the challenges to teaching systems is the need to 'move across' interconnected scales. This can sometimes be challenging to do in ways that students can connect with and in areas that students feel they might have some impact on. As a class, we've discussed some good examples of these types of lessons this semester in relation to energy use. This week, I've been thinking about how do this in a manner that further allows us to breakdown some of the way(s) we often see ourselves, our bodies and 'nature' as separate systems.
 * 2.28 **

NYS is currently entertaining a piece of legislation (see link below) to address the environmental impact of 'micro-beads', extremely small (though visible to the naked eye) plastics balls. As of late, micro-beads have been used as an exfoliant in a number of commonly found soaps, lotions, etc. It seems that tracing the full life-cycle of these beads, the way they are made and interact with different elements and systems might be a useful exercise. One could address: the source of the materials used to make them, the process of manufacturing them, the social systems around their manufacture, the people who buy the products made with them, the environments they enter after their 'intended' use, how they absorb 'hydrophobic' toxins in the water, how fish consume them and the toxins they harbor, how other water/wildlife/habitat is affected by species loss, how people consume those fish.

[]

In reading Paulo Frerie's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" this past week and embarking on a reading of Bell Hooks "Teaching to Transgress" this week, I'm am forced to consider the numerous ways in which we undermine and undervalue the experiences of students both in the classroom and outside of it. We force examples on students that do not necessarily speak to their lived lives, sometimes allowing for a contributory example, but one that is typically contained within the neat 'boxes' of lesson plans. Such plans are helpful tools to be sure, but too often they also seem to be tools for control (and domination) within education that assuage the fear of dissent sometimes felt by teachers. I am moved, as someone who has too felt such fears at times, to both treat them empathetically and ask that we push ourselves to be more. To be welcoming of dissent and not to shut down or shut out those who might provide it. To be welcoming of uncertainty, even 'chaos' at times. To value the importance of improvisation and to recognize students' needs, interests and experiences as dynamic and diverse. Classrooms cannot be treated as 'ideal' systems, and they should not be stipulated by the teacher alone. Influenced, yes. If we are to teach systems thinking and try to cultivate ecological orientations than all stakeholders in the room must have some degree of agency and influence. And all must develop the skills and practices of dynamic adaptation.
 * 2.25 **

The implementation of the Common Core Standards has come under criticism from some 'new' sources as of late. While a number of traditionally republican/conservative states have already pushed back on it, New York is beginning to 'take its foot off the gas' so to speak. This week the New York Times published a piece entitled: " **Common Core Curriculum Now Has Critics on the Left."** The piece chronicled how Governor Cuomo's, who's been an advocate for the new curriculum, has recently criticized its implementation as "flawed." While a couple of our readings this past week were critical of the Common Core, much of the focus was on the content of curriculum (a very necessary point of critique). The 'push-back' reflected in this article however, was not concerning content, but the process and timeline in which it is being implemented. Thus, Cuomo's comments, can be seen as a concerted effort to speak to the concerns of teachers in New York, a good portion of which have criticized the 'rapid' implementation of testing according to the Core Standards. As the article notes, when the new testing went into effect last year (two years ahead of the initial 2015 deadline), many of the teaching/testing/training materials had not yet been disseminated. And, as often happens with any new testing model, scores were quite low - over 2/3 of students did not pass. It might be correct to focus on the demoralizing effect this has on students, but it's unclear the extent to which (at least in good part) these concerns too stem from teacher evaluations being based on this testing. Regardless, the rapidity of its implementation and subsequent dissent from teachers, may provide the political opportunity necessary for Core opponents (no matter if their critique is in fact of its content) to push New York States educational model in a (at least slightly) different direction.
 * 2.20 **

@http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/nyregion/new-york-early-champion-of-common-core-standards-joins-critics.html?_r=0

My semiotics class has me wondering what images we most associate with education? What kinds of signifiers, codes and myths do they contain?
 * 2.12**

On the left (your left) are the images that first appear under a Google search for "good education." There are references to graduation, to monetary and employment goals. There are lots of blackboards and signs and images of a 'traditional' classroom with children sitting in neat rows raising hands, facing the teacher at the front, learning from books. They imply discipline and instruction as the underlying structure of school. There is a great deal of unidirectional linearity to these images. Education is a one way tract, a straightforward equation for 'success' (as defined within a capitalist framework to be sure). The two cups (in the bottom left) present different concepts of a good education, yet reinforce the end of education as a job by poking fun at the idea that reading Kant or Aristotle is directly 'useful' or applicable. The broken chain of the word e-d-u-c-a-t-i -o-n is the only image that alludes to dissent in its suggestion of a 'failing' education system. Yet, within this collage, its suggestion seems only to imply that we are failing to get students into jobs.

On the right, is quite a different collection of images. There are no neat rows and little linearity, except for in the trees and ferns. The images are all curved lines, circles. There are 'teachers' around which the 'students' gather in these setting, yes, but there are no desks in neat rows, no box shaped rooms here. There is largely the outdoors, there is direct engagement between young people and their surroundings, there is investigation. Learning here seems facilitated, but not imposed upon. It is more driven from personal curiosity and mediated through ones own sense, touch and sight, and through direct action. The only 'end' to this education is suggested by the connotations of a healthy world. It is not a personal end, but a collective one and it is certainly informed by a very different set of values than those to the left.

In order to move education policy to (at the least) incorporate a greater sense of ecology into our education practices and content, it seems necessary to speak to the differing values that each set of images highlights. In this work, framing is incredibly important, as Layoff asserts. Successful strategies for change at various times take up, subvert or shift the dominant frames within a discourse. Further thought on what use of these strategies might be helpful to different stakeholders/actors in different contexts is a crucial consideration.



The question of whether or not educational institutions should adopt curriculum produced by industry was put to us this week. Although it may seem a world away from the secondary chemistry curriculum this question referenced, I've been reflecting on it in relation to the public controversy around GMO importation, R&D and commercialization in Kenya. The appropriation of 'scientific expertise' in this discourse has been strongly influenced by the incredible proportion of funding and programming for biotechnology research and education in Kenya- largely stemming from partnerships with private foundations and companies like Monsanto and Syngenta. Those scientists that today make up Kenyan governmental agencies regarding agricultural and biotechnology research/policy are increasingly products of this education system, they owe their education financially and substantively to those who stand to profit most from a particular sets of outcomes (those favoring GMO production). Many similarities could be drawn to various disciplines and industries in the US, chemical oriented ones among them.
 * 2. 6**

Not only is the knowledge produced as a result of such a system to the benefit of these private interests, but in the case of public policy the individuals that are a product of it are given a disproportionately privileged status as experts who then influence decision making. Thus, the main means of obtaining 'expert privilege' for anti-GMO advocates in Kenya has been vis-a-vis the Department of Public Health, whose staff come from academic and corporate backgrounds outside the realm of biotechnology multinationals. Ultimately, the use of industry curriculum seems problematic on numerous levels:

1- the individual is given an education that utilize industry framing of issues, lacking certain critical considerations 2- industry framing may become the dominate framing of 'experts' in the field 3- industry framing may heavily influence public discourse/policy 4- having done so, it may reinforce inequitable power dynamics in favor of the industry's elite.

George Lakoff's piece "Why it Matters How We Frame the Environment" immediately brought to mind a presentation I saw recently on energy production in Nicaragua. The presentation, given by a masters student at UC Berkeley's Latin America Studies program, outlined the technological options to be weighed in addressing national electrification- leaning heavily towards hydropower. What was wonderful about this work was that it reflected that there are a myriad of options and that each have very different implications. However, a few things stood out to me as areas of concern:
 * 2.3**

1- It did not provide adequate distinction between different forms of hydropower (though it did outline them) in its overall evaluation as an energy production technology [ie Pico/micro-hydro power should be evaluated separately from giant hydro-power dams]. 2- It neglected to speak to the comparative distributive or centralizing characteristics of each technology. 3- **Most salient to this discussion however, the entire paper/film was framed in the context of the Millennium Development Goals**, and it was on these criteria that the various energy options were evaluated.

What did this mean? That a paper/film, particularly concerned with rural electrification in predominantly agro-pastoral areas, had as its main metric of success 'daily income'. The #1 MDG is to decrease the amount of people living on less than $1 a day. That this type of framing, came from someone who is considered quite 'liberal', in a 'liberal' program, at a 'liberal' school, is highly reflective of Lakoff's consideration of how deeply such frames are embedded in language, policy and ideology, of how difficult they are to change. In this case, such a framing meant that the type of energy production to be preferred at the end of the analysis, was the one that most moved people away from subsistence agricultural and towards a more monetary (largely capitalist) economy.

The piece "Social Reproduction in Classrooms and Schools," James Collin asks us to consider the school as a system the produces students, it asks us to consider the kinds of students it produces, the ways in which it reflects and perpetuates existing conceptions of social roles for different individuals, as well as broader social structures.
 * 1.28**

Such questions prompt me to consider the room for creative subversion of the ways that schools reproduce such dynamics. It too makes me wonder in what ways do out-of-school programs, like the one I'm working with this semester, might work in concert with or opposition to this reproduction?

In regards to the curriculum being developed by this class a different set of questions arises- how do the goals of understanding systems thinking and nested'ness, of complex causality and consequence play into or subvert such work? It seems to me that systems thinking can provide a framework through which to understand and reflect on one's own role within the systems we inhabit. Our sense of agency and connectivity within them. If however, we do not go beyond recognition of our role(s) within such systems, the understanding this brings may not provide adequate platforms from which to engage in productive change-making. It too seems important that we recognize, in speaking to those things that would make a system 'stronger', the ways in which our roles might change (and for the better). To see systems as dynamic and dynamism as productive.