NE2019 P4: Climate Change in K-12 Education
NEXT EARTH: TEACHING CLIMATE CHANGE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE
Panel 4: Climate Change in K-12 Education
“What’s Cookin? American Teens & Sustainable Food Systems”
Grace A. Lavin and Sophie Christman
“Future STEM Teacher Readiness toward Inquiry-based Learning for All Students through a Collaborative Community of Practice with a Focus on Ocean Acidification”
Corin Slown (Assistant Professor of Science Education, California State University, Monterey Bay)
“Literature for Change: Shaping K-12 Education to Prepare Youth for Climate Challenges”
Rebecca L. Young (Binghamton University)
Hi Everyone!
I think one of the interesting points about this K-12 education panel is that the three talks focus on three things: knowledge, understanding, and practice. For instance, in our video on What’s Cookin? American Teens and Food, we focus on the UNsustainability of meat. Even though we know eating meat is unhealthy, and we understand that it contributes to climate change, we still continue to PRACTICE meat-eating. How can we and how do we change our unhealthy habits, and how do we teach good eating practices?
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for your comments so far. In terms of how we *practice* sustainable eating, I want to share with you that I recently heard from the Director of Sustainability for Food Services at a large university who saw our YouTube video and requested our research stats in order to further incorporate sustainable practices in marketing, events and food services at the University. Great! Some colleges, like Smith, offer students vegan-only dining halls. And others, like Bard College, employ “Food Sustainability Advocates” that conduct local farm tours as well as offering lectures and meetings on campus food sustainability. Around 50 universities and colleges such as Northwestern and UCLA offer “meatless Monday” days and UC Davis runs its own campus farm which then sells produce to the dining halls. UConn and Bates are committed to local farm systems. I’m wondering if these university models are replicated nationally on the K-12 level?
Hi Grace and Sophie. Thanks for a nice talk. I’m very sympathetic to the proposition that the factory faming system must be dismantled. As a longtime vegetarian myself, I also agree that the vast reduction of meat eating–particularly among the people of industrialized societies–is necessary for mitigating the worst effects of climate change. I’m not convinced, though, that calling for changes in consumer behavior offers a the best approach to transforming food systems. A recent report to the UN (Wake Up Before It’s Too Late) focuses on the benefits of supporting small family farms as the backbone for the reemergence of localized foos systems. This can increase diversity of what’s grown and how it’s grown as well as encouraging use of traditional forms of knowledge by people who are deeply familiar with the land. Many such farms rely on mixed use systems. Veganiuculture isn’t viable or suitable given en their lived conditions and cultivation practices.
The call here, then, is to focus on the modularization and localization of food systems, which also can decrease the vulnerability of the wider food system. A global system, like we have today, is highly vulnerable–both due to climate change and the need to transition away from fossil fuels for transportation, processing, and cultivation. This may prove to be a better point of intervention because it’s very familiar not just in non-industrialized countries but also in many rural areas in the industrialized world. Yes, reduce meat consumption greatly. But do so by altering how we grow and distribute food. This is bound to be increasingly appealing as climate change accelerates, yes, but also because it can help to improve rural economies.
In this respect, the Impossible Burger and other industrialized vegan/vegetarian products are neither ideal consumer choices nor sustainable. They rely on a global industrialized system, too. And they promote the idea that we can have sustainability “on the cheap,” by making minor consumer changes without major changes to the global food system.
Thoughts? I’d love to get your perspective.
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for your thoughts! You add an important element to the notion of teenagers and food systems. Your comments made me think more substantively about the scalar nature of American food systems that pivot between neo-primitivism and industrialization. Our panel’s focus on teenagers is one important approach that targets transformative food systems within a specific group of rising American consumers. And granted, much more could be done to make teenagers aware of global starvation and malnourishment epidemics.
Your suggestion of aiming towards a “modularization and localization” of food systems is important, and perhaps the moral “ideal” to which we all should aspire. But unfortunately this ideal does not adequately represent the practical corporate and capitalistic realities of the US, or the linked profit-driven ones of other nations—a world that has emerged to run on industrialized commercial products. So I don’t agree with your assessment that “changes in consumer behavior” is not the “best” approach to transform food systems, mainly because America is a democracy made viable by the individual and collective choices of its citizenry. I’m thinking here of Jesse Oak Taylor’s arguments of “SEED-SCALE” in his first book (Empowerment on an Unstable Planet) about mobilizing human capacity for “wide-reaching, community-based change.” America’s youngest citizens should be taught in the civics’ curriculum to eat local, to eat plant-based diets, to act and live in sustainable ways. Impossible Foods is altering the methods by which we grow food with its isolation of the heme compound; when the average Burger King meat-eating consumer transforms her/his diet by eating a plant-based Impossible Burger, it really is the beginning of a major change in America’s food system towards flexitarianism (although granted the cultivation and distribution schema is problematic because of its large scale). It provides, as you term in your own panel, an “inroads” to a climate change response. In terms of transformative food systems, I think there needs to be a balance between ideal and pragmatic methods. I also believe that in addition to rapidly changing consumer behaviors, legislation that upholds the localization of plant-based food systems while simultaneously diminishing the livestock industry is urgently necessary.
Thanks sir much for your comments, Sophie. I very much agree that particularly when aiming at the youth and young adult food markets, focusing on eating habits is critical. I don’t believe, though, that what I suggest is an ideal. It’s far closer to reality for non-industrialized locales, barring those that have been captured and plundered by corporate food interests. And it was how food was grown in most of the U.S. until some forty years ago. Industrial ag is thus a very new and unstable system,. It’s setting up to be a short-lived bubble (as people like Anna Tsing suggest) that may well burst by the time your target audience is your/my age. This is why thinking about how to engage in local food movements is not merely pragmatic but necessary in the short- to medium-term. I certainly agree that such a transition can and should run in parallel with eating far less–or no–meat. But relying solely on reducing meat consumption without addressing the need for a wider transformation in how and where food is grown fails to account for the realities of climate change and how markets must change with fossil fuel scale down.
I don’t mean to suggest that conscious consumerism isn’t important. Perhaps I overstated my case. Your rebuttal is well taken. I do think, though, that it’s quite another thing to suggest that because the U.S. is a democracy, individual and collective market signaling has a substantive effect of our food systems. Such signaling is far outweighed by the activities of corporations that have already captured our government, transforming it into a corrupt, non-democratic set of institutions (or what today could rightly be called a kaskistocracy). Indeed, our capacity to eat sustainably itself is made impossible by policies that support a highly toxic, polluting food system. Combatting this by choosing different foods offered by big ag, like the Impossible Burger, supports continuation of the same. Seeking alternative food systems–they’re out there, not ideal entities but very real–thus also serves as a way to skirt big ag. It’s a means to achieve your goal of reducing meat consumption and my goal of developing an alternative, modular food system at the same time.
Hi, Sophie and Andrew,
This has been a very interesting conversation, and I enjoyed the video talk. It was wonderful to hear the students’ perspective and their commitment to changing their own eating habits even when it may be challenging at home or with friends. As a former teacher, I also feel it’s so important to help students better understand our food system and to support them finding alternatives they can feel good about. But while I am a long time vegetarian and understand the health and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, I worry that advocating strictly for this path will not be effective. I agree it’s one path we should encourage but, as Andrew noted, we may reach more students and others by fostering their appreciation for supporting small local farms. In short, I think a choice to buy meat from a local farmer can be a more powerful vote toward changing the system than abstaining from meat altogether. When I had these discussions with my own students I found they were very open to the value of eating locally not only for the health and environmental benefits but because they liked supporting people in their own communities. Importantly, once they understood why this was a meaningful change to make in their eating and consumer habits, they were eager to do so whereas for some the idea of giving up meat entirely or even mostly was just not something they would consider. Since traditional farming as well as hunting is a deeply entrenched aspect of some communities’ culture and has significant value in terms of young people learning to respect and value the lives of animals, I think encouraging more support around building these practices in every community could go a long way toward changing our food system and our personal eating habits. To that end I always enjoyed sharing the work of Joel Salatin from Polyface Farm in Virginia whose books and talks help explain how small scale farming is not only healthier and better for animals’ welfare but can truly transform soil and landscape to heal land that has been over-farmed. Thanks so much, Sophie and Grace, for opening this conversation and helping us think through this!
-Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I agree that there are multiple paths we should follow in educating students about sustainable food systems. I am glad you mention the cultural conflicts that can occur between vegitarianism and carnivority. And it is clear that your emphases, shared by Andrew–of local food systems–is one educational discourse that could be more emphasized.
Here on Long Island we have numerous CSAs (community share agricultural plans–where you sign up and pay a fee for local farm produce that is dropped weekly at community sites): https://www.ediblelongisland.com/2018/04/10/sign-up-for-a-csa-on-long-island/. I’m wondering, to a larger degree, how CSAs are reflected in the elementary, middle, and high school curricula across the US? If anyone has more info, please share with us!
Hi Andrew,
Did you see this letter in the New York Times today advocating for small farms?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/opinion/farmers-climate-change-government-global-warming.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Hi Sophie:
I hadn’t seen this. Thanks so much for posting!
RE: Teaching STEM and Ocean Acidification to 6th Graders
Hi Corin,
Thank you for your train-the-trainer presentation on Ocean Acidification. I think it stands as a best practice model of a student-centered STEM classroom. I hope you can put your module out on a wider platform for teachers to use. I liked the way you described (to STEM teacher candidates) your modelling of the Next Generation Science Standards and environmental principals. In terms of inquiry-based STEM learning, I think your description of the model/reflect/research/practice rubric was right on target for 6th graders. Introducing some academic language, engaging in modelling such as using lemon juice and windex, and having students create their own Ph scales really shows how 6th graders can design their own experiments that identify acidification patterns. I was going to ask if you ever incorporated STEAM principles, but I was pleasantly surprised when you explained Shakespeare’s The Tempest! I’m wondering if you know Christine Ren’s work? She is known as the Underwater Woman and has created a lot of artworks surrounding ocean acidification, including “Carbonated Ocean” which underscores the necessity for plant-based diets. It might be a neat artwork to incorporate into your teaching module!
I agree, Corin! I enjoyed how you clearly walked through the process of preparing educators to better engage 6th graders in understanding ocean acidification. As you noted, the educators had the science background but not necessarily the experience for translating it into a concrete strategy for instructing middle schoolers. I fear this is the case for a lot of educators (of other disciplines) who want to help students understand different aspects of climate change but may themselves lack the confidence or training to do so. This is part of the reason why I think connecting science to narratives as a way to frame the sometimes difficult contexts we want to introduce or explore is an effective strategy for bridging that gap–engaging with the story or, as Sophie suggests, art which also tells a story can help foster the interest and concern that may prompt further inquiry. I’d be very interested in how you incorporate this in your next modules. Thanks!
-Rebecca
@Sophie and Grace Thank you for your feedback regarding “A Sea Change.” We are currently working to collect additional data so that we can create a larger community of practice-thank you for the encouragement to do so! Thank you for the introduction to Christine Ren’s work, we will definitely be including it in our next iteration! Your insights caused me to wonder if one of the design challenges for students in response to their inquiry experience could be a media campaign to share their new knowledge and inform their communities. Thank you!
Yes I like the idea of a media campaign! I also like the idea of including the arts in any science-based curriculum for the sake of interdisciplinarity. So in your next iteration you could include paintings, photo, film, etc. Maya Lin also has some interesting sculptures but I don’t think they deal directly with ocean acidification. Sophie
Hi Grace. I notice you asking specifically vegetarians about their experiences. So what’s your opinion on the different impact that vegans and pescatarians have on sustainability instead of just vegetarians?
Hi! Although all options are extremely significant when it comes to sustainability, vegan is the overall best. Animal factories release a huge amount of pollution into the air, so not eating meat has a much larger impact on the planet than most people would guess. Since vegans don’t eat any animal products, they’re already reducing their own carbon footprint by 73 percent (a very significant amount), demonstrating that vegan really is the best choice. Pescatarians are basically just vegetarians that eat fish. So although they don’t have the exact same impact as vegetarians or vegans, it is still very helpful regarding sustainability.
Hello Corin,
I organized a small group of faculty and students (5 of us) to watch a couple of talks today and yours is one of the ones we saw so far. One of the students knows one of the co-presenters in your talk AND she happens to be starting some research in ocean acidification. She shared with me that in addition to the pedagogical ideas you shared, she also learned a lot about the science of ocean acidification. Your ability to tie fields of science, l\student learning, and teacher education together really came forth in your talk and it was very engaging! Our whole group really appreciated its clarity and how it connected so many important ideas regarding education, engagement, and deep learning. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience on this platform!
Dan