Towards a 'new moment in Life Sciences Education: Facilitating critical complexity thinkers in South African secondary schools

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY: The global polycrisis, particularly ecological degradation and humans' estrangement from nature, is an epistemological crisis that has been created by an industrial, mechanistic and reductionist way of knowledge creation. As our knowing informs our way of being and acting in the world, this study attempts to answer the call for urgent educational reform in promoting a critical complexity approach to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).Using the South African Life Sciences curriculum and a theoretical framework developed through literature on complexity theory, systems theory, ecoliteracy and ESD, a teaching and learning experience entitled the Working with Nature (WWN) project was developed. Six diversely different secondary schools from the Western Cape of South Africa participated in this project which through participatory action research (PAR), explored the effect that it had on the thinking, values and knowledge of both teachers and learners.From a thematic analysis on the emergent narratives, it was found that that the learning experience did promote integrative thinking and value tendencies and that there was growth in both the explicit-formal and explicit-informal knowledge typologies of the participants. Other key themes that emerged from the experience were diversity values, grit and resilience and contextual thinking. Themes that emerged that were more teacher specific were around process rather than product learning and learner-centeredness.The implications of this research are vast, however mainly suggest that mainstreaming a critical complexity learning experience is possible and that perhaps this may be the start of a transitioning towards a 'new moment in Life Sciences education, which translates not only into ESD, but also a complexity ethic – creating mindful teachers and learners who engage and participate in the world sustainably. Further studies are necessary in developing strategies for reform and transformation within all education levels towards effectively implementing ESD.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University