Today, while in the office, I worked while listening to The Promised Land, one of the many American Public Radio Broadcasts I tune into when I have the time and the task allows it. It had been awhile, but as I listened todayI was struck how places outside of writing composition studies research mirror themes evolving in class.
In one segment, the show’s host, Majora Carter, whose own non-profit “Greening the Ghetto” provides a shifting lens…and shifting practice…for land-use in areas urban zones that have been written off (she works primarily in previously blighted areas of the Bronx), interviews Wes Jackson.
Man, I love Wes Jackson. I met him years ago when he spoke at Pitt – while I was pursuing my Sustainable Systems degree. An academic turned sustainable agriculture advocate, he must have been about 70 , in front of the room there in the lecture hall, talking about no-till systems and saving the world with perennials vs. annuals to his 20 something audience.
As I listened today, (he is now 75), I felt now, more deeply than before, just how important it is to think about the questions raised in research – certainly theme in the literacy class in the fall…and now, this course.
An excerpt from Wes: "We need to feature questions that go beyond the available answers and by doing that we now have a chance to drive knowledge out of its categories and in doing so create a yeastiness of thought that we have not had before….so as long as we are asking questions that have available answers, we are stuck.” He discusses the questions in terms of the daring of those willing to ask those questions that have no answers, and to get out of the knowledge as “embedded in categories.”
Wes is talking about the long-term consequences of soil depletion – instead, suggesting the “genius of place” with ecological principles with local adaptation. Sounds a lot like what I have recently read in terms of research on bilingual learners and literacy – which flew in the face of “immersion in English” practices.
So, I am becoming increasingly interested in ecological terms to describe literacy, composition and research in both. As such, the following link leads to another scholar in science. http://www.physorg.com/wire-news/87543687/utah-biologist-wins-2011-aaas-public-engagement-with-science-awa.html
What interests me here is the attention this scientist (who, by the looks of her initiatives, publications and research) finds communication of science to be at the forefront of her work. That discussion (she has a pretty clear ideology/agenda – awareness of environmental issues) is held in all sorts of places:
“In particular, said Shirley Malcom, director of education and human resources at AAAS, Nadkarni's outreach efforts "have brought an awareness of environmental issues to people in settings ranging from prisons and churches, to boardrooms, bookstores, legislatures and rap music stores."
It is this discussion that intrigues me – I am increasingly becoming interested in how those in sciences choose to have discussions with the public – and what the ramifications of those choices are.
This composition of how to deliver science is so ubiquitous, I hadn’t realized the extent at which I was immersed in it until we talked about “sponshorship” through Deborah Brandt’s article. Suddenly, I was able to grapple with the ideologies my relatives were espousing when we argued over Marcellus Shale extraction.
On a recent trip from DC to Ohio, I drove through PA and a tale of science & sponsorship revealed itself in a story…through billboards. Some proponents of coal (the most laughable one in my eyes, read something like “Sun Sets, Wind Dies, But Coal Lasts Forever” – as though your household would just sort of shut off were the wind to stop blowing for a day or two. Seriously. Who writes this utter crap much less posts it on a giant billboard?), others natural gas ( keywords: Clean, Jobs, JOBS, JOBS! -- to which I repy…for whom and for how long?), and still others: solar, wind & geothermal. All of these discussions along I-76... with wildly different arguments for future energy. To me, here are a range of compositions worth investigating
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