A whale of a time: engaging in a war of values for youth activism in science education

Abstract

Exposure and experience with ethical dilemmas and controversial socioscientific issues provide a link to students’ lives or a pathway for sympathy/empathy and care, where youth use emotion to engage with the scenario and develop critical thinking skills to respond to ethical issues. For this theoretical paper, I focus on how informal science can be used in science classes to provide such exposure and experience, creating spaces for students to foster erotic relationships with the nature-Other and their local environment. More specifically, this paper aims to discuss how educators can use these informal science experiences, and in this case—those involving marine mammals, to find value for natural phenomena through erotic generosity and phenomenological experiences within the environment and use their knowledge and power to act responsibly.