Keywords

I am writing this chapter in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. My spouse is essential military personnel and continues to go to base for work, while I work remotely, and my children attend school from the comfort of a makeshift learning center in our living room. Though important, social distancing for my family has had its challenges. Like for many, there is much we miss about physical social interactions, and we are worn down from the changed schedule and the excessive time spent in our home. More and more we inherently seek natural environments to clear our heads and work our bodies. We can often be found in our yard gardening, bird watching, or throwing the Frisbee to our dog. Occasionally I catch my children sitting perfectly still on the back deck, eyes closed, feeling the breeze or the warm sun’s rays as if this instinct is reminding their bodies of a wildness they have nearly forgotten as they stare at computer screens and interact through video to complete their schooling. On weekends though, we like to explore the water.

This last weekend we went to Deer Island, a small island, now a coastal preserve, off the coast of Biloxi, Mississippi. As my children and I walked along the shoreline, pointing out shells and wading through tide pools, their usual curious questioning while investigating a new place turned to questions about pollution and how it ended up there. The amount of garbage littering the beach was overwhelming. Once inhabited by fewer than twenty homes, the impact of hurricanes and time had returned Deer Island to a natural, unoccupied state save the wildlife, which includes a diverse seabird population and several endangered species. Now it is considered a crucial coastal wetlands habitat, and the state of Mississippi has made restoration efforts through prescribed burning and planting trees and seagrass. But the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources isn’t the only one playing with fire. As I walk with my sons along the water’s edge, dodging broken glass and picking up various plastic pieces, it is important to question how it got there but equally important to consider what we need to do next.

Though approximately 40% of the US (NOAA, 2014) population lives within sixty miles of a coastline, few of us have an intimate connection with the ocean and what lies beneath, often as a result of decreased value placed on spending time outdoors and increasingly busy schedules that come with the drive to stay afloat in the economy. The goal of this chapter is to outline the impact of the Anthropocene on the ocean-Other and describe how a phenomenology of place in science education can enhance the lives of our youth to be meaningful within the marine environment so that they can become ocean literate and capable of making the kinds of decisions that benefit, not harm, marine and aquatic environment.

The Anthropocene and the Ocean

In the grand scheme of human impact on the ocean, marine debris is only the tip of the metaphoric iceberg. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in the 1970s and 1980s on the deep-sea mining of manganese nodules. These nodules are formed when dissolved metals in the water column or sediment precipitate around some nucleus on the seafloor, causing the metals to build up over time. The manganese nodules are primarily composed of manganese but also contain other metals like cobalt, nickel, and copper, making them a fiscal curiosity. The feat promised so much economically that the Law of the Sea negotiations in the 1980s were stalled to determine which country was worthy of claiming such a reward. None wanted to give up the potential capital. The Law of the Sea Treaty of 1994 later included policies to protect against deep-sea mining, but the wording was vague enough to exclude copper, gold, nickel, cobalt, and silver because of the potential economic possibilities. The process of deep-sea mining is taxing on many levels, from the amount of energy spent on the endeavor, to the interruption of the natural habitats and disruption of the seabed, the loss of biodiversity, and the possible contamination and mortality that occurs from transporting such large quantities of metals.

Since the 1950s the demand for oil as a fuel source has exponentially increased, increasing with it the plastics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and fertilizers, cars, airplanes, and so forth that pollute our natural systems and our bodies. Moreover, the increasing oil demand has quickly burned through several millions of years’ worth of fossilized forests and microbes of ancient oceans, quickly diminishing these sources and requiring more deep-ocean exploration, drilling, and pipelining. This, in turn, also leads to the interruption of the seafloor and natural habitats, health risks, and marine organism mortality. These negative ramifications do not even include the very serious effects of oil spills, which are as small as the oil left under our cars, traveling through the groundwater back to the ocean, to the very large spills resulting from such events as the Exxon Valdez tanker spill and the Deepwater Horizon pipeline explosion. The oil issue extends even further through the creation of exclusive drilling rights. Fishing access and water supply have also been privatized in response to fears over scarcity and degradation. Marine organisms are kept in aquariums, training centers, or swim-with-dolphin programs, unable to live naturally in their ocean habitat. Our consumer culture is driven by the demand for the latest good or service, where such demand triggers greater resource extraction, production, packaging, and distribution. From there, the consumer uses energy to obtain the product, discards the packaging, uses the product, and eventually discards that as well. Though much of this disposal occurs on land, the waste still makes its way to the ocean, resulting in nearly 80% of the plastic debris in the ocean worldwide (Li et al., 2016). The ocean is seen as a commodity, possibly in part due to the myth sustained in its vastness—that it is just so large that it can never be irreparably damaged. We know this idea is not accurate. In 2016, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization determined that nearly 80% of monitored fish stocks were fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted (FAO, 2018). Asia could run out of exploited fish for seafood by 2048, with global fish stocks also in decline if we continue to deplete our fisheries at current rates (IPBES, 2018). Overfishing, pollution, and other environmental influences are negatively affecting species populations worldwide. These factors make it difficult for species to reproduce and resist disease.

Marine policy has been most influenced by economic development of which commercial fishing, marine tourism, and offshore oil exploration are only a few examples from a long list. In recent decades there has been a push for increased environmental protection measures for the ocean, including marine biosphere reserves and endangered species legislation, though such measures are influenced by economic development through ecotourism and sustainable development. The anthropocentric viewpoint reigns in this conversation of economy, and policy choices are influenced by values. For example, policymakers push to devise fishing practices that ensure a healthy future population but only because they will benefit the human community. This links global overfishing to the property rights of fisheries. In consideration of global fisheries, for example, it is claimed that the privatization of fishing originated to prevent the collapse of fish stocks (Costello et al., 2008). The ocean is one of our greatest commons, and yet we are headed for a tragedy of the commons.

Enclosing the Commons

Resource privatization is a problematic solution for more than environmental issues, as it raises concern over the inequalities resulting from the privatization of access rights. Enclosures are the privatization of those things that were previously considered to be part of the commons—non-monetized natural and diverse cultural systems (i.e., cultural knowledge, intellectual skills, narratives, habitats, or even digital worlds) (Mueller, 2008). There are plenty of examples of ocean-related enclosures that threaten both cultural and environmental commons, including the right to own beachfront property and the allocation of property for aquaculture, both of which drive out family fishing practices and local fisheries people. Major commercial fishing companies capitalize on wealth while jeopardizing place-based livelihood, especially for low-income and small-scale fishers and fisher people in small rural communities. Augustina Adusah-Karikari (2015) describes another example of enclosure in the ocean commons through oil production in the coastal communities of West Ghana:

When ordinary people and their environments become victims of disruptive economic expansion without adequate protection or provision of alternative means to improve their livelihoods, they remain vulnerable. The women of the coastal communities become vulnerable to the political and economic power of the oil companies and the government. Clearly, the strategic economic interests of these power structures took precedence over the community welfare and these women’s livelihoods … since the production of oil commenced … there are already visible signs of abject poverty, economic deprivation, lack of social amenities, destitution and unemployment in these oil communities. (p. 30)

The result is that the commodification of the ocean encloses and marginalizes many communities, making ways of understanding the ocean, lifestyles, and rights vulnerable. Not surprising, those marginalized are often most in need of the ability to perform the duties of their livelihood.

Consider, for example, the people of Ecuador who face enclosure because of mangrove depletion (Hamilton, 2020). Mangrove habitats stabilize bottom sediment and protect against storm surges. They are an important filter for runoff from inland regions and a nursery, shelter, and source of food for many marine organisms. The mangrove ecosystem has provided for the people of Ecuador in a variety of ways: Ecuadoreans find sustenance in the fish, mollusks, and crustaceans that live in the mangrove habitat and use their wood for charcoal, construction, and fuelwood. Adults and children collect mangrove cockles from mangrove roots to sell at the market for family income. Yet, mangrove habitats in Ecuador are depleted for the space they occupy, which can be used for aquaculture to meet the ever-growing global demand for cheap seafood. If mangrove deforestation continues, then these communities face increased risk of food insecurity, loss of livelihoods, and issues related to soil erosion. As youth make meaning of ocean phenomena through a phenomenology of place, they will learn to break down and balance the tensions or barriers of rapidly increasing enclosures and learn to protect and sustain the commons for the future.

Ocean Literacy and an Erotic Ethic

We are living in a time of major social, political, and economic changes. Our knowledge and ways of understanding change too with growing technological advances, globalization, and the subsequent generation and organization of information. In consideration of Hodson’s (2011) argument that scientific literacy is necessary to help students cope with an uncertain and constantly changing world, I argue that ocean literacy is essential in helping students tackle constantly evolving and changing ocean-related issues and understandings for the health of themselves, their community, and the ocean. Ocean literacy provides a space to utilize knowledge of the ocean to act for the resolution of specific issues relating to ocean science or for the betterment of a community because of issues relating to the ocean and its resources. This knowledge does not strictly have to be from formal education and can include knowledge from one’s home, culture, community, or knowledge from some other domain. The ocean’s relevancy to human lives is timeless and extraordinary, though the demand for more ocean-literate students has not reflected this relationship as intensely as is needed in the schools due to ocean sciences not being explicitly noted in the national standards and benchmarks. However, educators should use marine education to promote ocean literacy as a way of enhancing the lives of our students to be meaningful within the marine environment. Students cannot know the marine ecosystem, and therefore how to protect it, without exposure or involvement that allow for the creation of personal meaning through these lived experiences. As students make meaning of ocean phenomena through a phenomenology of place, they can uncover the value of human and nonhuman Others. This revelation provides an opening for students to experience eroticism that encourages them to act generously for the ecojustice of these enclosures.

An erotic relationship (Luther, 2013) is one that fosters erotic generosities between parties (e.g., students and the ocean) or a giving of oneself for the sake of the Other (e.g., the ocean and its inhabitants) because of the relationship. A central tenant in an erotic relationship is ambiguity, as humans are ambiguous by nature. We are simultaneously our bodies while also not our bodies, both a subject and an object, no longer part of the past or yet part of the future. Therefore, it requires an embodiment because the erotic dimension is exposed as consciousness is coupled to the body. As embodied beings, we are passionate and thoughtful. We are influenced by the push and pull between the natural world and society, and we make choices based on these influences. We use our bodies to act upon decisions based on our passions and our emotions. Oppressive institutions make it difficult to recognize the freedom or need for such in the Other but embodied people have erotic intentionalities, which provide a space for responsibility and generosity with lived bodily experiences. An erotic ethic also does not focus on who or what is to blame, or what is specifically right or wrong, but rather that we work harder to become more responsible, compassionate, ethically acting people. An erotic ethic can then provide a pathway between an Anthropocene of negative human impact on our natural systems and one of responsibility, care, and generosity.

Phenomenology of Place

Edmund Husserl (1970) explains that a phenomenological reduction occurs when one peels away or “brackets” the assumptions and presuppositions of culture from a phenomena, anything that can objectify it, like peeling away the layers of an onion. In doing so, all inessential details are disregarded, revealing only the immediate level of consciousness, where the phenomena or entity can “speak for itself.” Through phenomenological reduction, we can experience the things as they are, free of prejudice and presumption. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1964) reinterprets Husserl’s description of phenomenological reduction to mean that human consciousness returns to the “perceptual pre-conceptual experience of the child” (Moran, 2000, p. 402). In doing so, we can return to a level of being and way of knowing that we once had but lost through experience and age. A child, for example, begins to perceive from birth, before it is even capable of speech. At such an unadulterated stage of perception of the world, children are full of the sense of wonder at the world within which they live. They don’t immediately know the role of tools until they are demonstrated for them, nor do they have judgments for the natural world beyond what their senses reveal. Indeed, they are very sensual beings. As a toddler, for example, my oldest son woke each morning anxious to go outside and play. He loved searching for the neighbor’s cat, finding spiders in the mailbox, digging in and examining dirt, and collecting acorns and leaves. For the most part, I let him explore our yard, a nearby park, or other outdoor area uninhibited. When we were outside, he wasn’t afraid to walk or climb anywhere, as he had no understanding or experience yet with such things as poison ivy, burrows, or moss-covered rocks. On a trip to the State Botanical Gardens of Georgia, we were walking through a pile of leaves, when he bent down to pick up something that had caught his eye—the partial carcass of a deceased metallic green Japanese beetle. He stared in awe as he turned it over and over in his hands, until finally noticing its shiny body was just hollow enough that he could slip his little finger through to wear it almost like a ring. His perception of the Japanese beetle was not of a disgusting bug, a pest, nor did he probably understand that it was once alive. His perception of the beetle was what the beetle presented itself to be, simply, and what his senses gauged and used the sensuality of the thing before him to make mindful meaning. There was no need to understand the beetle, just to allow the phenomena to reveal itself. If we could all become more like children, we would come closer to the idea of the phenomenological reduction. As elders revert back to their youthful understandings of the world, they too serve as an example. These things are also experienced culturally, for instance, in indigenous connections with the Earth.

An erotic ethic is fitting for a phenomenology of place in science education, which allows youth to tap into their childish conceptions and reveal the most basic phenomena of their place in relation to the ocean. As students engage their senses and make meaning of the phenomena, they can determine what is valuable and worthy of protection and care. This idea is diametrically opposed to consumer-driven curricula and lifestyle, where the ocean-Other is not seen phenomenologically, as valuable or beneficial in its own right, but instead as a commodity for exploitation. Therefore, utilizing a phenomenology of place is a valuable way to teach science content while promoting moral and ethical thinking such that students can afford nature-equivalent moral considerations in their community and gain the tools necessary to tackle ecojustice issues in their community and the local environment.

Eroticism for the Ocean

Globally, we have an unsustainable system, where the oceans’ resources will continue to dwindle and degrade if humans worldwide continue on our current path of consumption. The ocean may provide an anecdote to the pollution of our lives if we respect and protect the eroticism, or intimate connection, inherent in and fostered with the ocean that leads to gifted reciprocity and generosity instead of seeking to harness the powers of the ocean to fulfill our desires. Those that benefit from this system are content so long as they are benefiting, but continually push for more, faster, and better. The beneficiaries feel as though the system fails them during times of natural disasters, war, or depression—all things the beneficiaries categorize as not of our own making. How is this logical? As erotic embodied beings, we are responsible for our actions. We have failed the natural system through consumerism, overspending, waging wars, and polluting our air and waterways. This disregard for the value of nature is embedded in Western society unconsciously through the influence of root metaphors and the consequences of rationalist culture, which not only distances humans from nature but promotes domination and constructive thinking and behaviors (Luther, 2013).

Val Plumwood (2002) argues that rationalism, or emphasizing reason as knowledge, distorts contemporary thinking under the influence of capitalism. Plumwood explains that the dualism of reason associated with men and nature associated with women is a recipe for oppression or a justification for domination. The focus on capitalism in the reason-centered Western culture has distorted how nature is perceived, allowing for the domination of nature and Other(s), including other cultures and marginalized people, resulting in a commodification of the world. Other historically refers to “lesser beings” that are oppositional to Western rationality, culture, and philosophy (Plumwood, 2002), and is associated with the characteristics of women in patriarchal society: weak, voiceless, passive, and valued based on the potential for production (Beauvoir, 1948, 2011). Because it is considered inferior and feminized through patriarchal constructions, the Other is generally characterized as having less possibility. Subsequently, the Other is more vulnerable to objectification and oppression. In consideration of this notion of Other, the ocean and its inhabitants are an example of an Other—the ocean-Other. The ocean is not a single living entity in the sense that it cannot be sexed or gendered. However, as the ocean as Other becomes ocean-Other, the ocean takes on personification. For the phenomenologist, the personification of the ocean for the sake of valuing its Otherness is appropriate and significant (c.f., Abram, 1996).

Given this, how is it possible to ensure that the ocean is protected and respected? Perhaps when we first consider that the ocean is more than the greatest commons, it is the greatest unifier. The ocean touches every continent. Oceans reach into every continent through the connection with inland water systems. Though nations may be physically, economically, socially, politically, and culturally different, the one thing they share is the shoreline. All people are reliant on the ocean in the same way. The ocean is a source of security, as it provides water, medicine, food, energy, and planetary governance. It is an essential and unifying system that connects us all. The value of the ocean is so great that it can sustain us far into the future for energy, protein, and water. This can only happen, however, if we grant erotic generosities to the ocean. In the face of our best attempts to objectify the ocean, when we stand at the ocean shoreline and watch the crashing waves, witness a seabird dip beneath the water’s surface to catch its dinner, or feel the pelting of rain on our skin from a tropical storm, we know in our bodies that dominating the ocean is not in the realm of possibility. This mindful emotional and intuitive response to the condition of the ocean-Other may be the opening for the establishment of an erotic relationship within us.

Embracing an erotic ethic in consideration of the ocean, students realize the breadth of their responsibilities to the ocean-Other. As they engage in activities that promote a better understanding of the ocean, they are able to more clearly see how the ocean influences their lives and what effects their action has on the ocean. Further, through the development of an erotic relationship and authentic practices, they are better prepared to act more compassionately and ethically for the sake of the ocean-Other. There are innumerous ways to grant erotic generosities to the ocean-Other, including, for example, cleaning debris in local waterways, reducing our use of oil-based fuels, raising public awareness of marine-related issues, and purchasing seafood that is harvested sustainably or fished locally. Our growing erotic relationship with the ocean yields mutual reciprocity that is joyfully sustaining. It is easier to develop this type of relationship through intimate experiences with the sea, but how do people without these experiences or exposure to the sea develop erotic relationships with the ocean? Moral value can be assigned when we consider something to be worthy of our respect, often associated with those embodied experiences that allow intellectual and emotional appreciation to blend. If we cannot conjure an emotional connection or valuable memory, then how can we assign moral value? Utilizing a phenomenology of place in science education provides an opportunity for students to engage in activities in or centered on the marine environment that promote an understanding of the ocean that enables them to more clearly see the influence the ocean has on their lives and what effects their actions have on the ocean.

Implications in Science Education

Scientific knowledge leads to provocation for action against social and environmental injustice (Aikenhead, 1985; Kolstø, 2001). It can bring the people of communities together to improve their local conditions. Scientific knowledge and thinking scientifically can essentially provide a framework for people to be better citizens. Following this logic, as youth gain an understanding of the marine environment, they are more likely to care for it and take action to protect the marine environment. Science teachers ought to strive to implement a model of erotic marine science education that provides students with the knowledge to provoke action for the betterment of their community and their local aquatic environments, which are linked inextricably to marine and freshwater environments worldwide.

An important component of what I am advancing here is that youth use their content knowledge, phenomenological experiences, and erotic relationship with the ocean to work together and socially construct or re-envision what the future might look like based on their proposed solutions through cultural, environmental, and virtual heuristic considerations. If youth perceive themselves as capable of doing this through this process of making changes in their environment for the betterment of the natural world and their community, then they are more likely to realize, understand, and work toward reaching their potential as responsible citizens—a reality made evident by young people like Greta Thunberg. Through an erotic marine science education, students gain the knowledge necessary to act as citizen scientists. As citizen scientists, students then share the responsibility for issues in the community and relating to the marine environment by participating more fully in democratic discourse.

Our current curriculum focuses on preparing students for active citizenship through ethnocentric and nationalist practices, where students are not fully able to make meaning of civic education (Ladson-Billings, 2004). This type of civic education has issues, like a lack of meaningful content and training in thinking and process skills, focus on passive learning, avoidance of controversial topics, a low-quality curriculum for underrepresented students, and a lack of attention to global issues (Cotton, 1996). Until our students see models of active citizens in their schools and classrooms, they will be unable to make the connections needed to learn and engage in active citizenship. Therefore, for an ocean-literate person to take action through erotic generosities, they need to know how to act. Action through erotic generosity is a critical component of an erotic ethic because it is in action that we can recognize and demonstrate that the strangeness of another is valuable and worthy of care. Through erotic generosities, we grant freedom and assume our responsibility.

How can science educators prepare science teachers to meet the needs of our students and demonstrate erotic generosities for them, particularly if students need to see physical, human examples of active citizenship? One possibility is through a humanist perspective ideology, which “promotes practical utility, human values, and a connectedness with societal events to achieve inclusiveness and a student orientation” (Aikenhead, 2006, p. 22). It is important, however, to amend this definition to include ecological consideration—an ecohumanist perspective, which allows for the valuation of the natural environment and its resources to human interests (Mikulak, 2007). According to Mikulak, an ecohumanist perspective considers Heidegger’s (1962) philosophical understanding that we cannot separate ourselves from our environment and that in killing part of our environment, we are killing part of ourselves. This neglect is in stark contrast with the traditional ideology of science education, which often focuses on creating the next generation of scientists through mental training and scientific orientation. Zimmerman (1994) explains that the traditional ideology is an inauthentic existence that “seeks to protect and complete itself by dominating other people and by devouring the planet” (p. 111). Heidegger, on the other hand, posits that through an ecohumanist perspective, students “dwell authentically and in tune with [their] surroundings in a way that allows things ‘to be,’ through a movement towards a more holistic, interdependent model of understanding [their] relationship with the environment” (Mikulak, 2007, p. 20). In other words, if science teachers help their students shift perspective to a more ecohumanist perspective, the students may strive to dwell authentically in their erotic relationship with the ocean and gain a more holistic understanding of the ocean-Other to act for its freedom.

To achieve this, science educators need to move beyond the goals of traditional Western science education to include what is relevant to students, “usually determined by students’ cultural self-identities, students’ future contributions to society as citizens, and students’ interest in making personal utilitarian meaning out of various kinds of sciences—Western, citizen, or indigenous” (Aikenhead 2006, p. 23). Science educators can use this ecohumanist perspective to promote a science curriculum that gets at the very basic understanding of phenomena. Through a connection to the community, science educators can prepare science teachers to hone an erotic ethic in the classroom by demonstrating that situations provide opportunity and possibility, rather than limitations. Water percolates from the surface to the groundwater, which is an essential process for sustainable groundwater management. It recharges the water table and replenishes aquifers. My claim aligns with an ecohumanist perspective, as fostering an erotic ethic can develop citizenship if we imagine our students as water percolating through the water table of their community. As they establish and develop erotic relationships within the community, they allow their “water,” or their passion, sensuality, generosity, and care for the Other, to flow through the community, recharging and revitalizing it. With a basic understanding of the phenomena in their place—their community, local waterways, the ocean, natural environments—students are better able to think more clearly and meaningfully about issues affecting the phenomena while drawing connections back to the community and their actions.

Erotic Generosities in Science Education

Service-Learning

One way for science teacher preparation programs to utilize an ecohumanist perspective is in preparing science teachers to use service-learning strategies comprised of erotic ethics. Specifically, the services provided in this type of service-learning should be erotic generosities bestowed upon the Other for its freedom and because of its moral worth. In science education programs, service-learning provides opportunities for pre-service teachers to develop a multicultural science teaching practice, which allows them to make meaningful connections with community members and authenticates the kind of science they do (Barton, 2000). Students engaging in service-learning also benefit, including, through increased academic achievement, improved personal and social skills, developed citizenship, and improvement in school–community relationships (Kielsmeier et al., 2004). Moreover, as science students participate in community-based service-learning activities, they learn science authentically, which prepares them for lifelong learning and active participation in society (Handa et al., 2008).

Though the integration of service-learning activities is nothing new to science teacher education and science education, what I propose is different—service-learning based on erotic generosities. This kind of service-learning would include the traditional components (Barton, 2000; Phillipson-Mower & Adams, 2010), but it also capitalizes on the erotic relationships students will have (un)knowingly developed with their community and the ocean-Other. This focus is significant because students learn how to grant erotic generosities to the Other through their erotic relationship when explicitly explored. Service-learning based on an erotic ethic allows students to get back to the basic essence of the link between people, their community, and the ocean-Other, but this work needs to be done on the front end. Science teacher preparation programs need to teach science teachers how to help students bracket out the inessential details of their intimate relationships with Others to reveal the pure state. Ultimately, this allows students to live more authentically and generously with Other(s). One way science teachers can help students get to a phenomenon is by directing them to connect with members of the community, like community elders, to glean from their intergenerational, scientific, and cultural knowledge. These interactions help students to begin stripping away inessential and irrelevant layers to get at the basic connection they have to this knowledge. The early understanding community members convey can highlight how best to serve or act generously for the marine environment, because it helps students to uncover only those details that are pertinent. Through the understanding that comes from this phenomenological reduction, teachers can then help students feel better prepared to serve the ocean in a way that protects and sustains the basic integrity of the natural environment.

Once students begin to grapple with ocean phenomena, what might they learn about the phenomena by going to the sea or another aquatic environment, where they can take off their shoes and let their feet explore the hot sand? What might they learn about science and the natural world through service-learning activities, as the sea breeze whips their hair around their faces, seaweed washes ashore, and signs prevent them from trampling the dunes? Consider the fifty senior high school students engaging in water quality testing in Santa Rosa Sound through NOAA’s Watershed Education and Training program. The students focus specifically on baseline testing to track future changes in the water quality to determine steps for the health of the environment. Through the program, the students go into the field and collect water samples for data analysis, then eventually communicate their findings to local officials and 1500 fifth graders (Escobedo, 2019). There are other examples, such as South Carolina high school students that paddle through the marsh on kayaks collecting water samples to investigate nutrient abundance, sedimentation, and types of pollution (Hedelt, 2019). The students simultaneously learn about local culture and history, wanting to make connections between the science content they were learning in class and their community, or establishing a sense of place. Through these service-learning projects, students learn important science content, but they are also more likely to act as lifelong stewards through phenomenological experiencing and nurturing erotic relationships. Community involvement might also be more sustainable, as the community has a moral responsibility to act generously to achieve transcendence for self and ocean-Other. Service-learning is one major example of erotically based marine science projects that can be utilized in the science classroom to promote erotic generosities and erotic relationships, but there are other examples of pathways that stimulate co-evolution of students’ erotic relationships and the care and conservation of the marine environment.

Projects and Activities to Stimulate Co-evolution

Some scientists and marine resource managers are concerned for the ecology of the ocean because of its own inherent value, rather than for the remediation or conservation measures of marine ecology for human utility. Hale and Dilling (2010) argue that we exercise the precautionary principle and stop using marine resources arbitrarily because we are not able to control the results of human activities on the ocean. Through these considerations, marine resources would be distributed broadly and equitably among present and future generations. Moreover, this type of care might lead to erotically based, sustainable environmental management, rather than a focus on already dwindling resources. Perhaps what Hale and Dilling are defending is a co-evolution with our natural environments, where we recognize the transformations occurring in these environments through our erotic relationship and experiences with them. We in turn adapt to meet the needs and changes of the natural environment and learn to live sustainably within our limits. If we co-evolve with our natural environments, not only we are more capable of adapting by way of erotic thinking, but we also focus on and strive for an erotic relationship with our environment that is based on reciprocity, where it is mutually sustaining and conserving. We need science education programs that prepare science teachers to engage students in projects and activities that stimulate this co-evolution through the development of meaningful erotic relationships.

To determine how science education programs bolster this sort of curriculum, we might consider the work of Rachel Carson, who had a fierce erotic relationship with the sea and spent her life granting erotic generosities to the ocean because of this relationship. What about her erotic ethic is meaningful for science education? Carson sparked the interest of public and government officials alike; her passionate writing became the ignition for interest and action in environmental conservation efforts around the world. She called for critical thinking on scientific issues, action for scientific learning, and growth toward ecojustice. She established the significance for children to always have a sense of wonder about the natural world. Carson was deeply embedded and actively engaged in inquiry for her research because of the love she had for the sea. These qualities are all necessary to move the field of science education and marine science education forward, just as she was able to do with her environmental conservation efforts. It’s time for our science educators to focus on fostering the kind of curriculum in science education that aligns with Carson’s lived experiences, where authentic inquiry is key to developing or maintaining a sense of wonder about the natural world. Moreover, authentic inquiry activities, where students investigate legitimate issues that concern them, promote a co-evolution with the marine environment to build and strengthen our erotic relationships.

Through their lived experiences, students actively engage in the world over. According to Beauvoir (1948), we actively engage in the world to experience freedom. As something acted out, freedom derived from an erotic ethic should inspire action of value for the Other. This action will require “a pedagogy whereby educators explicitly connect student experience to the subject of study in the present moment in such a way that the past and the future are open, emerging, and in process” (Slattery & Morris, 1999, p. 30). Freedom must be based on ambiguity, not certainty. Henriksen wrote of the erotic as “open and opening, not closed and closing” (2010, p. 225). Just as plunging into the deep unknown of the ocean, “descent into the depths of consciousness necessitates a fluid and changing self, the dissolving of solidity and form into new energies for life, an openness to mysteries both within the self and beyond” (Victorin-Vangerud, 2001, p. 175). In science classes, students should be encouraged to embrace ambiguity and plunge into the unknown in order to experience freedom and open themselves to new experiences for spontaneity and action. This freedom should be particularly true when engaging in laboratory activities or through interactions with nature and the ocean, so as not to confine the results, nature, or ocean, thereby ensuring the possibilities of their ambiguity. Experiencing their science class in this way may allow the consciousness of the students to expand as well, as they would themselves be open to the possibilities of their ambiguity.

Other Pathways for an Erotic Ocean Science Education

Two additional possible routes to investigating an erotic ethic for ocean science education would be through the exploration of digital commons and within the science classroom itself. It could be argued that the digital world is a natural environment. If this is true, inland teachers can explore the uses of technology to effectively reveal the eroticism of the ocean (consider Google tools) when the marine environment is not readily available or necessarily familiar to them and their students. Therefore, it might be worthwhile to consider the use of online social networking such as Facebook to connect with others across the country or even worldwide. For example, what are the implications of inland classrooms setting up their own Facebook group that they could use to discuss marine-related topics with other classrooms along the coastline or to pose questions for their community regarding marine-related community issues? Students could even engage in social media gaming such as Coral Greef or Ocean Sweeper, in which players clean the world’s oceans as part of a larger curriculum. Similarly, they can use other gaming options like Beyond Blue, which teaches about lesser-known aspects of the deep ocean environment, and NASA’s NeMO-Net, which teaches users how to classify coral reefs and then allows them to classify real images that NASA’s supercomputers use to improve their automated classification coding. Virtual gaming can be an excellent teaching opportunity, particularly when used appropriately. Beyond social networking and gaming, teachers could set up a classroom blog to discuss or advocate for pertinent marine-related community matters. Video conferencing technology provides a perfect venue for connecting with coastal classrooms, knowledgeable others, or oceanographers, as evidenced by the success of Skype a Scientist. Depending on internet accessibility, students could even video conference with students or oceanographers at or on the ocean to increase exposure. The appropriate use of technology can enhance the students’ experiences with the ocean when they cannot physically be near it and can connect inland students with their community and coastal students and marine scientists to gain a better understanding of the ocean. Given these benefits, it would be interesting to consider the possibilities of a digital world enhancing or developing an erotic relationship with the natural world.

The ocean is peaceful, healing, sensuous, comforting, and embracing. Perhaps an erotic ethic can bring those qualities of the ocean to students, whether the ocean is present or not. An erotic relationship with the ocean can extend into science classrooms, regardless of proximity to the ocean. Perhaps in instances when even authentic inquiry is not always a possibility, teachers can create an “ocean” in their classroom using an erotic ethic. This ocean can serve as a model for students to practice freedom and ambiguity, lessons they will need when they transition into the adult world. Teachers can model mutual reciprocity of freedom in the classroom by viewing their students as free, not as objects in their classrooms. Through this model, students can learn the value of freedom not only for the ocean, but for all Others, and begin to understand how to grant this freedom themselves. As freedom is granted, students protect the Other from undue harm.

Because in many patriarchal societies, nature is gendered as female, teachers can analyze the language they use in the classroom and be conscious of the use of gendered pronouns and patriarchal metaphors about the ocean. It is not uncommon to hear metaphors like “the rape of mother earth” when referencing the human exploitation of natural environments. Ships and research vessels are said to “penetrate” the female sea. These root metaphors often originate in creation stories, in which the moist and cold properties of water symbolize the life-giving womb, coupled with the color blue that symbolizes female creativity. Water is seen as seductive and transformative, aspects of women that men historically fear (Pararas-Carayannis & Laoupi, 2007). In ungendering the ocean, the teacher acknowledges the ambiguous ocean. This ambiguous ocean can be erotic and subjective, not vulnerable to oppression or domination. As students recognize the ambiguity of the ocean, they see the ocean-Other as having possibilities for spontaneity. In this recognition, the student can view the ocean as free so that its end is freedom. The students can realize through this freedom that they must act with the ocean and Others to ensure the ocean continues to have such possibilities and reject any desires that would harm or negate the ocean-Other’s freedom.

Coda

Adopting an erotic ethic in consideration of the ocean is essential for conservation and freedom. Through the development of an erotic relationship with the ocean-Other, we recognize the possibilities of self and the ocean-Other that allow us to consider the ocean-Other as free and worthy of care. We become more open to granting erotic generosities for the ocean-Other’s security in recognition of its moral worth. An erotic relationship with the ocean-Other is necessary for all people across the country, regardless of the distance to the sea, age, or social class. This becomes evident when we consider how our actions are directly linked to the health of the ocean, which is in turn linked to the health of our bodies. With this knowledge, in part discovered through relationships with (O)thers, and preparedness to act, we can work against seeing the ocean as a commodity and act to sustain and protect its resources. Revealing the eroticism of the ocean and developing an erotic relationship with the ocean can promote the use of erotic generosities for the ocean-Other and provide a framework for the inclusion of an erotic ethic in environmental and science education. Through the inclusion of erotically based marine science curricula in science education, students can foster their own erotic relationship with the ocean, become aware of how intimately they are linked to the ocean, and gain the tools and knowledge necessary to make decisions to act in a way that protects and preserves the ocean-Other through erotic generosities.