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Curriculum-Based Ecosystems: Supporting Knowing From an Ecological Perspective

Indiana University, School of Education, IN 47405; sbarab{at}indiana.edu. His current work involves the design and research of game-based learning environments to assist children in developing their sense of purpose as individuals, as members of their communities, and as knowledgeable citizens of the world

Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor of Applied Cognitive Science

University of Victoria, MacLaurin Building A548, Victoria, BC, V8W 3N4, Canada; mroth{at}uvic.ca. His research is concerned with cultural-historical issues of formal and informal knowing and learning in mathematics and science across the lifespan from kindergarten to professional praxis, including settings such as scientific laboratories and other workplaces (e.g., fish hatcheries and environmental agencies)

The goal of this article is to advance an ecological theory of knowing, one that prioritizes engaged participation over knowledge acquisition. To this end, the authors begin by describing the environment in terms of affordance networks: functionally bound potentials extended in time that can be acted upon to realize particular goals. Although there may be socially agreed-upon trajectories specifying the necessary components of a network activated for realizing a particular goal, the particular network engaged by an individual is dependent on adopted intentions and available effectivity sets, the attunements and behaviors that an individual can enlist to realize an affordance network. Thus, to help clarify the challenges of connecting learners to ecological systems through which affordance networks are activated, the authors use the term life-world, which refers to the environment from the perspective of an individual. Building on their characterization of affordance networks, effectivity sets, and life-worlds, the authors offer an ecological focal point for curricular design.

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