Abstract
This article deals with the identification of some general guidelines for teaching aimed at developing futures thinking about themes of the Anthropocene. For that, we estimate such teaching activities at the intersection of socioscientific issues, environmental education, and futures education. We describe two teaching contexts designed on this principle, and centered on pupils’ writing fictional narratives, and analyze the effects on their futures thinking. The results show that it is important to design teaching activities that make it possible to think about the temporalities of processes and phenomena, and to invest in relational responsibilities. In order for the pedagogical activity to take temporalities into account, we propose that the backgrounds of the futures on which the stories take place be built using the scenario method. Writing short stories can also allow for a deeper understanding of relational responsibilities, based more on the framework of capabilities. One perspective is to integrate fictional short stories writing into the repertoire of possible activities to be conducted in an inquiry-based pedagogy about the Anthropocene.
Highlights
Within a few years, the term “Anthropocene” has become “a vivid yet informal metaphor of global environmental change” (Zalasiewicz et al, 2008, p. 7), even if the concept is not stabilized and the word is controversial
Differences in the temporality of tree growth, the rhythms of climate or social change, or innovative technological developments are not distinguished by pupils, nor are those constituting the different actions that are described in the narratives
Temporalities are most often thought of in the short term, in the near future, and cannot give impetus to futures thinking as it should be solicited to think about the challenges of the Anthropocene
Summary
The term “Anthropocene” has become “a vivid yet informal metaphor of global environmental change” (Zalasiewicz et al, 2008, p. 7), even if the concept is not stabilized and the word is controversial. The prospect of human activities being responsible for a geological epochal shift marks a recognition of the extent of the human footprint on the Earth System. The Earth System is being propelled into an unprecedented phase of its geological history, one less conducive to maintaining biological diversity and stable living conditions for humanity. As Latour (2017) expresses it, “it is not speaking ill of humanity to recall the extent to which we are all ill-equipped—emotionally, intellectually, morally, politically, culturally—to absorb such news” Even if concerns about the evolution of the Earth System are shared, the social space is permeated by numerous visions of the future and divided on the actions to be taken to face it. Chateauraynaud and Debaz (2017) have shown that actors’ reasoning in environmental and sociotechnical controversies is deeply structured by the futures images they are building
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