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Teaching invasive species ethically: using comics to resist metaphors of moral wrongdoing & build literacy in environmental ethics

Katrina Maggiulli

Published 2022 in Environmental Education Research

ABSTRACT

Abstract Invasive species outreach has long leaned on problematic and oversimplified messaging that narrowly frames the issue as binary: good-native vs. evil-invasive. Contemporary invasive species educational programming in the United States, as illustrated in this article, draw on this same approach that, while attention grabbing, both reinforces xenophobic rhetoric and fails to adequately educate on the complicated ethical decision-making processes that go into invasive species management. In response to this gap, I identify educational strategies using storytelling and narrative, specifically comics creation, as a productive way of deepening student engagement with invasive species management and building literacy in ethical environmental decision-making. Using comics without proper framing, however, might still reproduce good/evil binaries, as I exemplify using the Oregon Sea Grant WISE Program’s Aquatic Invasions! A Menace to the West invasive species comics curriculum. I suggest that improving comics-based invasive species curricula should include an emphasis on process-based learning and reflective practice to model the iterative nature of environmental management and provoke critical thinking about invasive species representation.

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