JustClima · Pedagogies for the Imagination: Science Education for Climate Just Futures

Due to planetary environmental crises and injustices we face as society, different academic communities have started to posit the need to reenvision scientific disciplines to deal with such crises. Science plays a crucial role in imagining sustainable just ways of living and in proposing solutions for the uneven way the intersected crises affects communities worldwide. Therefore, science education, as the connection between science and society, has a paramount role in cultivating imagination, aiming at sustainable just futures and educating the next generation of scientists and science educators. The question then becomes, “How can the imagination be pedagogically cultivated?” JustCLIma deals with this question by proposing a novel multi-theoretical and multimethodological approach centred on southern ways of being and doing to imagine and work towards just futures. The project operates from the premise that: 1) we need to imagine and learn with the spaces we inhabit, but also the ones we do not, and 2) we need to learn with decentred, usually overlooked spaces that today deal with deep climate conflicts. Hence, JustCLIma aims to address the following goals: 1) propose a theory of imagination through research training at the University of Groningen, and 2) fieldwork research in Chile and the Netherlands interviewing justice-oriented scientists and science educators involved in climate justice questions. With this knowledge, JustCLIma will: 3) design, implement, and evaluate pedagogical resources for the education of future scientists and science teachers.JustCLIma will contribute theoretically and empirically to science education with “Pedagogy for the Imagination: Science Education for Climate Just-Futures”, bringing more robustness to the knowledge that future scientists and science teachers are building about their disciplinary roles, encouraging identities as climate-just futures designers.