No abstract

Bull kelp Nereocystis luetkeana is an important foundation species, providing structural habitat and nutrients to the nearshore ecosystems of temperate coastal regions in the Northeast Pacific. Sensitive to environmental conditions, this species thrives in cool, nutrient-rich water. Reported declines in the extent and distribution of bull kelp may reflect changing oceanic conditions and result in breakdown of important food chains and ecosystem services. This study uses satellite remote sensing to map kelp bed extent from 2004 to 2017 in the Salish Sea on the West Coast of British Columbia, Canada and examines the relationship between trends in kelp persistence with local and global scale environmental conditions. In our study area, we found limited evidence of kelp decline. Local scale effects of current speed, temperature and substrate type may play a role in the spatial and temporal patterns of persistence. Kelp persistence was higher in sites with rocky substrate and lower in areas with low current and gravel or sand substrate. A decline in kelp was recorded from a high in 2015 to a low in 2017; however, a longer and more complete record is needed to distinguish declining trends from natural variability. This work highlights the importance of continued collection of long-term data for use in time series of kelp abundance as multiple factors can influence the reliability of image interpretation and kelp classification.

Around the world, many people concerned with the state of the environment participate in environmental action groups. Much of their learning occurs informally, simply by participating in the everyday, ongoing collective life of the chosen group. Such settings provide unique opportunities for studying how people learn science in complex settings without being directly instructed. This study was designed to investigate learning and teaching that occurs through ordinary, everyday participation in environmental action. We draw on data collected during a 2-year ethnographic study of a coast-wide eelgrassmapping project. Taking a whole activity as our unit of analysis, we articulate the forms of participation that volunteers take and theorize learning in terms of changing participation and expanding opportunities for action. The community-based eelgrass stewardship group we studied is both socially and materially heterogeneous, made up of people young and old and with different expertise. We show that changing forms of participation are emergent features of unfolding sociomaterial inter-action, not determinate roles or rules. EMERGENT FEATURES OF INFORMAL SETTINGS 1029Furthermore, the possibilities for learning expand when individuals have the opportunity to frame problems that arise in ongoing activity. In the setting of our study, attributions (dichotomies) such as "off-task/on-task" and "teacher/learner" are artificial. We suggest that by providing expanding opportunities, in the form of a variety of sociomaterial resources, science educators can rethink the design of school-based science learning environments.

In this article we describe an instance of free-choice learning in the context of an eelgrass mapping and stewardship project (the Project) that covers over 500 kilometers of coastline in British Columbia, Canada, and involves 20 volunteer groups. In this ethnographic case study we sought to (a) explicate the relationship between individual and collective learning in this free-choice setting and (b) understand how a network of Project participants could both constitute a free-choice learning setting and support such a setting. We articulate a dialectic relationship between individual and collective learning, which, unfortunately in our view, has not yet been explored in educational research. In this relation, collective learning fosters individual learning and vice versa, whereby individuals produce resources in action and as outcomes of their activities. These resources expand the action possibilities of the collective, and thus constitute learning. The stability of the network of Project participants, which brings about and supports collective and therefore individual learning, rests on the flexibility of the Project that enables local innovation and tailoring of mapping activities as well as access to expertise and tools produced by other groups and Project partners. The possibilities that arise in the Project for local people to participate in relevant ways constitute free-choice learning settings.

The purpose of this paper is to document and theorize the emergence of a network of stewards concerned about the conservation of a marine habitat called eelgrass along the coastline of British Columbia, Canada. Today, by engaging as professional biologists, government employees, and volunteers using various mapping, outreach, and communication tools, these stewards generate knowledge on the geographic location and health of eelgrass habitat, how to educate the public, how to coordinate volunteers, and how to approach local governments--with the ultimate goal of convincing others that eelgrass is worth protecting. Our two-year ethnographic study began in the second year of a project that was designed to train twenty community coordinators how to map and monitor eelgrass habitat. The coordinators were faced with complex social, cultural, political, historical, and material landscapes--which made us wonder about how it was possible for the network to hold together while extending its reach. We provide evidence to support the claim that the network became more stable and was extended by particular performances. These performances emerged from recognition and resolution of resistances, in which the network was both resource for and object of its activity. In the process, (a) knowledge produced is made to move and do something, (b) coordinators and scientists involved acted as knowledge brokers between various communities, and (c) communication between coordinators was enabled and maintained.