Lay Theories of Spring Displacement of Common-Sense Understandings of Nature by ‘Expert ’

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

Lay Theories of Spring: Displacement ofCommon-Sense Understandings ofNature by ‘Expert’ Ideas

Raymond Chipeniuk

Frost Centre for Canadian Heritage and Development Studies, Trent University,Peterborough, Canada K9J 7B8

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in layminds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field,namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysisconfirmed that an explanation derived from science is displacing common-sense theo-ries of spring in samples of high school students resident in the Niagara Peninsula,Ontario, Canada. However, the ‘expert’ theory has no real explanatory value for thosewho hold it, whereas some of the common-sense theories do. These findings may haveimplications for environmental education and planning when the object is not trans-mission of knowledge about science for its own sake but a person’s competence inthinking about nature as an ordinary citizen.

Introduction

Most children now grow up in an artifactual world and are given anenvironmental education, if given one at all, based on the ‘ecological paradigm’(Keiny & Zoller, 1991). As a consequence they tend to develop no practicalunderstanding of or profound feeling for nature (Nabhan & Trimble, 1994; Noss& Cooperrider, 1994). When they reach adulthood, their lack of experience offoraging for wild plants and animals of the bioregion they live in reduces theirability to read relative biodiversity in local landscapes (Chipeniuk, 1995a). Butneither can they extract information from moderately complicated textualsources and use it for their own purposes (Statistics Canada, 1996). Specifically,they have trouble understanding and discussing environmental issues as theirgovernments present them; terms including ‘global warming’, ‘biodiversity’, and‘ecosystems’ are largely unintelligible to them (Insight Canada Research, 1996).Deprived of personal competence in reading local landscapes, ill-equipped tomake sense out of printed information, mature citizens participating in environ-mental planning exercises then have a choice: struggle to comprehend expertideas, leave decision-making about nature to the experts themselves, or evaluateoptions by criteria having nothing to do with nature.

Unfortunately, experts on the environment do not always think like ordinarycitizens (e.g., Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). Even if experts could somehow accuratelyrepresent lay thinking to themselves, it is injurious to good citizenship for citizensto rely excessively on experts to do their planning and decision-making for them(Bookchin, 1992; Nagel, 1987; Richardson et al., 1993; Tong, 1986). Besides, indemocratic societies experts do not vote on behalf of citizens. Citizens vote; andunless citizens can discern long-term consequences of human intervention innatural landscapes by themselves, unless they care about nature in a personal1038-2046/98/01 0014-12 $10.00/0

International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education©1998 R. ChipeniukVol. 7, No. 1, 1998

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To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

Lay Theories of Spring15way, they may vote for candidates whose policies promise more jobs, moremoney, or more convenience, not candidates who formulate policy on the basisof expert advice about sustainability. They may pay little heed, for example, toexperts who warn that high consumption of hydrocarbons may be bringing oncatastrophic climate change. Surveys show that 46% of Canadians who expressincreased concern about climate change do so because of changes they have seenat first hand; only 2% do so because of their education and reading (EnvironicsResearch Group Limited, 1995).

To what extent have ‘expert’ understandings of everyday natural phenomenapenetrated lay thought? What use do laypersons make of expert ideas aboutbiological nature? What happens when expert ideas conflict with common-senseideas? Hitherto scholars have conducted little research on these questions, partlybecause of their presumption that whatever goes on in the minds of members ofthe public, everyone ought to think like experts, but also for lack of an appropriatepsychological framework. Now, however, environmental planners are comingto appreciate the importance of bottom-up planning (e.g. Tester, 1994) and theyhave a new-found respect for popular culture, in traditional if not in Westernsocieties (e.g. Johnson, 1992). Critics deny planners have a right to impose expertthought on public decision-making (Richardson 1993). Methodologically,et al.,

psychologists have developed new approaches to the study of ‘social repre-sentations’ (e.g. Moscovici, 1983) or ‘folk’ or ‘cultural’ or ‘mental models’(Keesing, 1987), providing insight into how ordinary people sometimes incorpo-rate scientific ideas in social discourse, sometimes act on their owncommon-sense explanations for various phenomena (Forguson, 1989; King,1983). Research into how expert knowledge affects the competence of laythinking about nature is now both urgent and feasible.

As part of an inquiry the general lines of which have been reported elsewhere(Chipeniuk, 1995a), a social representations study was designed to explore theinteraction between lay ideas originating from formal science and ideas derivedfrom custom and personal experience in a Western society. More specifically, itspurpose was to probe the extent to which expert concepts of spring, the northtemperate zone season, have displaced or interfered with common-sense ideasin the thinking of a fairly typical group of young laypersons.

Initially, what made lay conceptions of spring an obvious field to investigatewas the emphatic manner in which Canadian news media, citing meteorologists,announce that March 20 or 21 is ‘officially’ the first day of spring, even thoughMarch 20 has little to do with traditional English-language ideas of spring.Clearly, there is a popular science-derived ‘theory’ of spring. At one timeelementary school students in at least some of the Canadian school systemslearned about the relationship between solar angle and differential heating of thesurface of the Earth, but by now, despite the lack of common curricula, the notionseems to have a life of its own. A second reason for choosing conceptions of springto study was that the English written record on ideas about spring reaches backto times before Copernicus, so one can distinguish between what derives frommodern astronomical characterisations of the seasons and what does not. Stillanother was that lay ideas about when spring begins have a bearing on publicsensitivity to climate change and the decline of neotropical migratory bird

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

16International Research in Geographical and Environmental Educationpopulations, which are issues of the day in environmental education andplanning.

Methods

The principal method was content analysis in which the enumeration unitswere instances of ‘theorettes’, or rudimentary causal explanations (loosely afterForguson, 1989) for when spring begins and what brings it on at that time or howa person can tell it has begun. On a priori grounds, six theorettes were expected:Theorette 1, ‘Equinoctial Spring’, in which spring begins on or about the vernalequinox, which approximates to March 20; Theorette 2, ‘Calendar Spring’, inwhich spring begins according to the month, March, April, or May; Theorette 3,‘Day-length or Sun-height Spring’, in which spring begins when the days becomenoticeably longer or the sun noticeably higher in the sky; Theorette 4, ‘Warmthor Snow-melt Spring’, in which spring begins when the weather turns warm andsnow melts; Theorette 5, ‘Biological Spring’, in which spring begins when plantsleaf out or flower and songbirds return and sing; and Theorette 6, ‘Circle Spring’,in which spring begins one-eighth year after mid-winter, on or about February

4. From a small pilot, it was apparent that two further enumeration units wererequired, namely Theorette 7, ‘Artifactual or Social Spring’, in which springbegins when people start using different articles of clothing or vehicles or whentheir behaviour changes otherwise; and ‘Other’. The coding scheme compoundedfrom these units is presented in Figure

1.

Coding scheme for social representations of springFigure 1

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

Lay Theories of Spring17Theorettes 1 and 6 require some elaboration. According to the Compact Edition

early speakers of English had names for only twoof the Oxford English Dictionary,

seasons, winter, or the wet season, and summer, the other half of the year. Springwas just the beginning of summer. ‘Sing, Cuckoo’, an English poem dated to

AD 1230 somewhere between and 1310, celebrates such phenomena of spring as

the germination of seeds, the blossoming of flowers, and exuberant birdsong, butit starts with the line, roughly modernised, ‘Summer is a-coming in’ (Anony-mous, 1952). The middle of summer was Midsummer’s Day, conventionally onJune 24 by our own Gregorian calendar. June 24 approximates to the longest dayand the one on which the meridian of the sun is highest. Midwinter was taken tobe Christmas, December 25, more or less when the days are shortest and themeridian of the sun is lowest. No doubt this scheme was not formalised in thefolk mind, but if it had been, the equinox ca. March 20 would have been thebeginning of summer.

When the idea of four seasons entered English, evidently in the 1400s and byway of Renaissance French poetry, the word at first occurred as an elementspring

in the phrases ‘the spring of the year’ or ‘the spring of the leaf’. To spring hadpredominantly biological senses such as ‘to grow’ and ‘to be born’, though it alsomeant ‘to start’. There has never been any such thing as ‘Mid-Spring Day’ tocorrespond with Midsummer’s Day or midwinter. If there were, that day wouldcome halfway between Midsummer’s Day and midwinter; roughly on the vernalequinox, ca. March 20. As a season fitted into the traditional cycle of the seasons,spring should begin six-and-a-half weeks after midwinter, or more or less onFebruary 4. Not by chance, North American Groundhog Day, with its folkloricrule of thumb for ascertaining whether or not spring is about to begin,approximates this date. Hence Theorette 6.

The notion that spring begins around March 20, Theorette 1, is perhaps a recentback inference from the phrase ‘vernal equinox’ or ‘spring equinox’. What mayhave happened is that astronomers called the equinox ca. March 20 the ‘springequinox’ to distinguish it from the fall or autumnal equinox. With the advent ofmass education, ordinary people began to learn a little about astronomy. It wouldbe natural enough for them to assume the earthly season takes its definition fromthe astronomical event, rather than vice versa.

In addition, North Americans seem to have confused the cycle of the seasonswith the nearly circular orbit of the Earth around the Sun. School textbooks andencyclopedias commonly present illustrations of the Earth at four positions in itsorbit around the Sun. The point of the illustrations is to show how the tilt inEarth’s axis produces differential heating of the surface of the planet at differentpoints along the orbit, those points coinciding with the solstices and equinoxes.From that kind of image it is a short step to conflating the cycle of the seasonswith the circle of the orbit and drawing the bad inference that points along theillustrated orbit are apogees and perigees on what is, after all, actually an ellipse.One last point deserves notice. Social representations typically simplify itemsof scientific knowledge. Unsurprisingly, then, many laypersons simplify vari-ations in the actual dates of the solstices and equinoxes to 21 across the board:December 21, March 21, June 21, September 21.

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

18International Research in Geographical and Environmental EducationHence Theorette 1, the social representation that spring begins on the vernalequinox, which many laypersons evidently believe always falls on March 21.In spring 1994 several classes of senior high school students in the NiagaraPeninsula of southern Ontario furnished participants for a paper-and-pencilexercise. Among these, the first six classes had a final section added to their tasks,a section intended to inquire into social representations of spring. Instructionsfor that section were as follows:

In the space below, please say spring begins, in your opinion, and when whyit begins then. (Your answer need be only one or two sentences long.)

With informants being instructed to limit their responses to one or two sentences,it was hoped most responses would include a token of just one theorette.

Students in the sample reported a mean age of about 17 years and had beenresident in the Niagara region for a mean of about 14 years. There were 36 males,49 females, and 5 informants who neglected or declined to say. Roughly half theparticipants attended a school serving a large, prosperous town and an equallyprosperous agricultural countryside. The rest attended a school on the edge of acity of 130,000 people. Both schools were regarded as good ones by districtstandards. Participation in the exercise was voluntary. A research assistant whowas himself a third-year university student administered the exercise. In hisinstructions he encouraged frankness rather than any attempt to provide the‘right’ answers. Of the 92 returns for the section meant to supply data on theoriesof spring, 90 were usable, two spoiled.

Coding reliability was tested by having a second coder code initial theorettesfor all cases. Intercoder reliability was 0.966 as measured by Krippendorff’s (1980)agreement coefficient. That is, in about 97% of the cases the observed co-occur-rences would be explainable by the pattern of perfect agreement rather than bywhat would be expected by chance.

Results

Nearly all responses were easily coded as belonging to one or another of theseven theoretically significant theorettes (Theorettes 1–7). However, manyinformants gave tokens of more than one theorette. Some also neglected toexplain why spring begins when it does, in their view, or they deliberately chosenot to say, possibly because they could think of no explanation.

Results are displayed in summary form in Tables 1 and 2. Detailed discussionhere is reserved for Theorettes 1 (Equinoctial Spring), 4 (Warmth or Snow-meltSpring), and 5 (Biological Spring). These are not only the theorettes of greatestresearch interest but the ones instantiated in the largest numbers of cases.

A large proportion of the informants responded with some token of Theorette1, ‘Equinoctial Spring’. Often Theorette 1 was the only or first one mentioned.Overall, it was mentioned quite unmistakably by 30 of the 90 informants, or by33.3%. In addition, 6 informants adverted to astronomical explanations withoutusing the words ‘March 21’ or the like. If these are reckoned as reduced variantsof Equinoctial Spring, then Theorette 1 could be said to have been deployed by36 informants of the total, or 40%.

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

Lay Theories of Spring19

Theorettes of spring among senior high school students, Niagara Peninsula,

Table 1

Ontario

* +6 = astronomical explanations that do not refer to the equinox or ca. March 20

Most frequent permutations of theorettes of spring among senior high schoolTable 2

students, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario*

*Includes all permutations occurring in 3 or more casesSome informants chose not to offer an explanation for why spring begins onMarch 21, or why they believe it begins on March 21. Most of the others gavegarbled astronomical explanations or explanations that were completely illogical(Figure 2).

Tokens of Theorette 1 were added as afterthoughts or consequences to anothertheorette just twice. In both cases the first theorette mentioned was Theorette 4(Warmth or Snow-melt).

Theorette 4, ‘Warmth or Snow-melt Spring’, may be regarded as the theoretteof widest currency, since responses from 55 informants (61.1%) included

tokens

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

20International Research in Geographical and Environmental EducationExplicit causal explanations instantiating Theorette 1 (Equinoctal Spring)Figure 2

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

Lay Theories of Spring21of it. In 19 cases an instance of Theorette 4 was followed by reference to Theorette5 (Biological). Informants seldom stated explicitly what they took to be therelationship between warmth or melting snow and the return of biologicalactivity, presumably because they considered it self-evident, so it is not possibleto say whether they regard returning warmth or snow-melt as somehowproducing the onset of biological activity or whether warmth or snow-melt aremerely invariable accompaniments of the onset of biological activity. In manycultures, of course, including those of pagan Europe, people have regarded thesun as the begetter of life.

Theorette 5, ‘Biological Spring’, appears to be widely held but when held it isnot so salient, being uniquely mentioned by only three informants, and as thefirst theorette by only eight. However, it was mentioned as a supplementarytheorette by 36 informants, and thus by 47 (52.2%) altogether. When Theorette 5was the first one offered, it was usually followed by a token of Theorette 4 (fiveinstances).

Discussion

Two common sorts of responses may reflect theories a layperson could useeffectively to explain important natural, and especially biological, phenomena ofhis or her everyday practical experience. The first and stronger of these is thesequence in which reference to Theorette 4, ‘Warmth or Snow-melt Spring’,precedes an allusion to the phenomena of Theorette 5, ‘Biological Spring’,because in the minds of many informants warmth or snow-melt are probablyunderstood as producing birdsong, leafing, mating behaviour, and so on, asactually, in some sense, they do. That causality is implied by the order of thetheorettes is suggested by the fact that in 26 cases the order is Theorette 4 thenTheorette 5, whereas in only five cases is it Theorette 5 then Theorette 4. At anyrate, discourse analysts often find sequence playing a role in causal explanations(Antaki, 1994). The second efficacious theory is simply Theorette 5, ‘BiologicalSpring’, especially when mentioned alone or first, since it takes the essence ofspring to be recurrence of biological activity of defined, crucial sorts. Biologicalspring is a complex array of phenomena produced by natural kinds, and humanpsychology takes biological natural kinds to be themselves self-generating (Keil,1989).

Other theorettes or combinations of theorettes generally do not serve as usefulexplanatory frameworks for the contemplation of natural biological phenomena.There is no well-defined causal relationship between the vernal equinox(Theorette 1), the calendar months of March, April, or May (Theorette 2), orclothing or human behaviour (Theorette 7) and leafing or birdsong. There isindeed a causal relationship between day length or sun height (Theorette 3) andthe biological activity of spring; but only one informant followed reference toTheorette 3 with a token of Theorette 5.

If the theorettes the informants mention uniquely or first really are moresalient and potent in their minds, then 30 of 90 informants (33.3%) are stronglyinclined to think about spring in a fashion that might assist them in under-standing the natural world of living things. That is, they gave responses in whichTheorette 5 is mentioned first or uniquely, or in which a token of Theorette 4 is

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

22International Research in Geographical and Environmental Educationfollowed by a token of Theorette 5. The several other informants who referred toTheorette 5 (Biological Spring) as an afterthought to theorettes other thanTheorette 4 may be at least somewhat inclined to think of spring as a phenomenonof living things.

In short, a slim majority of informants retain the same common-senseunderstanding of spring as their linguistic forebears had (Theorette 5, Biological),and something over a quarter but less than a third entertain a compoundcommon-sense theory of spring in which returning warmth and snow-melt(Theorette 4) precede and explicitly or implicitly produce a sudden accelerationin biological activity (Theorette 1) — a simple but correct explanation. Bycomparison, nearly as high a proportion of informants, about two-fifths, areaware of the principal ‘expert’ theorette for when spring begins and why, namelyTheorette 1 or Equinoctial Spring. Among those who make explicit reference toca. March 20, nearly all have been persuaded that the expert theorette is eitherthe only correct understanding to have of the matter, since that is the onlytheorette they offer, or the most correct understanding, since it is the firsttheorette they offer. Very few informants provide a token of Theorette 1 as asecond or third theorette. Taken as a whole, these findings indicate that the experttheorette has some sort of superior status in the minds of informants.

If so, however, this state of affairs is unfortunate. In the first place, the experttheorette of spring as most informants express it is scientifically rmants typically say what causes northern spring is that the Earth reachessome point in its orbit when it is closer to the Sun. In fact, northern spring heatingcommences when the axis of the Earth has swung some distance back towards aposition at which the north pole most directly faces the Sun. As the pole faces theSun more and more directly, northern regions receive sunshine from a steeperangle and for longer each day than has been the case for the previous severalmonths. Orbital nearness of Earth to Sun has nothing to do with it, much less therotation of the Earth, another ‘explanation’ sometimes invoked. Of the 23explanations listed in Figure 2, 20 are wholly wrong and the remaining three areonly vaguely correct.

Secondly, besides being wrong technically, the expert theorette fails to explainnatural phenomena as ordinary people experience them in their daily lives.Because informants garble the astronomical imagery of the equinox or merelyparrot ‘March 21’, they cannot trace meaningful causal relations betweenTheorette 1 and sun angle, day length, warmth, snow melt, or leafing or birdsong.Thirdly, the expert theorette may be worse than useless. In 10 cases Theorette1 is the only theorette offered. Conjuring up this inoperative ‘explanation’ oftenseems to deter informants from seeking a truly useful explanation.

Finally, the expert theorette cannot even provide a helpful reference pointagainst which to decide whether a particular spring is early or late, because it isdisconnected from earthbound events. In southern Canada the vernal equinox,ca. March 20, has no very close relationship with the onset of warm air or snowmelt, certainly no more than, for instance, April 1, much less with the onset ofplant growth or flowering or the return of migrant birds, which are phenomenaof late April, or in most regions May. At any rate, if one believes spring begins

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

Lay Theories of Spring23on the equinox, or on March 21, then spring can never be earlier or later thanusual.

Of course the results of this study are a snapshot of knowledge in the mindsof informants heavily influenced in their answers by what they take to be theexpectations of the formal educational system. Further inquiry might demon-strate that older informants somehow improve their understanding of theastronomical causes of spring or they rely more on common-sense conceptionsof spring. On the other hand, the informants have already completed close to theCanadian mean for years of schooling. About half of them will pursue formaleducation no further. Few among those who do go on to university will everstudy the scientifically accepted causes of spring. If these results derive fromsamples drawn from a narrow sector of Canadian society, it is precisely thatsector which includes most persons on the threshold of citizen responsibility.Overall, possession of the expert theorette disables or disempowers the citizenmind in its efforts to understand spring. Citizens with this theorette in mindunderstand spring as commencing at a certain time, ca. March 20, not susceptibleto human influence. The expert theorette therefore interferes with the ability ofa citizen to detect manifestations of climate change personally; and the citizenwho fails to notice signs of climate change personally, one expects, will be lesssupportive of policies and plans intended to lessen climate change than thecitizen who does.

Results from the study as a whole show that in one simple but important realmof cognition involving nature, ‘theories’ derived from expert science aredisplacing common-sense theories. On close examination, the results alsodemonstrate that lay theories derived from expert science can hinder rather thanhelp laypersons in their efforts to make sense out of phenomena which, as goodenvironmental citizens, they should have some causal explanation for. Certaincommon-sense theories, on the other hand, adequately account for naturalphenomena as people actually experience them.

Other studies have arrived at similar conclusions. Kempton (1987), forexample, decides that the technically ‘wrong’ folk theory of home heat control isprobably more functional for users and better at saving energy than the ‘expert’one. Forguson (1989) argues that common-sense theories in general haveexcellent explanatory and predictive value for life in a real world. Chipeniuk(1995b) concludes that concepts such as that of the ecosystem have little realityin the minds of the university educated, much less others. Collectively, these andother investigations into lay thought cast doubt on the wisdom of currentassumptions about environmental education and planning. Where is theevidence that ordinary citizens understand and deploy scientific concepts asscientists do? Researchers in environmental psychology and education are at aloss even to specify what constitutes useful knowledge of nature among membersof the public (Chipeniuk, 1995a). Where the purpose of environmental educationis to improve standards of environmental citizenship, perhaps programmes torehabilitate and build on common sense would be more effective than pro-grammes which aim to instill technical principles, however simplified.

Often environmental planners speak of the need to ‘educate the public’ aboutecology or other fields, as they couch their planning exercises in a scientific

To explore the interplay between expert and common-sense ideas of nature in lay minds, a social representations approach was applied to a simple cognitive field, namely ideas about when spring begins, and why. Results from content analysis confirmed that a

24International Research in Geographical and Environmental Educationframework which, by its very nature, is contrary to common sense (Atran, 1990;Moscovici & Hewstone, 1983)). Ehrenfeld (1993), however, himself a conserva-tion biologist, invites environmental experts to reconsider their almost invariablytop-down relationship with the public. He implies that it is not so much membersof the public who need to be educated about science as experts who need to learnrespect for what ordinary citizens are capable of knowing and do know. Certainlythere is something naive about the belief that because science provides the bestunderstanding of nature for technical purposes, it must also provide the bestunderstanding of nature for individuals in their daily lives. This is the logic ofsympathetic magic. So far environmental educators and planners have acceptedat face value the uncritical opinion natural scientists have of the suitability of theirtechnical concepts for personal use by lay citizens. They owe it to their ownspecialisations to be sceptical and to consider less obvious alternatives.

How are researchers to go about finding these alternatives? In a modest way,the present study suggests that treating Western populations as having their ownfolk sciences may be productive. After all, Theorette 5, Biological Spring,descends from cultures not so different from the ones ethnographers work withtoday. If modern speakers of English reproduce a traditional understanding ofclimate, no doubt they reproduce traditional understandings of other aspects ofnature. In fact, they certainly do. To study these vestiges of folk culture,researchers concerned with environmental education in local Western commu-nities might adopt the methods of ethnobiologists, who specialise in investigatingknowledge of nature in traditional societies. As a point of departure, Martin(1995) has recently issued a manual of basic ethnobotanical methods. Berlin(1992) describes ethnobiological field techniques in relation to universals ofhuman cognition. By the standards of the Huambisa of Amazonia or the Kalamof New Guinea popular nature lore in southern Canada, at least, is patheticallydegenerate, but both research reports and surveys of public knowledge of sciencetend towards the conclusion that the average citizen cannot rely on personalknowledge of formal science in making decisions on environmental matters.Describing and analysing informal science in modern societies may be the firststep in building local environmental competence from the ground up.Acknowledgements

For their contributions towards the field studies reported here I would like tothank the students and staff of the Niagara South Board of Education, especiallyDr. John Clipsham, and my student assistants Mike DiRaddo and Bob MacGre-gor. Dr. Brent Hall, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo,provided invaluable reflections on the overall shape of the study. The anony-mous referees for made several excellent suggestions for the improvementIRGEE

of the paper as initially submitted. Expenses of my fieldwork were covered byresearch seed money from Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.

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