Transcript Learning to be drier

Learning to be drier
UB Deakin Research Team
Barry Golding, Mike Brown, Annette Foley, Erica Smith
Coral Campbell, Jennifer Angwin, Christine Schulz, Lauri Grace
OctoberVET, October 30 2009, Ballarat
Learning to be Drier in the southern
Murray-Darling Basin
Sites & teams
Alpine, Victoria: Annette Foley & Lauri Grace
Mid-river, NSW: Barry Golding & Jennifer Angwin
Lower river SA: Mike Brown & Christine Schulz
Dryland Victoria: Erica Smith & Coral Campbell
Learning to be drier
What is common or different about
approaches to learning about being drier?
Four very different land use contexts in the
southern Murray-Darling Basin.
Three different Australian states.
Interviews with education & training
organisations, water authorities & land
managers, farming and other enterprises,
community organisations and individuals.
Presuppositions
A diverse range of sites (case studies), informants
& interviews.
A diverse knowledge of learning about and
understanding the phenomenon of drying.
Causality set aside in the interview.
A constructivist view of learning.
No right way of learning, knowing about or
understanding the drying phenomenon.
Adult learning would take many forms beyond
accredited education and vocational training,
particularly in the community.
Context for the study
A decade of unprecedented dry years.
Extensive wildfires & drying of wetlands
Over-allocated water resources.
Lack of an agreed, national, Basin plan.
Water allocations approaching zero in
many districts in late 2009.
Predictions of climate change causing
further drying of the southern Basin.
Research questions
How and what do adults learn in
response to changes in water
availability?
How is this learning experienced &
responded to by different
stakeholders?
How are these stakeholders learning
to respond?
Alpine
Annette Foley & Lauri Grace
Mid-river
Barry Golding & Jennifer Angwin
Lower river
Mike Brown & Christine Schulz
Dryland
Erica Smith & Coral Campbell
Forthcoming papers
Volume of Australian Journal of Adult Learning,
November 2009
Learning to be drier in the southern Murray-Darling
Basin
* Water, weeds and autumn leaves: Learning to be drier in
the Alpine region
* Bearing the risk: Learning to be drier mid-river
* Learning to be drier: A case study of adult and
community learning in the Australian Riverland
* Learning to be drier in dryland country
Wicked learning: Reflections on learning to be drier
Wicked learning
Reflections on Learning to be drier
UB Deakin Team
‘Wicked’ (=messy) problems
multidimensionality
scientific uncertainty
value conflict and uncertainty
mistrust
urgency
Climate change
A ‘super wicked’ problem
time is running
there is no central authority
those seeking to solve the problem
are also causing it.
Conclusions about …
social learning, and the importance of
learning …
to be productive
to be efficient
to survive
to live with uncertainty
to be sustainable
to share.
Conclusion
Combating the extent and effects of drying,
causality aside, will require new forms of
learning through new community, social
and learning spaces, apart from and in
addition to new technological and scientific
learning.