ENVIRONMENTAL-EDUCATION, NARRATIVE COMPLEXITY AND POSTMODERN SCIENCE-FICTION

In this paper science education and environmental education are consid ered as story-telling practices and the narrative strategies used by e ducators in these fields to represent and problematize human transacti ons with the phenomenal world are critically examined. It is argued th at the characteristic discourses of much contemporary science and envi ronmental education rarely encompass the narrative complexities that a re needed in order to (i) make problems of human interrelationships wi th environments intelligible (and, thus, amenable to resolution) and ( ii) conceptualize postmodern scientific understandings of 'nature' and 'reality'. It is suggested that these problems and concepts are model led more appropriately-and interrogated more critically-by much litera ry fiction, especially the complex and complicating textual strategies of postmodern science fiction. I thus argue that critical readings of science fiction texts should be integral to both science and environm ental education and that the narrative strategies of postmodern fictio n should be incorporated into their story-telling practices.