One of my favorite activities to do with learners is an activity called perspective storytelling. After learners have had time to meet some plants or non-human animals in a meaningful way, I ask them to tell a story from the perspective of one more-than-human that they thought was really exciting or interesting. Sometime this activity follows something like a Each One Teach One walk, where students get to know one type of plant very well and practice teaching others about it, after meet a tree, where students spend time getting to know one particular tree using multiple senses, or after a day spent learning about birds or tracking non-human animals.
Part of what I love about this lesson is that it allows learners to make decisions about how to share something they learned about, and I'm always sure to mention all of the different ways one might choose to tell a story. Sometimes students want to write a story, others craft a poem, draw a picture, make a comic, or come up with a skit that involves several other learners acting as their chosen more-than-human. When given this choice, I find that learners can incorporate what they've noticed about other beings into a creative story that blends art and science together while making the intention of empathizing with another being. In this practice, we emphasize how good science tells good stories and informs decisions about how we can and should treat the world around us.
To highlight the power of perspective storytelling, I wanted to showcase one perspective story a student told after learning about licorice fern for their Each One Teach One plant:
"I begin in darkness, encased in a shell of warmth and love. Floating on the soft wind, I find a cozy spot in warm mother-plant and command myself to a stop. I start to grow. The sun dips and rises, dips and rises, flowing like the breath of the world. Our mother-plant keeps us warm, me and my roots and rhizome. Tall harvesters pick my rhizome, and I know I have brought sweetness and health for many. I have seen the first sunrise of the world and the last. Strong and small, I let my seeds into the soft wind, and back to the forest I wither."
In this particular iteration of the lesson, I asked students to focus on the plant they had taught everyone about for the Each One Teach One walk we had gone on, and I wanted them to somehow use three things they had just learned about the plant in their stories. When this student shared their story, I was really impacted by the craft they used to incorporate their knowledge into a beautiful narrative, encompassing larger ideas of life cycles, decomposition, and interconnection/interdependence. When they learned about licorice fern and taught our group about it, we talked about how to honorably harvest the rhizome if we would like to taste it, the medicinal benefits of licorice fern for humans, how licorice fern loves to grow on the mossy bark of big leaf maples, and how they release spores to reproduce. All of these made their way into this student's story.
When I facilitate perspective storytelling lessons in the future, I'll continue to make the ways that creativity is essential to the work of science and vice versa. I'll use this lesson to empower students to claim and share their experiences and knowledge while encouraging them to use what they know to inform how they treat other beings and show up in the world.