The plant species one notices reveals that person’s ecological education

Evidence

During every week from April to September there are, on the average, ten wild plants coming into first bloom. In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them. He who steps unseeing on May dandelions may be hauled up short by August ragweed pollen; he who ignores the ruddy haze of April elms may skid his car on the fallen corollas of June catalpas. Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about his vocation, his hobbies, his hay fever, and the general level of his ecological education. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 165

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘plant-birthday’ calendar of bloom is a phenological observation method echoed in the reader’s disturbance-history / reading-the-landscape course. — connects to: Formal education can erode rather than sharpen perception of the natural world — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 83; Scientific training disciplines students to hide their felt love for plants — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1231; Ecological understanding requires time and holding attention open — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 520 (+7 more)
• SEED: The ‘tell me what you notice / what you ignore’ move is a ready essay structure for observation-as-method pedagogy.

Broader Connections

• Ecological understanding requires time and holding attention open #expands (0.78) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 520
• Scientific training disciplines students to hide their felt love for plants #corroborates (0.75) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1231
• Education is a struggle against nature that forms each new generation #contradicts (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2031
• Thematic curriculum can unite every subject around a local environmental place #qualifies (0.72) — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1842
• Students internalize ecological kinship most fully through creative response #exemplifies (0.70) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 868