{"id":10995,"date":"2023-10-31T14:24:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T18:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=10995"},"modified":"2023-11-10T15:19:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T20:19:43","slug":"why-i-teach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/fall-2023\/why-i-teach\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Teach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All the Voices: Respectful Science and Scholarship<\/h1>\n\n\n
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Associate professor of marine affairs Amelia Moore wants students to leave her classes with new vocabulary, new ideas, and new perspectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Amelia Moore, teaching and advocacy are inseparable. \u201cEverything I do now\u2014all of my research, my teaching, my service, my academic practice, my life\u2014is to work toward the goal of transformation.\u201d

Transformation in this context is multivalent. Moore seeks to expand her students\u2019 perspectives to make them more informed and respectful researchers and scholars. In her own work, Moore seeks to expose bias in science while also restoring voices that have been ignored or nearly forgotten. This past summer, for instance, Moore, along with undergraduate fellows, graduate students, colleagues, and community partners, spent time on Block Island working on an ethnographic project, \u201cPublic Memory, Place, and Belonging: Unearthing the Hidden History of Racially Marginalized Populations of Block Island.\u201d

One of Moore\u2019s most popular courses is Race, Gender, Colonialism, and Science. She teaches both an undergraduate and a graduate-level version. In its earliest iteration, the course was called Social Studies of Science and it examined the historical and social context for the practice of science. But in recent years, the country\u2019s increasing political polarization, ideological shifts, and violent rhetoric ignited the activist in Moore. \u201cI needed to teach directly to an awareness of this context,\u201d she says. \u201cWe can\u2019t pretend that this rhetoric and biased practices aren\u2019t causing real harm in the world or that they don\u2019t need to be countered with real evidence, real scholarship.\u201d Moore says.
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\u201cMy goal is that my students leave my classes with a new vocabulary, new ideas, and their own perspective on the practice and history of science.\u201d<\/blockquote>Ameila Moore<\/cite><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n


Moore introduces her students to the ways in which colonialism, capitalism, and nationalism have influenced the development of science and technology. Her process is collaborative; she encourages students to share their histories and perspectives, even if controversial. In this way, she says, \u201cwe learn about one another and from one another as we discover our own ways to relate to the course material and to the varied experiences of others.\u201d

Graduate students Satya Sullivan and Lauren Zane met in Moore\u2019s class. Sullivan is a cinematographer pursuing a master\u2019s in marine affairs. Zane is a Ph.D. student in the biological and environmental science program. Both rank MAF 500: Race, Gender, Colonialism, and Science as one of their favorite courses. Sullivan calls Moore \u201can incredible voice,\u201d praising her ability to lead students through the complex conversations that develop when examining the intertwining of history, intersectionality, civilization, power, and wealth generation.

For Zane, the course has shaped and changed how she views herself as a scientist. \u201cMy work in that class helped me think about creating a practice in which I can conduct science in a more just, equitable way.\u201d

One of the perks of Moore\u2019s position, she says, is to see ideas seize and propel students.

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly productive to think with students as they\u2019re processing the course content in real time and applying it to their own professions and research and career development,\u201d Moore says. \u201cMy goal is that my students leave my classes with a new vocabulary, new ideas, and their own perspective on the practice and history of science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Marybeth Reilly-McGreen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Nora Lewis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A marine affairs professor talks transformation and conducting just, equitable science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":10996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[322],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2023","architecture-currents","architecture-why-i-teach"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10995"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11648,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995\/revisions\/11648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}