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Abstract To promote a justice‐oriented approach to science education, we formed a research‐practice partnership between middle school science teachers, their students, curriculum designers, learning scientists, and experts in social justice to co‐design and test an environmental justice unit for middle school instruction. We examine teacher perspectives on the challenges and possibilities of integrating social justice into their standards‐aligned science teaching as they participate in co‐design and teach the unit. The unit supports students to investigate racially disparate rates of asthma in their community by examining pollution maps and historical redlining maps. We analyze interviews and co‐design artifacts from two teachers who participated in the co‐design and taught the unit in their classrooms. Our findings point to the benefits of a shared pedagogical framework and an initial unit featuring local historical content to structure co‐design. Findings also reveal that teachers can share similar goals for empowering students to use science knowledge for civic action while framing the local socio‐political factors contributing to the injustice differently, due in part to different institutional supports and constraints. Student interviews and a pre/postassessment illustrate how the unit facilitated students' progress in connecting socio‐political and science ideas to explain the impacts of particulate matter pollution and who is impacted most. Analyses illuminate how teachers' pedagogical choices may influence whether and how students discuss the impact of systemic racism in their explanations. The findings inform refinement of the unit and suggest supports needed for co‐design partnerships focused on integrating social justice and science.
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EYE: A Middle School STEM Unit on Energy Flow
This middle school STEM unit called Energy in Your Environment (EYE) was co-created by middle school science teachers, architectural studies, and science education faculty with the goal of improving students’ energy literacy and energy conservation knowledge. The unit fosters place-based education by using the school building to enhance systems thinking about energy consumption and flow between the building and surrounding environment. Within the unit, students explore the role of electrical, thermal, and light energy in their school building and consider how building features (such as windows, lighting, and insulation) impact energy flow and conservation. Students use their energy systems knowledge to design and build a desk-top one-room energy efficient building using simple materials to explain how and why their design impacts energy flow. Five teachers implemented the unit with over 200 students. The growth from pre- to post-measurements was statistically significant for students energy flow knowledge and tracing the path of energy (F(1, 209) = 3118.3, p = 0.001). In our presentation, we will provide an overview of the unit, our student learning data, and result summary.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2009127
- PAR ID:
- 10525051
- Publisher / Repository:
- Missouri Association for Rural Educators (MARE)
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- energy flow place-based
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Institution:
- Missouri Association of Rural Educators (MARE)
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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