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Socio-ecological systems thinking (SEST), is an interdisciplinary science branch that views natural systems and societal systems as one overall system. To support students in building SEST, we designed a 10-week, place-based energy literacy unit where 6th-grade students investigated energy flow between natural systems and their school building. Students developed systems models throughout the unit that they used to propose energy flow relationships between large scale system components and to articulate causal mechanisms that lead to overall system behavior. We analyzed their pre/mid/post-systems models to elucidate their trajectories in discerning system behavior. Findings suggest that students improved in proposing energy flow relationships and causal mechanisms for either the social or natural systems but did not view them as one overall system. 

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. 

Development of innovative curriculum materials is a mainstay strategy in research-driven classroom interventions and teacher professional development. Yet even when curricular materials are co-developed by teachers planning to implement the materials, they still must navigate the unique needs and constraints of their classrooms. This study explores differentiated enactment of a co-developed place-based middle school energy literacy unit. The unit uses the school building as a place-based resource to increase student awareness and understanding of fundamental energy concepts, impacts and interactions of natural and human-made energy systems, and considerations for energy efficient building features through engineering design. This multiple-case explores how five teachers across four middle schools in the same school district enacted the unit. Each teacher’s enactment was characterized using Coburn’s (2004) five levels, which are: rejection (materials not enacted), symbolic (materials implemented superficially), parallel structures (materials are implemented with existing practices), assimilation (adopts the materials but transforms materials to fit internal and external factors), and accommodation (enacts the materials with minor changes). We observed symbolic, assimilation, accommodation, and rejection across the teachers, with enactment modes varying across different phases of unit implementation. We analyzed interview and observational data for internal and external factors that shaped their implementation. Internal factors included opportunities for novel teaching and making connections to existing curriculum, activities, and/or practical knowledge. External factors included the presence, or absence, of building supports, inadequate class time, non-core class status, and COVID-19 policies. Internal factors generally supported teachers’ enactment of the materials, whereas external factors that could not be negotiated caused barriers to enactment. Our implications for this work include the importance of teacher support for new curriculum implementation. 

While there is an extensive literature base on the energy ideas students hold, there are few studies that examine how elementary students use scientific modeling to conceptualize the interrelationships between societal and Earth systems or how students consider the ways that societal energy systems interact with natural energy systems. This is exploratory project is situated in this space. We explored how 6th-grade students’ (aged 11 – 12) conceptualize energy flow within and across their school building and the surrounding environment within their models. Here, we report our baseline findings the students held at the start of 6th-grade prior to experiencing any energy curriculum asking how 6th-grade students models conceptualize energy flow between their school building and the surrounding environment in their models. We worked with five 6th-grade teachers from the same school district within a small Midwestern city. We collected and analyzed the data quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings highlight the students’ ideas about energy flow which includes viewing energy used in human systems as separate from energy in natural systems (such as a food chain). 

Issue-based learning is a pedagogical approach that features learning opportunities contextualized in compelling, societal issues that face students in their lives beyond school. COVID-19 is a global health emergency and represents the kind of societal challenge that can serve as the basis for issue-based learning. In this project, we facilitated teacher professional development in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim of collaboratively designing instructional activities to teach about COVID-19. We used videoconferencing technologies to carry out the professional development in the wake of school and university closures. Breakout rooms within the videoconferencing platform and an online collaborative space were particularly important for the successful enactment of this program. The group was able to design four instructional activities each of which incorporates different forms of technology. These activities include a computational simulation, tools for perspective taking, a mathematical model created through a spreadsheet, and media and information literacy tools. Implications for similar forms of professional development include teacher recruitment decisions, flexibility in the face of evolving circumstances, focusing on affordances of technology platforms, and responding to teacher concerns.