Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2: Curriculum Models for our Collective Future 3031373901, 9783031373909

Citation preview

Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2 Curriculum Models for our Collective Future Edited by Xavier Fazio

Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2

Xavier Fazio Editor

Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2 Curriculum Models for our Collective Future

Editor Xavier Fazio Department of Educational Studies Brock University St. Catharines, ON, Canada

ISBN 978-3-031-37390-9    ISBN 978-3-031-37391-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37391-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2023 Chapter Future-Oriented Science Education Building Sustainability Competences: An Approach to the European GreenComp Framework is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/). For further details see licence information in the chapter. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgments

Let me begin by recognizing the excellent print and electronic publishing support of the Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan Education, and Springer Nature groups for this timely and important book in support of more positive futures for school science education. Furthermore, I would like to recognize the outstanding support of PhD candidate David T. Bell-Patterson for his editorial assistance throughout the Volume 2 development and preparation. It was an enjoyable experience to work with a capable and confident emerging scholar. I am also grateful for the support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada whose support of cutting-edge research funding supported, in part, the development of this volume set. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my fellow contributors from around the globe, with their inspirational ideas, cutting-edge perspectives, and wonderfully descript curricular representations, along with their tenacity to complete this book project in a timely manner. I believe that our collective contribution will help move the compass toward better futures in science and STEM curriculum for our many learners living during the Anthropocene epoch.

v

Contents

1 Introduction:  Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene: Curriculum Models for Our Collective Future—Volume 2  1 Xavier Fazio 2 Designing  for Collective Futures: The Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice Framework 13 Veronica Cassone McGowan, Hannah Cooke, Amanda Ellis, and Todd Campbell 3 Contemporary  Science Research and Climate Change Education 37 Russell Tytler and Peta White 4 Energy  and Your Environment (EYE): Place-­Based Curriculum Unit to Foster Students’ Energy Literacy 59 Laura Zangori, Suzy Otto, Laura B. Cole, Rebekah Snyder, R. Tanner Oertli, and Sepideh Fallahhosseini 5 Future-Oriented  Science Education Building Sustainability Competences: An Approach to the European GreenComp Framework 83 Antti Laherto, Tapio Rasa, Lorenzo Miani, Olivia Levrini, and Sibel Erduran vii

viii 

Contents

6 Outbreak  Science: Implications for Teaching and Learning in STEM Classrooms107 Isha DeCoito and Lisa Briona 7 Developing  Nature-Connectedness Among Students in Singapore131 Aik-Ling Tan, Tricia Seow, Theresa Su, Wee Beng Tay, Adeline Yong, and Josef Tan 8 “Where  is God during a Natural Disaster?” Potential Implications of Public Discourses of Religion for Science Curricula151 Giuliano Reis, Munizah Jeelani, and Adam Brown 9 The  Metamorphosis of the Scientist. A Phenomenological Approach for a Transformative Science Education?173 Donald Gray Index193

Notes on Contributors

Lisa Briona  is an entrepreneur in the area of gamification. Her research focuses on engaging and retaining students by leveraging game mechanics in K-20 STEM education. She is the recipient of several education and educational technology awards recognizing innovation in technologyenhanced teaching. Adam Brown  is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, as well as being cross-appointed to the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, Canada. While his PhD research at Laval University (2005) was in field studies of pollination ecology, he has since turned his academic interests toward the scholarship of teaching and learning science, with a special focus on science communication. Todd Campbell  is Professor of Science Education at the Neag School of Education. Campbell’s research focuses on cultivating imaginative and equitable representations of STEM activity. This is accomplished in formal and informal science learning environments through partnering with students, educators, and leaders to interrogate and trouble systems and spaces with the aim of creating more just and thriving futures. Veronica Cassone McGowan  is a research scientist and lecturer at the University of Washington, Bothell School of Educational Studies. Cassone McGowan uses critical speculative design and complex systems modeling to support learner in situating science-related phenomena within larger socioecological and sociotechnical systems to surface how patterns of decision-making impact humans and ecosystems at multiple scales. ix

x 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Laura B. Cole  is Assistant Professor of Interior Architecture and Design at Colorado State University. Cole’s work focuses on green building literacy, youth green building education, and advancing social justice and sustainability in design pedagogy. Her interdisciplinary projects focus on the ways in which sustainable architecture themes can enhance science education for youth and the general public. Hannah Cooke  is a doctoral student in curriculum and instruction at the University of Connecticut. Her research interests include critical, antiracist science education. Her former role as a high school science teacher and facilitator of the school’s Green Team led her to grapple with the role science educators play in advancing environmental and racial justice. Isha DeCoito  is Associate Professor of STEM Education, cross-appointed to the Faculty of Science at Western University, Canada. DeCoito’s scholarship targets integrated STEM curriculum, pedagogical perspectives, and career aspirations among girls and underrepresented populations; gamification and other digital technologies; engineering education; corrosion science; and professional development of educators. Amanda Ellis  is a high school math, biology, and career and technical education teacher near Seattle, Washington. She took her previous experience as a Registered Dietitian in Canada and the United States to gain her teaching certification to help students find joy in science and nutrition education. Sibel Erduran  is Professor of Science Education at University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Erduran is the president of the European Science Education Research Association; editor-in-chief of Science & Education and an editor for the International Journal of Science Education. Her research interests focus on the infusion of epistemic practices of science in science education. Sepideh  Fallahhosseini is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architectural Studies at the University of Missouri, with an emphasis on the environment and behavior. Her research interests and interdisciplinary research focuses on bridging architecture and youth education involving green buildings, place-based learning, Learnscapes, renewable energy education (REE), energy literacy, engineering design, and student agency.

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 

xi

Xavier Fazio  is a Professor of Education at Brock University and is an affiliate member of the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre also at Brock University. Fazio’s research focuses on science and environmental sustainability education, teacher education and development, curricular innovation, complexity, and systems thinking. His research has been supported with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, government agencies, and educational associations. He teaches courses in science teacher education and environmental education and graduate education in cognition and learning, environmental sustainability education, and science curriculum. Donald  Gray  is a Professor in the School of Education at Aberdeen University, Scotland. Gray has a particular interest in science and sustainability issues, Goethean science, STEM, and outdoor learning. Munizah Jeelani  has over 15 years of experience in educational institutions in Canada and overseas. She holds a Master of Education (University of Ottawa) and a Master in English Literature (Kashmir University). She is also a qualified specialist in Environmental Education. She is working as an ESL advisor at Anderson College Language School (Ontario, Canada). Antti  Laherto  is an Associate Professor of Science Education for preservice teachers at the University of Helsinki. Both in his teaching and in his research projects, Laherto connects science learning to agency, futuresthinking, and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Olivia Levrini  is an Associate Professor of Physics Education and History of Physics at the University of Bologna, Italy. Levrini’s research topics include interdisciplinarity in STEM education, conceptual change, identity and appropriation, and future-oriented science education. She coordinates the H2020 FEDORA project and is associate editor of the journal Science & Education. She served as Conference President at the 2019 ESERA conference. Lorenzo Miani  is a PhD candidate in Physics Education at the University of Bologna. His research focuses on interdisciplinarity in STEM education, development of sustainability competences through climate change education, and the role of uncertainty in futures-thinking. R. Tanner Oertli  holds a PhD in Science Education from the Department of Learning, Teaching, & Curriculum at the University of Missouri. Tanner has seven years of experience teaching science and engineering at

xii 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

the high school level. His research interests involve socio-scientific issues in elementary science and pre-­service science teacher classrooms. He is a Programmer Analyst for Columbia Public Schools. Suzy  Otto  is a Science Education PhD student in the Department of Teaching, Learning, & Curriculum. She taught high school chemistry and physics in rural Missouri for 17  years. Her research interests focus on resource networks for rural educators as well as pre-service and in-service teacher development. Tapio  Rasa  is a doctoral researcher conducting research on future-oriented science education at the University of Helsinki. His research focuses on issues related to scientific literacy, agency and sociotechnical change in student perceptions, and future-oriented science pedagogy. Giuliano  Reis  is an Associate Professor of Science Education at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education. He is interested in science and environmental education and has edited the following books: International Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Environmental Education and Sociocultural Perspectives on Youth Ethical Consumerism. Tricia  Seow  is a senior lecturer and the co-chair of the Sustainability Learning Lab at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Seow’s research interests include geographical inquiry in the classroom and in place-based learning, signature pedagogies in sustainability education, and teacher identities and practice. Rebekah Snyder  is a science education PhD student in the Department of Teaching, Learning, & Curriculum. She taught high school science in rural Missouri for four years prior to entering the doctoral program. Her research interests involve student agency within socio-scientific issues in high school science classrooms. Theresa Su  is the Education Manager at the St John’s Island National Marine Laboratory. With a background in mangrove ecology, her research interests lie in trophic interactions, environmental education, and science communication. At the National Marine Laboratory, Su is responsible for bridging the gap between marine scientists and all stakeholders through workshops, programs, and courses.

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 

xiii

Aik-Ling  Tan  is an Associate Professor of Science Education at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Aik-Ling Tan’s research interests include student science learning, science teacher professional development, and integrated STEM curriculum. Josef Tan  is the lead specialist for geography at the Ministry of Education (Headquarters), Singapore. His areas of work include curriculum development, learning materials production, and teacher professional development. His research interests are learning progressions and spatial thinking. Wee Beng Tay  is lead specialist in biology at the Ministry of Education, Singapore. She works with schools and stakeholders to chart the direction for science education in Singapore and develop and implement the science curriculum. Russell Tytler  is Alfred Deakin Professor of Science Education at Deakin University. He researches student learning in science and mathematics, socio-­scientific issues and reasoning, school-community partnerships, and STEM curriculum policy and practice. Tytler is widely published and has led a range of research projects, including representing contemporary science R&D in schools to support an informed climate change education. Peta  White  is an Associate Professor of Science and Environmental Education at Deakin University. White continues her commitment to initial teacher education and in-service teacher education through researchinformed professional learning programs. Her research follows three narratives: science and biology education; sustainability, environmental, and climate change education; and collaborative/activist methodologies and embodied research practice. Adeline  Yong is Senior Teacher in Biology at Dunman Secondary School. She supports the school in the growth of teaching and learning practices in Lower Secondary Science and Biology. Laura  Zangori  is an Associate Professor of Science Education in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Missouri. Zangori teaches and works with students ranging from elementary to undergraduate classrooms on figuring out complex causal relationships with socioecological systems.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Traditional vs pluralistic approaches to engineering instruction 18 Fig. 2.2 Whole group causal-loop model for pollinator and human health 19 Fig. 3.1 Core features of SSIBL. (Adapted from PARRISE, n.d.-a) 43 Fig. 3.2 Controversy map on agricultural policy, constructed using a digital platform as part of the ENSFEA (University of Toulouse) PARRISE activity. (PARRISE, n.d.-b, ENSFEA; Printed with permission from Utrecht University and ENSFEA) 46 Fig. 3.3 Controversy map representing stakeholders (actants) in the question “Should we eat meat?” (From authors) 47 Fig. 3.4 Mapping interest groups for the question of fast phasing out fossil fuels 48 Fig. 4.1 EYE curriculum unit theoretical framing 60 Fig. 4.2 EYE game cards for engineering design decisions 73 Fig. 4.3 Design Sheet used in engineering design process 74 Fig. 4.4 Concept images for simulation tools. (Note: Building design process (left), final product (middle), and projected into future (right))78 Fig. 6.1 Screenshot from Outbreak Science! Players visit the lab spaces of various Canadian researchers to learn about zoonoses and the research being conducted to prevent outbreaks and minimize the effects of Zika virus and COVID-19. (From Briona, 2021) 112 Fig. 6.2 The board game pandemic by Z-Man Games. Image modified from Z-Man Games. (Reprinted with permission) 113 Fig. 6.3 Mathematical modeling of infectious disease at multiple scales and with increasingly complex equations used to capture the

xv

xvi 

List of Figures

mechanisms of disease dynamics. Modified from Jenner et al. (2020) (Reprinted with permission) Fig. 6.4 Stochastic modelling of COVID-19 pandemic deaths compared with ordinary differential equation (ODE) modelling. The ODE model (red) significantly overestimates the number of deaths. Stochastic modelling (blue) more closely predicted the actual number of deaths (black crosses). (Adapted from Tkachenko et al., 2021. This work is licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication [CC.0 1.0 Universal]) Fig. 6.5 Screenshots from the Bad News game about coronavirus (www.getbadnews.com). (Reproduced from van der Linden et al., 2020. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License [CC BY4.0])

115

115

120

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 3.1

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 7.1

High-leverage practices for the Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice (EESJ) Instructional Framework 22 Summary of the Socioscientific Sustainability Reasoning (S3R) Framework (Adapted from Morin et al. 2017), articulating and exemplifying the dimensions and nature of higher-level reasoning44 EYE curriculum unit theoretical alignment 63 EYE curriculum unit outline 68 Example of pre- and post-system model 70 Sequences and explanatory process rubrics 76 Learning outcomes guiding design of SJICC curriculum 135

xvii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene: Curriculum Models for Our Collective Future—Volume 2 Xavier Fazio

You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you. —Vandana Shiva (2015)

It is the second decade of the twenty-first century. We are witnessing the growing consequences of human activities on this planet and have reached an important point in our collective future. Our global citizenry is emmeshed in a planetary epoch that has pushed the Earth beyond its complex life-sustaining limits. This has led scientists to a forthcoming declaration of a new geological epoch demarcation, the Anthropocene (Prillaman, 2022). While the Anthropocene is rightly characterized by human activities that have overwhelmed the habitable conditions for organisms and ecosystems alike, importantly, the Anthropocene is challenging our X. Fazio (*) Department of Educational Studies, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 X. Fazio (ed.), Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37391-6_1

1

2 

X. FAZIO

current ability to think systemically about these conditions and to generate new knowledge while concurrently supporting human agency to mitigate harmfulness and transform our sustainability trajectory (McPhearson et al., 2021; Voulvoulis et al., 2022). Although education is a critical and obvious principle to address our planetary ailments, pundits have reminded us of the many past and present instrumental educational efforts (e.g., education for sustainable development, environmental science), which I have personally participated in, have not been sufficient. In Sutoris’s (2022) timely publication, Education for the Anthropocene: Schooling and Activism in the Face of Slow Violence, this point is reaffirmed: ‘Educating for the Anthropocene’ is, however, not a matter of promoting any particular idea or achieving any instrumental aim; it is about the recognition of the historical moment we are in. It means preparing for life at a time of unprecedented precarity, a life marked by immense historical responsibility that perhaps no other generation has ever faced. (p. 15)

Sutoris continues with his claims that education cannot be expected to be a panacea for solving environmental sustainability crises, that is, be the fix for all policy and economic failures of the past and, in particular, asking youth to shoulder this responsibility. I fully support these claims. However, where I differ to a degree from Sutoris’s perspectives is with the position that non-instrumentalized or informal education efforts are a better force in the service of environmental sustainability. Regrettably, informal educational efforts alone may reinforce the role of PK-12 schools as being dis-­ political and may cause, for the most part, formal education to ignore our Anthropocene crises and sustainability realities, further distancing and dividing our collective efforts. Furthermore, an informal approach disproportionately places the burden of the Anthropocene crises on activists and marginalized populations, typically positioned outside of schooling contexts. Nonetheless, Sutoris and I agree that educational reforms focused on schooling are important to the Anthropocene educational agenda. As articulated in Volume 1, Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene: Complexity, Systems, and Sustainability Perspectives (Fazio, 2022b), trying to think of education in terms of binary efforts with ‘camps’ of instrumental vs. non-instrumental, or formal vs. informal, ignores the systemic realities of schooling, curriculum making, and communities. Our schools are complex systems nested within local, regional, and social-ecological-­ technological systems. This reality, as it relates to science curriculum

1  INTRODUCTION: SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE… 

3

making, becomes pertinent as we look toward the future of science education to address environmental sustainability. School science and its systemic connections with the school community and ecological systems prompts us to rethink the science curriculum needed to address planetary sustainability in the Anthropocene (Fazio, 2020, 2022a). Reasoned in Volume 1, science education in schools should lead in this curriculum reform effort. That is, science educators and researchers should have a better understanding of complexity theory, provide students in schools with the opportunity to learn systems thinking, agency, and associated competencies within their local communities, prompt other practitioners and policy makers to support interdisciplinarity within the science curriculum and other school curricula, work integrally with assemblages of peoples and practices in communities, and adhere to the realities of schooling and the non-linear process of science curriculum making (Fazio, 2022b). Expanding upon the importance of sustainability and science curriculum, evidence from the global Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Science (2006 and 2015) (OECD, 2022) for 15-year-­ old students found that environmental sustainability knowledge and competencies (e.g., action) were quite variable across global jurisdictions and, surprisingly, did not improve significantly during this period. However, an optimistic note from the PISA data was the relevance of whole-school and community environmental sustainability initiatives for students, promoting optimism and confidence in their abilities to act on environmental challenges—a compelling feature of science curriculum for the Anthropocene—which ought to become more commonplace in schools. Some individuals have asked about the importance of science education for the Anthropocene and, in turn, the focus on science curriculum in schools championed by this Volume set. In many ways, I follow the proposition that science is a fundamental institution for society. Further, science is the human enterprise of pursuing knowledge of nature writ large. Since science is a social practice, its societal aims ought to be in the pursuit of human and other sentient flourishing on Earth (Shermer, 2015). This viewpoint is eloquently captured by The New Atlantis publication, whose contributors challenge the rhetoric of dystopian dread and utopian dreams, with the aim of “a culture in which science and technology work for, not on, human beings” (https://www.thenewatlantis.com/about). This is poignantly illustrated in Bang et  al.’s (2018) science and education research article, provocatively titled: If Indigenous Peoples stand with the sciences, will scientists stand with us? (p.  148). I believe it is on this

4 

X. FAZIO

less-­travelled trail whereby science education, specifically science curriculum, should lead in the making of a new planetary curriculum. Different approaches to education are necessary for citizens to confront the complex socioscientific sustainability challenges of today, as emphasized in the recent UNESCO (2021) report on reimagining our collective futures through a new social contract for education. Education is the foundation for the renewal and transformation of our societies. It mobilizes knowledge to help us navigate a transforming and uncertain world. The power of education lies in its capacities to connect us with the world and others, to move us beyond the spaces we already inhabit, and to expose us to new possibilities. It helps to unite us around collective endeavours; it provides the science, knowledge, and innovation we need to address common challenges. Education nurtures understandings and builds capabilities that can help to ensure that our futures are more socially inclusive, economically just, and environmentally sustainable. (p. 10)

Reimagining this new social contract in consideration of a new planetary curriculum is a challenge for science education. We can begin to envision how science curriculum can bridge the social contract, described above, together with a natural contract with the Earth, as the philosopher of science Michael Serres recommends in his visionary 1990 book Le Contrat Naturel (The Natural Contract, Serres, 1990/1995): Back to nature, then! That means we must add to the exclusively social contract a natural contract of symbiosis and reciprocity in which our relationship to things would set aside mastery and possession in favor for admiring attention, reciprocity, contemplation, and respect; where knowledge would no longer imply property, nor action mastery, nor would property and mastery imply their excremental results and origins. An armistice contract in the objective war, a contract of symbiosis…. (p. 38)

With social and natural contracts in school science, there are semantic and physical interconnections amongst students, disciplinary science, educators, schools, and local environs that can be articulated. Indeed, a well-­ designed science curriculum can support both of these contracts for a new planetary curriculum in the Anthropocene. Because of our ever-changing planetary conditions, science curricula should lead in the reorientation of learners in schools. This knowledge can provide a powerful framework for meaningful action and support youth in

1  INTRODUCTION: SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE… 

5

environmental sustainability efforts that may have profound impacts on their futures. However, traditional views of science curricula as a recycled historical cluster of learning outcomes fitted within a grid of other school subjects is a nonsensical prospect for the twenty-first century given the environmental and social conditions that we are immersed in presently. Reimagining science curricula through interdisciplinarity and intercultural perspectives should be prioritized (OECD, 2021). Indeed, fragmented learning divided into disciplines in PK-12 schools (and post-secondary institutions!) produces thinking that leaves learners struggling to grasp the complex and systemic nature of environmental sustainability. As proposed in Volume 1, science curriculum making in the Anthropocene needs to embody complexity and systems thinking to speak to our socio-ecological and educational circumstances. * * * The first book in this set, Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene: Complexity, Systems, and Sustainability Perspectives, Volume 1, provided a foundation for developing future research and development as it pertains to science curricula. Herein these two volumes, science curriculum is described as a dynamic complex system of science curricular commonplaces, as per Joseph Schwab’s classic conceptualization (i.e., teacher, learner, subject, milieu). Drawing upon complexity and systems theories, and associated thinking models appropriate for education (Jacobson et al., 2016; Meadows, 2008), the first volume provides a framework for science curriculum that tackles and transforms the interrelated and socio-­ecological causes of our ecological crises. Curriculum theorists have used complexity and systems theory and thinking (e.g., Davis & Sumara, 2006; Doll, 2012; Roth & Thom, 2010) to reconceptualize curricula, but few have begun to describe curricular potentialities with these perspectives in the context of our global environmental sustainability struggles. Volume 2 is a collection of chapters from authors around the globe who have contributed a compilation of curricular ideas and descriptive models that showcase promising relationships among scientific knowledge, science curriculum, and science student competencies for a new future. This volume ultimately provides a refreshing and hopeful look at the PK-12 science curriculum considering our current global trajectory in the twenty-first century with respect to the pressing issues of environmental sustainability. The ultimate aim of this compilation is to spur curricular

6 

X. FAZIO

innovation globally through a collection of diverse curricular elaborations. Chapter contributions, while each having a unique focus, showcase the following cross-cutting science/STEM1 curricular themes. • Local communities and science/STEM: connect science curriculum to local school communities or local environments to support students’ understanding and address environmental sustainability and local community issues that are socially relevant. • Sustainability and science/STEM: sustainability issues (e.g., climate change, biodiversity, health) and school science using project-based and problem-based pedagogical approaches to learning, connecting to various STEM disciplines, practices, and individuals. • Interdisciplinarity and science/STEM: an integrated approach that mitigates against fragmented student learning that confounds understanding complex environmental sustainability challenges. • Complexity, systems thinking, and science/STEM: science curriculum in the Anthropocene is seen as a complex system of curriculum making that transverses linear thinking and confronts the status quo of science education in PK-12 schools. • Future perspectives and science/STEM education: conceptualizations of science curriculum and sustainability from philosophical and critical perspectives.

Curricular Innovations for Our Future The eight chapter contributions from global scholars represent a tapestry of curriculum models and ideations focused upon a future orientation in curricular design and enactments that can hopefully spur future curricular innovation. The authors are experts in science education from around the globe and collectively share in the commitment to reorient our science curriculum for our common future in the Anthropocene. The chapters are diverse and can be read in any order depending on the reader’s interest. In Chap. 2, Designing for Collective Futures: The Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice Framework, the authors recognize that science learning and teaching in and for the Anthropocene requires a new set of 1  The ‘science/STEM’ signifier is used herein to express this as a contested integrated construct (Mill, 2021) with a reminder to readers that the discipline of science directs many of the curricular conceptualizations in this volume.

1  INTRODUCTION: SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE… 

7

frameworks and practices. More specifically, they confront the siloed approaches to science disciplinary learning, consistent with Western dualistic ontologies, because the problems associated with the impacts of Anthropogenic changes on Earth’s systems, and the human and more-­ than-­human communities that inhabit these systems, requires an approach to science curriculum that is ontologically diverse, intersectional and relational, and focused on community building, agency, hope, and radical care. The authors describe an Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice instructional framework and provide case studies from the USA of how high-leverage science/STEM practices can engage students in their own communities using systems modeling, community engagement, and place-­ based learning that can re-story socio-ecological futures. In Chap. 3, Contemporary Science Research and Climate Change Education, the authors recognize the rising tide of student activism around climate change and the need to create school science curricula that move beyond traditional knowledge dissemination to engage with students’ knowledge of scientific epistemic processes and ‘post-normal’ science that is indeterminate and entangled with societal imperatives, values, competencies, and agency for our futures. This chapter describes an approach to science curricula in which scientists’ research efforts in climate science and local contexts are translated into learning sequences that enhance students’ engagement with contemporary science understandings and data-­ driven epistemic practices to develop knowledge, values, and agency needed for citizens to prosper. A key aspect involves the translation of scientists’ research and development practices into the school science curriculum, which supports science teachers and students in learning epistemic practices, values, and the societal entanglement of such research. The authors describe curricular resources that represent scientific research in Australia related to socio-ecological science and climate science, highlighting the ill-structured and complex nature of these topics. Furthermore, they argue for an approach to science curricular resource development that departs from traditional curricula and focused on established scientific knowledge and promotes science competencies and values relevant for the Anthropocene. In Chap. 4, Energy and Your Environment (EYE): Place-Based Curriculum Unit to Foster Students’ Energy Literacy, the authors reinvigorate the social-ecological connection of humans by focusing on the concept of energy and its flows in the natural and built environment, its uses and applications in society. Using systems thinking, the authors focus on

8 

X. FAZIO

energy literacy development with students in the USA through science curricula development centred on energy and emphasizing place-based student learning in schools. They describe how students and their teachers used their systems and energy knowledge to design and build an energy-­ efficient sustainable building in their community using a project-based approach, demonstrating twenty-first century scientific competencies by creating real-world solutions in their local school community, and subsequently advocating for a science curriculum model that integrates systems thinking and energy systems understanding apropos to many themes evident in the Anthropocene. In Chap. 5, Future-oriented Science Education Building Sustainability Competences: An Approach to the European GreenComp Framework, the authors describe a way forward to promote environmental sustainability with a recent 2022 European curriculum framework titled GreenComp. This curricular reference identifies a set of sustainability competencies that should be cultivated across all learning contexts to support action-taking and transformations required for the global ecological crises in the Anthropocene. The authors argue that science education has significant potential to contribute to all the areas in the framework, discussing its affordances in science education and curriculum in order to foster the development of sustainability competences. They illustrate this approach by reviewing examples of science teaching and learning developed in the European Union project “FEDORA”, showcasing how innovative curricular models and policies can be developed that are coherent and effective in connecting green competencies that promote a future-oriented science education for the Anthropocene. In Chap. 6, Outbreak Science: Implications for Teaching and Learning in STEM Classrooms, the authors utilized the COVID-19 pandemic as a unique opportunity to reflect on how science/STEM curriculum teaching and learning ought to adapt in anticipation of future global challenges that we cannot yet foresee during the Anthropocene. In their chapter, authors discuss pedagogical strategies including digital games, mathematical modeling, case studies, problem-based and project-based learning, and science communication as pedagogical approaches they have used in teacher education programs in Canada that challenge the dogmatic science teaching approach often promoted in traditional science curriculum. These strategies can effectively integrate socio-ecological topics into a science curriculum, focused on concerns of epidemics and pandemics, with the goal of enhancing students’ scientific literacy.

1  INTRODUCTION: SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE… 

9

The authors advocate for professional development opportunities focused on novel digital tool usage in science teacher education and development to enhance science teachers’ competencies for application in schools, so as to improve their self-efficacy when addressing complex socioscientific topics in science/STEM elementary and secondary school classrooms. In Chap. 7, Developing Nature-Connectedness Among Students in Singapore, authors describe an empirical study investigating an environmental sustainability-focused outdoor learning curriculum and associated students’ learning experiences as part of an integrated science curriculum unit. Using the local tropical coastal ecosystems in Singapore, biotic and abiotic interactions and the importance of environmental conservation and management were infused into a non-residential learning camp. Making use of a quasi-experimental design and mixed-methods approach, the authors examined changes in students’ connection to nature in these coastal ecosystems. Their results indicated a significant increase in students’ connection to nature after experiencing the activities planned for in their integrated and experiential science curriculum. Having students immersed in their local and natural environment brings forwards the importance of connecting science curriculum to the local environment. In particular, place-based and experiential curricular experiences are essential in motivating students and providing them a sense of agency with which they can make a difference in engaging with nature, and acting upon environmental sustainability challenges in their community. In Chap. 8, titled “Where is God during a Natural Disaster?” Potential Implications of Public Discourses of Religion for Science Curricula, in response to the human-induced ecological degradation in the Anthropocene resulting in increased frequency of (un)natural disasters, the authors undertook a provocative analysis of how sense-making systems—science and religion—shine light on the causes, consequences, and solutions to these traumatic events. Recognizing the historical antagonism between scientific and faith-based worldviews, the authors reason that the question of public discourses of religion may not necessarily contrast from science regarding interpretation of the occurrences of drought, flood, hurricanes and the like. Using a case-based interview approach, the authors looked at how eight different religious authorities in Canada explain the role of God in natural disasters. Their analysis indicated that religious views on natural disasters do not necessarily negate scientific understanding of the same phenomena. Indeed, the religions represented in the

10 

X. FAZIO

sample recognize the interdependence of all living things and affirm the necessity to adopt an ethic of compassion and responsibility for the Others—humans and nonhumans—to support an environmentally sustainable future. In current times where public displays of disagreement, dogmatism, and political polarization abound, the synthesis of these discourses strengthens current global calls for acting on socio-ecological change in the Anthropocene, and how this has implications for future science curriculum making. The final Chap. 9 is titled, The Metamorphosis of the Scientist. A Phenomenological Approach for a Transformative Science Education? In this chapter, the author examines historical foundations that gave rise to a reductive and quantitative approach to science linked to a mechanical model of nature, which predisposed us to separate humanity from nature, and scientists become passive observers of nature and contribute to the environmental problems of the Anthropocene. Rethinking this position, the author discusses a complementary possibility of more systemic approaches that draw upon an understanding of complex systems and results in interdisciplinary sustainability science. To accomplish this, the author argues that there is a need to complement a purely reductive science education with a more phenomenology-based science built upon the classical thinking and activities of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This late Enlightenment period thinking is revisited to metamorphosize the current role of the scientist (and its teaching in science education) and to foster a deeper sense of responsibility and care for the natural world. This Goethean science mindset has prospective implications for novel curricular opportunities for the future and aligns with post-normal and environmental sustainability science, emblematic of our Anthropocene. This volume brings together global curricular models and ideas aligned with principles and theories described in Volume 1. Suggestions for future science curricula captured in the compilation of chapters exhibit opportunities and possibilities for reorienting ourselves through novel science curriculum making for the Anthropocene, and exemplify complexity and systems thinking demanded by our current epoch. Let us move forward, together. Surgite! Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

1  INTRODUCTION: SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE… 

11

References Bang, M., Marin, A., & Medin, D. (2018). If Indigenous Peoples Stand with the Sciences, Will Scientists Stand with Us? Daedalus, 147(2), 148–159. https:// doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_00498 Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (2006) Complexity and education: Inquiries into learning, teaching, and research. Routledge. Doll, W.E., Jr. (2012) Complexity and the culture of curriculum. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education 9(1), 10–29. Fazio, X. (2020) Reorienting curriculum for the Anthropocene. UNESCO Futures of Education Ideas LAB. hhttps://www.unesco.org/en/articles/reorienting-­ curriculum-­anthropocene?hub=81942 Fazio, X. (2022a). Affordances and challenges of science curriculum development in school communities. Paper presentation at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, April 21–26. Fazio, X. (2022b). Science curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 1: Complexity, systems, and sustainability perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan Cham. Jacobson, M. J., Kapur, M., & Reimann, P. (2016). Conceptualizing debates in learning and educational research: Toward a complex systems conceptual framework of learning. Educational Psychologist, 51(2), 210–218. McPhearson, T. M., Raymond, C., Gulsrud, N., Albert, C., Coles, N., Fagerholm, N., Nagatsu, M., Olafsson, A. S., Soininen, N., & Vierikko, K. (2021). Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene. NPJ Urban Sustainability, 1(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-­021-­00017-­x Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing. Mills. (2021, Winter). The case against STEM. The New Atlantis 63, 63–84. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-­case-­against-­stem OECD (2021). Embedding values and attitudes in curriculum: Shaping a better future. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/aee2adcd-­en OECD (2022). Are students ready to take on environmental challenges? https:// doi.org/10.1787/8abe655c-­en. Prillaman, M. (2022). Are we in the Anthropocene? Geologists could define new epoch for Earth. Nature, 613 (7942), 14–15. https://doi.org/10.1038/ d41586-­022-­04428-­3 Roth, W.-M., & Thom, J. (2010). Curriculum and complex systems theory. In International Encyclopedia of Education (pp. 481–487). Elsevier. Serres, M. (1990/1995). The natural contract. Translated by E. MacArthur and W. Paulson. University of Michigan Press. Shermer, M. (2015). The moral arc: How science makes us better people. Henry Holt and Company. Shiva, V. (2015). The Vandana Shiva reader. University Press of Kentucky.

12 

X. FAZIO

Sutoris, P. (2022). Educating for the Anthropocene: Schooling and activism in the face of slow violence. MIT Press. UNESCO (2021). Reimagining our futures together A new social contract for education. A report from the International Commission on The Futures of Education. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379381 Voulvoulis, N., Giakoumis, T., Hunt, C., Kioupi, V., Petrou, N., Souliotis, I., Vaghela, C., & binti Wan Rosely, WIH. (2022). Systems thinking as a paradigm shift for sustainability transformation. Global Environmental Change, 75, 102544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102544

CHAPTER 2

Designing for Collective Futures: The Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice Framework Veronica Cassone McGowan, Hannah Cooke, Amanda Ellis, and Todd Campbell

Introduction Learning and teaching in and for the Anthropocene requires a new set of frameworks and practices in science education, as well as questioning universalizing ontologies or powered and industrialized ways of worldmaking that have given rise to the Anthropocene.1 Traditional siloed approaches  We use Anthropocene here with some trepidation since we are reminded by Liboiron and Lepaswky (2002) of the critique of this framing as a universalizing project that ‘invisibilizes’ the power of the Eurocentric narrative as the neutral and global perspective, especially when it is clear that dominant science and imperialist and industrialized societies have played an outsized role in contributing to climate change. 1

V. Cassone McGowan • A. Ellis School of Educational Studies, University of Washington Bothell, Bothell, WA, USA H. Cooke • T. Campbell Naeg School of Education, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 X. Fazio (ed.), Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37391-6_2

13

14 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

to disciplinary learning are insufficient for preparing learners to live and relate differently in the world in addressing the complex, interconnected, and transdisciplinary problems associated with the impacts of anthropogenic changes on Earth’s systems and the human and more-than-human communities that inhabit these systems. Consequently, there is a growing need for research on how to design learning environments that center ontological multiplicity, intersectionality, relationality, community building, agency, hope, and radical care in the face of ecological crises and how to support educators in this work (McGowan & Bell, 2022; Pierson et al., 2022). Specific to centering ontological multiplicity, we see a need for eliciting and making apparent the plurality of ontologies (i.e., ways of living and being in the world) so that they are legitimated, leveraged, and sustained throughout trajectories of learning so that heterogeneity is maintained as an output of learning processes. In centering relationality, we aim to position land and other species as agentic partners in place-­ based design endeavors. In this sense, we position justice-oriented engineering as a set of worldmaking practices that emerge as a dialogue between people and places in specific contexts and that is grounded in responsibility and care. In this chapter, we describe our Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice (EESJ) (McGowan & Campbell, 2023) Instructional Framework and provide two case studies of how our framework and its associated high-leverage practices engage students in speculative worldmaking in their own communities using core design practices of systems modeling, community engagement, and place-based learning to re-story socioecological futures in both material and virtual worlds. Importantly, our framework is ontological rather than epistemological in nature—framing justice-centered approaches to teaching and learning as centering heterogeneity (as plural perspectives and lifeways)—as both the inputs and outputs of place-based engineering.

The Importance of Critical, Speculative, and Place-­Based Approaches to Engineering Education As a solutions-oriented field, engineering offers a unique pathway through the most pressing challenges of our times. However, traditional Western (i.e., colonial, neoliberal, industrial, and militarized) framings of engineering have employed narrow approaches to problem-solving that have often

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

15

perpetuated and amplified systemic injustice by creating material infrastructures and frameworks that embody dualism, human dominance over nature, and ‘techno-saviorism’ (Riley, 2008). Through these approaches, problem-solving often begins before engineers fully understand the complex nature of place-based engineering design problems, and short-term profit has been prioritized over long-term communal thriving. Just and equitable framings of engineering call for a broadening of what counts as engineering, who engineers, and toward what ends to include the expansive ways in which humans and more-than-humans have contributed to constructing our material worlds. Figueiredo (2008) described four epistemologies of engineering as craft, design, social science, and applied science but noted that in practice, engineering is an interdisciplinary field in which knowing and doing extend across disciplinary boundaries to attend to the sociotechnical aspects of creating in contexts. We add that the ontological dimensions of place-based engineering require us to attend to the ecological and racialized dimensions of worldmaking that can either reify existing inequalities or seek to create movements for positive change (Bang et  al., 2017; Mensah, 2022). In contrast to these complex and dynamic orientations of engineering, existing K-12 engineering curricula tend to engage learners in prescriptive, top-down problem-solving practices that position science content knowledge as the sole foundation for designing solutions (NRC, 2009). Restrictive models of learning that limit what counts as engineering knowledge exclude learners that have been historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines and tend to reify cultural assumptions about engineering as a field (Claris & Riley, 2012). Developing more just approaches and frameworks for engineering education requires us to move beyond narratives of equity as access to more justice-centered framings of teaching and learning that include situating students’ engineering practices as part of larger social justice movements (Philip & Azevedo, 2017; Tzou et al., 2021). We can do this by honoring students’ everyday experiences as assets for classroom learning (Nasir et  al., 2006; Tzou & Bell, 2010; Tzou et al., 2021; Yosso, 2005) and by positioning everyday knowledge as foundational for creating just and equitable learning spaces. Through critical, speculative, and place-based design, the EESJ Instructional Framework uses four high leverage practices of curriculum and instructional design to engage learners in local and situated dreaming of and designing for possible futures. Here, high leverage practices can be understood as instructional practices embedded in curriculum design that

16 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

teachers can enact with frequency as support for learning more about students and for preserving the complexity of teaching as the cultivation of students’ ability to solve multidimensional, authentic, and uncertain problems of consequence (Cohen, 2011; Grossman et al., 2009). EESJ suggests shifts that interrogate and expand traditional engineering and its commitments. Rather than focusing on singular solutions or answers, EESJ emphasizes problem complexity through problem scoping and asking questions. In addition, modeling becomes more expansive. Rather than positioning models as prototypes, models become tools for storytelling, making sense of complex systems, and situating phenomena within social, historic, and ecological contexts that serve as anchors in designing hopeful, caring, and thriving futures for a multiplicity of human and more-­ than-­human possibilities (McGowan & Bell, 2022). Here, multiplicity can be understood as a commitment to recognizing plural and multiple ways of knowing. Multiplicity resists universalisms and surfaces the necessity of situated world-making. In this way, engineering becomes a medium for engaging learners in re-imagining, re-storying, and re-making our world to reflect the diverse ways of knowing of our students and their communities. Furthermore, multiplicity in design offers resilience in response to radically shifting futures and creates spaces for new ways of worldmaking. Ultimately, our goal in this work is to invite learners to think critically about the impacts of engineering on human and ecological communities, and to imagine new ontological possibilities steeped in axiological and ethical commitments and responsibility to human and more-than-­human communal thriving. To do this, we introduce and describe a process of critical speculative design. Critical speculative design is a justice-centered approach to engineering that engages learners in using complex systems thinking and modeling to critique the ‘infrastructuring’ and design of their own communities and to collectively re-imagine and re-construct images of their community design that embody a future in which they hope to live. Designing for just and equitable futures calls for a criticality of engineered spaces that makes visible the ways racialized decision making, such as redlining,2 2  In the US, redlining is understood as a form of systemic racism, whereby in the early parts of the twentieth century bankers drew red-lines on maps to indicate where they were not willing to make loans based primarily on the racial and ethnic makeup of communities. The economic, health, and ecological impacts of these race-based policies and practices are evident and on-going. This form of redlining is now illegal, but racialized practices still exist in urban planning decisions today.

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

17

have created unjust landscape patterns at scale, including injustices around food access, clean air and water, police presence, and vulnerability to climate crisis impacts. Learning to recognize the powered decision making that becomes embodied in places through engineering and design in ways that impact students’ own lives and communities enables learners to see how their neighborhoods have come to look the way they do today through the lens of critical sociotechnical literacy (McGowan & Bell, 2020). To build resilience, agency and hope in learners, this act of criticality is coupled with collective speculative re-imaginings of what these spaces could be when redesigned through student, family, and community visions for architecting different futures. In supporting this work, we draw on both speculative (Dunne & Raby, 2013) and pluralistic (Escobar, 2018) visions of design practices. Critical speculative design positions ontological multiplicity as both inputs and outputs of the design process through complex systems modeling practices and attending to bioregionalism or the increased sustainability of systems organized around geographically proximal regions, and the cultural heterogeneity of places. Typical approaches to K-12 engineering instruction use narrow sets of inputs for universalized outputs, even when students’ prior knowledges are included as part of the design process. Through the EESJ Instructional Framework, heterogeneity is both an input and output of design in order to create worlds that reflect the multiplicity of ways of knowing, being, and doing that students bring to learning spaces and beyond. In this way, justice-centered engineering is ontologically situated in pluralistic worldmaking (see Fig. 2.1). Causal-loop models are qualitative systems-mapping tools and practices that support learners in situating engineering-related phenomena within socioecological and sociotechnical contexts (Haraldsson, 2004; McGowan & Bell, 2020). These models use boxes and arrows to illustrate the nature of relationships between system components with a focus on identifying positive and negative feedback loops that predict system-wide behaviors over time. Causal-loop models are the main tools students use to retain multiplicity as a part of justice-centered design decisions (see Fig. 2.2 for an example of a final causal-loop model from the middle school conservation corridor unit described later in the chapter). Causal-loop models can be used to surface and illuminate the powered components that drive system behaviors and highlight key components for creating desirable systemic change over time. Central to ecologically and socially just design is locating multispecies health at the center of

18 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

Fig. 2.1  Traditional vs pluralistic approaches to engineering instruction

causal-­loop models to reorient socioecological and sociotechnical systems reasoning toward social and ecological thriving and away from typical systems organizing principles, such as growth and profit. Figure 2.2 shows how “bee and human health” were the organizing principles in students’ causal loop models and became the focus for emergent design solutions for a conservation corridor unit described later in this chapter. Design charrettes (Roggema, 2014) are short, multimodal collaborative meetings in which learners use rapid drawing and prototyping in real (e.g., pencil and paper) or virtual spaces (e.g., Minecraft™ or Sketchup™) to share and critique potential solutions for a given engineering endeavor. These strategies are woven through high leverage practices (HLPs) and are foundations for centering complexity and plurality in the EESJ Instructional Framework described below.

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

19

Fig. 2.2  Whole group causal-loop model for pollinator and human health

High-Leverage Practices and the Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice (EESJ) Instructional Framework At the center of our EESJ Instructional Framework are four High Leverage Practices (HLPs) that serve as a set of fundamental planning and instructional routines to guide curriculum creation, adaptation, and instruction when teaching EESJ in K-12 science classrooms. HLPs have been widely adopted in the field of teacher education because they represent learnable routines teachers can leverage in the complex decision-making they undertake to support student learning in the context of practice (Ball & Forzani,

20 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

2009; McDonald et al., 2013). Beyond grounding our work in the literature supportive of HLPs (e.g., Ball & Forzani, 2009; Forzani, 2014; Grossman, 2018; Lampert et al., 2013; McDonald et al., 2013), we have also cautiously considered and taken into account the critiques that researchers such as Philip et al. (2019) have identified in connection to a focus on HLPs and core practices in teacher education. More specifically, Philip and colleagues expressed concerns about how justice as an aim of a democratic and civic education might be rendered peripheral, as a limited set of core practices is made central to teaching and learning. Philip and colleagues noted reservations about core practices being more resonant with ideas about ‘best practices’ that fail to take into account the political and powered machinations of practice, critical connections between historical contexts and relationships between participants (e.g., teachers, students), and oversimplified prescriptiveness that might strip teachers and students of their social and cultural identities that are central to meaning-­ making and work toward imagining plural possible futures. In our work with HLPs, while we take seriously the concerns identified by Philip et al. (2019), consistent with researchers such as Calabrese Barton et al. (2020), we recognize how HLPs are not intended as decontextualized technical know-how but instead are responsive to contexts, as they are leveraged as guides for navigating the complexities and improvisations of classrooms while also being reliant on the extent to which they are nested within larger systems of instruction aimed at promoting equity and justice. Further, in our work with HLPs, we remain cognizant of and committed to taking up recommendations by Philip and colleagues where they propose “(re) emphasizing the social, cultural, political, and situated dimensions of teachers’ practice” (p. 259) and ensuring that HLPs are attentive to hierarchies of power in classrooms and society and center justice by addressing “historical and contemporary systems of oppression” (p. 260). Finally, as we engage in this work and aim to make it apparent in what follows, we see the possibility of HLPs for teaching to, for, and with multiplicity in mind. Next, we introduce the following HLPs of the EESJ framework. Throughout each of these HLPs, there is a commitment to explicitly support teachers in both regularly incorporating and attending to students’ everyday knowledge throughout instruction, not just at the start of instruction, and attending to multiplicity as both inputs and outputs of learning.

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

21

Planning Instruction for Multiplicity This HLP focuses on planning for engagement with engineering practices in ways that are grounded in students’ everyday ways of knowing, interests, and experiences and focuses on a complex issue that situates engineering in social, ecological, and historical contexts. Additionally, equitable planning begins by taking an asset-based view of students, teachers, and communities and by designing for and with heterogeneity as described earlier. This view of students, teachers, and communities, where heterogeneity is prioritized, is realized as attention is given to explicitly naming all science and engineering as cultural practice (Bang et al., 2017; NRC, 2012). This is especially important as a move to intentionally contest the notion of one universal way of knowing, being, and practicing science and engineering (i.e., Western science and engineering) that has long been communicated in science classrooms (Mensah & Jackson, 2018). A commitment to heterogeneity is also recognized, as place is foregrounded as a context for learning, such that local and plural embodied knowledges in places, including the species and elements in local contexts, is made central to teaching and learning (Pugh et al., 2019; Learning in Places Collaborative, 2021).

Eliciting Students’ Knowledges, Interests, and Experiences This HLP involves eliciting students’ everyday ideas, ways of knowing, interests, and experiences as foundations for equitable, student-centered instruction. These ideas, elicited early and throughout a unit of instruction, are used to continually adapt curriculum enactments to ensure engineering design work is focused on local contexts in ways that feel consequential to students (Tsai et al., 2022; Tzou & Bell, 2010). As part of this HLP, instructional practices such as self-documentation are used, where self-documentation is understood as a form of cultural formative assessment by which students collect photographic data to provide visual representations of aspects of their cultural lives outside of the classroom to guide culturally-responsive curriculum adaptation practices (Tzou & Bell, 2010). Through instructional practices such as this, students identify how the focal complex issue of an instructional unit intersects uniquely with their own lives and communities. As local community and place-based connections are made, student assets and classroom heterogeneity are again foregrounded to consider how students’ own worlds are already

22 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

influenced by designs. Most student-centered forms of instruction typically elicit students’ prior knowledge only at the beginning of the instructional sequence. Here we show how students’ everyday knowledges, interests, and experiences are threaded and woven throughout planning, instruction, and final project work (see Table 2.1). Table 2.1  High-leverage practices for the Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice (EESJ) Instructional Framework Planning instruction for multiplicity • Design instruction that situates engineeringrelated phenomena in its sociotechnical and Use self-documentation to ground socioecological contexts. and guide culturally-responsive adaptations • Elicit multiple forms of knowledge including throughout the unit, from knowing student, family, and community knowledge as students’ communities to enacting equitable well as engaging students in critically seeing design practices for multiplicity. (Tzou & the knowledge embodied in their designed Bell, 2010) worlds through place-based investigations and critical and exemplar case studies. • Be prepared to adapt instruction based on students’ emergent ideas. Iterative problem scoping and critical problem solving using critical speculative design approaches to complex systems modeling • Engage students in critical, place-based investigations to see how powered design and engineering decision making is embodied in their own communities in ways that impact human and ecological health. • Use complex systems modeling practices that center around multispecies and community health. • Engage in problem scoping by iteratively revising models to add components and linkages to surface relationality and the cascade of possible impacts from engineering endeavors. Design ecologically and socially just solutions • Critical speculative design supports students in designing a range of solutions that include questions, artifacts, stories, and visions with a lens towards designing for plurality that retains heterogenous ways of knowing, being, and doing as both inputs and outputs of the design process. (see Fig. 2.1) Eliciting students’ knowledges, interests, and experiences

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

23

Iterative Problem Scoping and Critical Problem Solving Using Critical Speculative Design Approaches to Complex Systems Modeling In this HLP, students engage in developing complex systems models to better understand the relationships inherent in socioecological issues to problem scope. Here, problem scoping is understood as the practice of fully understanding the depth, breadth, and entanglements of a problem from multiple perspectives before working to solve the problem. It is only after multiple perspectives are considered, which emerge through the iterative eliciting and building on students’ everyday ways of knowing, that problem solving is proposed. This shift toward problem scoping and framing also mirrors professional engineering practices, since researchers have found that experienced designers working through complex problems may spend as much as 70% of their time working through the problem context (Atman et al., 2008). Taken together, problem scoping and problem solving are how students construct more just landscapes for humans and other species. Through complex systems modeling practices, process ontology rather than substance ontology is foregrounded. Here, process ontology is defined as a worldview that accounts for stochasticity and unpredictability in nature, where constant flux and dynamism dominate. … [more specifically] everything exists through processes and relations. … They do not exist prior to any process, as they do from a substance perspective, but rather, are created by a combination of processes that interact and are maintained. (Hertz et al., 2020, p. 332)

By focusing on process ontology, engineering shifts from the design of products to engineering as an engagement in processes where relations are interrogated and attended to as a central move for community and justice-­ centered design.

Designing Ecologically and Socially Just Solutions In this last HLP, student groups each design a final solution to implement or discuss with peers and their communities. The focus on multiple solutions, artifacts, stories, visions, and questions as outcomes of engineering learning in science classrooms is a way to preserve multiplicity as both

24 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

inputs and outputs of justice-centered instruction. Typical culturally-­ responsive approaches to instruction account for the diversity of ideas elicited at the start of instruction. However, this is often followed by the streamlining of students’ diverse ways of knowing to attend to universal standards as other unifying learning goals that confine heterogeneity as only an input for instruction (Warren et  al., 2020). Here, we suggest a model of instruction where learning goals are met while also preserving multiple ways of knowing as outcomes of both learning and engineering solutions (see Fig.  2.1). Solutions can include physical and place-based engineering work or can be community meetings, design charrettes, or discussions in which students get to share stories of their design work or imagined futures. All four of these HLPs are further exemplified next as two case studies of the EESJ framework are shared.

Two Cases of the EESJ Instructional Framework: Middle School Conservation Corridor and High School Food Sovereignty Units Middle School Conservation Corridor Unit This example curriculum unit on designing conservation corridors for pollinators and other species (McGowan & Campbell, 2023) invites learners to explore the complex relationships and interactions that undergird ecological phenomena and their connections to ecological and human health at multiple scales (local, regional, and global) with a focus on human actions and decisions across these scales and over time. Habitat fragmentation is the leading cause of global species decline and creates structural barriers to the ability of species to move in response to climate change. Since food systems rely on pollinators, their health and survival are linked to human health and food justice. In this unit, students investigate the connections between pollinator range and migration and the impacts of habitat fragmentation and climate change to reimagine their own communities as more socially and ecological just landscapes that retain ecological and cultural heterogeneity as a necessary condition for health and resilience. Systems thinking is used to illuminate the connections between engineering design, pollinator health, and human thriving while also contesting engineering as a politically and culturally neutral endeavor.

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

25

Planning Instruction for Multiplicity While pollinator health, habitat fragmentation, food justice, and climate change are global issues, they can be situated in the context of students’ communities, allowing for place-based, critical engineering. As part of the planning process, educators create time and space in each lesson for eliciting students’ lived experiences as heterogeneous inputs and student-­ generated critical solutions and future-oriented visions as heterogeneous outputs. Planning for students to bring their knowledge, families, and communities into the classroom, self-documentation is used to record what their neighborhood looks like from the perspective of a pollinator, such as a bee. This planning positions students as experts in their own communities, encouraging multiplicity and multispecies perspective taking. These self-documentations guide later parts of the lesson in ways that build on students’ ways of knowing and multispecies perspective taking as foundations for place-based and justice-centered engineering, where students ask, (1) What human actions/decisions led to the decline of pollinator species? (2) Who had the power to make these decisions? (3) How have these decisions impacted pollinator, ecosystem, and human health? (4) What would a just future look like for people and nonhuman species? Eliciting Students’ Knowledges, Interests, and Experiences Students’ prior knowledge is elicited routinely throughout the duration of learning (not just at the start of the unit) to support horizontal learning opportunities that position youth as experts and to sustain heterogeneity throughout the learning process. For example, at the beginning of the unit, students consider what they already know about the connections between ecosystem, human, and pollinator health and watch a video on the cascading impacts of climate change on the timing of seasons, which can cause phenological mismatches between pollinators and the plants they pollinate. Through whole group and small group discussions, students surface the cascading complexity among human engineering, pollinator heath, food justice, and the climate crisis as it relates to pollinator survival and human health and are asked to consider the components of the problem in their local context. Students are introduced to the engineering design challenge at the start of the unit, which is to design a conservation corridor that provides refuge and pathways within and across fragmented habitats in their own communities. In this context,

26 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

community is defined as students’ own neighborhoods, and corridors are conceptualized across the spaces that are relevant to students’ everyday lives. Students use multiple iterations of self-documentation in order to deepen their understanding of local patterns of habitat fragmentation and to find existing spaces of pollinator refuge that can be leveraged while solving the engineering design challenge. In one self-documentation prompt, students take on the role of bees navigating their neighborhoods to incorporate multispecies perspective taking in the engineering problem solving process and as a way to disrupt historic patterns of human-­centered design. As students continue to develop their understanding of the impacts of city planning on pollinator health, they then deepen their knowledge of the connections between human and pollinator health as they better understand the history of racialized urban policies that have contributed to the unequal distribution of green space and healthy food access for Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color across the United States. Through the iterative processes of self-documentation, neighborhood mapping, and discussions, students come to see that human decisions and actions have shaped all landscapes in ways that benefit a narrow set of people, perspectives, and worldviews, which have implications for creating socially and ecologically just communities. This form of emergent student-centered learning sustains heterogeneity in perspectives as well as the types of knowledges that are counted as consequential for designing place-based engineering solutions. Here, everyday knowledge, designs in the form of existing examples of pollinator habitat in students’ own neighborhoods, and disciplinary learning are all held as a necessary part of problem scoping practices before moving toward designing solutions. Iterative Problem Scoping and Critical Problem Solving Using Critical Speculative Design Approaches to Complex Systems Modeling Problem scoping is just as important as problem solving because it allows for complexity, nuance, and context. Rather than being driven solely by profit, understanding the components of a system allows for more just ideas. In the classroom, this looks like small groups discussing components of a healthy habitat and considering whether their own communities have these components. This practice includes an introduction to systems thinking that contrasts the traditional engineering focus of a

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

27

one-size-fits-­all solution. A discussion of what counts as science and what scientists and engineers do surfaces students’ ideas and serves as a starting point for interrogating the political and cultural neutrality of the fields. This gives students a reason for slowing down and taking time to understand the problem from multiple perspectives, dimensions, and scales. The students worked together to create a causal-loop diagram of pollinator health. Causal-loop models help students envision their neighborhood as a more ecologically and socially just landscape. First, all the variables are listed and then categorized using sticky notes. Categories or clusters of variables are then used as system components. In this unit, these components included Healthy Food, Human Health, Open Space (or lack of), Roads, Development, Habitat Fragmentation, Fossil Fuel Use, Climate Change, Migration, Corridors, Bee Population Size, Pollination, Native Plant Species, and Healthy Garden Foods. Students then add their own components from this base. Red and green arrows were used to connect components based on their relationship, where green arrows indicated an increasing or positive relationships, and red arrows indicated a negative or decreasing relationships (see Fig. 2.2 for an example). As with the inclusion of everyday knowledges, students iteratively revise their causal-loop models to visualize their increasing understanding of the complexity of the design challenge and its situated nature within larger socioecological and sociotechnical systems. These final causal-loop models mediate class discussions around the breadth of variables that engineers need to account for when making justice-centered design decisions for humans and other species across time and space, which is foundational for moving into an equitable problem-solving frame. Designing Ecologically and Socially Just Solutions As described above, designing learning to build on multiple ways of knowing is threaded throughout this unit, from eliciting questions and self-docs to iterative causal-loop modeling. Each of these practices centers relationality between humans and the more-than-human world and invites learners to critically engage with the social, historic, and ecological dimensions of engineering design in their own communities. At the end of the unit, students build on this learning by engaging in a design charette (Roggema, 2014) in which small groups of students each draft their design solutions for how to construct conservation corridors in their own communities that support both human and pollinator health. Through a gallery walk

28 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

and whole group discussion, students consider which solutions support pollinator health, human justice, and climate change and write a Claim-­ Evidence-­Reasoning statement (Zembal-Saul et al., 2013), answering the question: How does your design support pollinator health and human/ community health in the face of climate change? Examples from design proposals serve as evidence to support students’ claims. The design charrette and the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning allow for multiple “correct” answers, encouraging multiplicity.

High School Food Sovereignty Unit In this curriculum unit, high school students explore the relationship between human health and local and global food systems by critically examining their own school’s food program for alignment with students’ family and community food practices and values, as well as national agency recommendations for healthy eating. Similar to the conservation corridor curriculum unit, this unit brings students into thinking about how school food systems and access to healthy and affordable foods in and for schools are the result of both local and national policies that have major impacts on human health, especially for low-income students and families who have access to free meals through breakfast and lunch subsidies. Students explore how school food policies relate to larger food systems such as industrial agriculture, industrial food processing, fossil fuel use, pollution, and food and packaging waste. Through local investigations and case studies, students learn not only how schools often support unsustainable food systems with low nutritional value, but also how some schools and communities have successfully shifted their practices to increase access to healthy and culturally-relevant foods for students and families in ways that support sustainable and local food economies. In the final design project for this unit, students use the virtual world of Minecraft™ to design speculative models of food sovereignty for their schools that uphold community and cultural food practices and values. Planning Instruction for Multiplicity Designing for learning in this curriculum unit is predicated on the belief that health and healthy eating are contextual in terms of cultural practices as well as ecological processes, and students launch this unit by sharing images and stories of their family and community conceptualizations for

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

29

these terms. When planning this unit, educators are encouraged to move beyond traditional texts and guidelines that constrain definitions of human health and to recognize that cultures have historically thrived with a wide range of traditional diets that may not be defined as “healthy” by universalized standards. For example, traditional food systems high in meat, dairy, and fats with limited access to fruits and vegetables in arctic and high-altitude regions have sustained healthy and thriving communities since time immemorial because of the cultural knowledge and practices embedded in these systems (Fallon et al., 1999). Eliciting Students’ Knowledges, Interests, and Experiences Incorporated Throughout the Unit This unit begins with a section on eliciting memories as a source of scientific knowledge and evidence for learning about human health and designing healthy school food systems. Before starting the first lesson, students complete a self-documentation activity to share what “healthy foods” mean to their families and communities. As part of this process, students take pictures of anything in their everyday lives that defines or communicates their family’s conceptualizations of healthy eating and living. In addition, students talk to family members to elicit memories of how notions of health have changed in their families and communities over time. In this way, memories emerge through family-centered pictorial and oral stories to make connections between place, time, and food practices. In small groups, students share their self-documentation pictures and stories and co-construct a shared meaning for health, healthy eating, and healthy communities based on the range of data from the self-docs. As part of this process, students create posters of words, ideas, and pictures that represent the range of thinking around these terms in the class thus far and refer back to these posters in later parts of the lesson when constructing complex systems models as well as while comparing school menus and food practices to their family and community ways of knowing. Iterative Problem Scoping and Critical Problem Solving Using Critical Speculative Design Approaches to Complex Systems Modeling In this curriculum unit, problem scoping and speculative design is titled, Realities and Dreamings. This is an iterative process of using pictures,

30 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

stories, models, and discussion to critically compare the food systems from their pasts and presents, homes and schools to work toward desired futures. In the “reality” portion, students begin by critically analyzing school lunch menus to compare school food offerings to their family and community healthy eating practices and knowledge as well as to the USA’s Department of Agriculture recommendations for a healthy diet. Students then work in small groups to redesign one day of the menu to align with their everyday conceptions of health. This redesign includes a written daily menu, drawings of a healthy food plate, and a brief, holistic description of how this daily plan supports human health. Students then share their revised menus and discuss common themes that arise across the redesigned plates. Typically, students notice that all traditional foods are minimally processed and emerge from the places where families have lived over time. When students compare initial and redesigned menus to national nutrition guidelines, they often surface how homemade foods are harder to quantitatively track in terms of calories, fat, protein, and other nutrients per serving than industrially-processed options with food labels. Students discuss how narrowly framed the quantitative nutritional guidelines are (Taylor & Stallings, 2009) thereby inhibitive of healthy eating habits because these depend on industry labels as evidence of meeting specific nutritional standards. In addition, students analyze school menus for their ecological footprints by measuring how far food items travel before coming to their school. Students engage in online research to find typical food origins for menu items and then construct food maps in small groups to visualize the average distance of a meal and learn that food items typically travel 2400 km. As students compare maps across groups, they also begin to see how industrial food systems centralize food growth and limit the types of food consumed, favoring varieties that travel well, have longer shelf life, and are used by the food processing industries (such as corn). Students use these visualizations to ground conversations around food agency, choice, sovereignty, and security by exploring questions such as: “Who decided on where and what foods to grow? How does this shape my own and my family’s health and practices? How does industrial food affect other species who depend on diverse ecosystems?” and “How do food systems contribute to the climate crisis?” Students are not expected to know the answers to each of these questions but rather to recognize that food systems are complex, powered, and socially situated and that many of our daily choices

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

31

are made for us by national policies that favor industrial food growth and processing. From these two activities, students build a causal-loop model to show the range of social, ecological, historical, and political components related to growing, transporting, and consuming food at multiple scales. Causal-­ loop modeling first starts by having students brainstorm the range of components surfaced from prior learning. These might include fossil fuels, water, national nutrition guidelines, consumer choices, climate change, human health, ecological health, species diversity, transportation, shelf life, corporate farms, processed food ingredients, and local farms. In small groups, students work to arrange and understand the relationships of these variables around the model’s central focus: Food Sovereignty at School. In the “dreams” portion of this lesson, students explore case studies of how students participating in the ‘Think & Eat Green @ School’ program in British Columbia, Canada, (https://thinkeatgreen.ca/) have worked toward food sovereignty in their schools and communities in order to support sustainable, culturally-relevant food systems (Rojas et  al., 2017). After exploring these case studies, students then revise their causal-loop models to add components necessary for creating just and ecologically thriving local food systems that can also feed schools. Small groups work together to identify feedback loops in their models and to select 1–2 components that feel most relevant for their own contexts. Students then engage in a whole-group discussion around these selected variables to see the range of students’ dreaming before beginning their food sovereignty design proposals for their own school. Designing Ecologically and Socially Just Solutions The final portion of this unit is titled Action, and invites students to design new, potential realities for their school food systems. In this portion of the lesson, students work in small groups using the virtual world of Minecraft™ to co-construct a vision of what a just, culturally-relevant, healthy, and sustainable food system would be like at their school. The virtual world of Minecraft™ enables students to create 3D speculative models of their visions and allows students to socially engage with each other in these virtual spaces—building, growing, gathering, and eating in imagined ways. Many students in the work also felt connected to the gaming aspects of the design work, as it intersected with their out-of-school expertise and

32 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

practices. Students shared their virtual world in a design charrette-style gaming activity and were also able to share their Minecraft™ models with school leaders and community members. In this way engineering design, storytelling, and student agency were enacted in virtual space. Taking action in the speculative world was an act of virtual worldmaking in which students had full agency to share their visions and dreams, free from the material constraints of typical design work.

Conclusion and Implications Indigenous engineer Matthew Oliver argued that engineering and geoscience in their dominant forms have been the main engine of colonization (Burgart et al., 2021). Thus, the way we model engineering practices and processes in classrooms and teacher education programs matters. When we foreground Western science, uphold ‘techno-saviorism,’ and allow our students to engage in problem solving for distant peoples or communities without their partnership and consent, we reify and reinscribe extractive, capitalist, and colonial engineering practices for future generations. Disrupting these harmful paradigms is essential for empowering students and for creating a pathway through the Anthropocene, a phenomenon partially emergent through the work of engineers. The Engineering for Ecological and Social Justice Instructional Framework and associated high leverage practices provide a pathway for developing a justice-centered engineering curriculum that builds on students’ everyday ways of knowing and threads heterogenous everyday knowledge and place-based investigations throughout the engineering design processes in ways that engage learners in designing with and for plurality. The two case studies described here show how critical speculative engineering design and its associated tools and practices can be used to engage learners in speculative worldmaking with their own communities in ways that honor heterogeneity as both inputs and outputs of the engineering design process. Finally, as seen in both case studies and central to EESJ, students in science and engineering classrooms shift their attention from static products thought to be universally effective irrespective of context or place to dynamic processes (i.e., process ontologies) where culture and place are integral components of engineering co-design with and for the more-than-human world.

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

33

References Atman, C. J., Yasuhara, K., Adams, R. S., Barker, T. J., Turns, J., & Rhone, E. (2008). Breadth in problem scoping: A comparison of freshman and senior engineering students. International Journal of Engineering Education, 24(2), 234. Bang, M., Brown, B.  A., Calabrese Barton, A., Rosebery, A.  S., & Warren, B. (2017). Toward more equitable learning in science. In Schwarz, C., Passmore, C. & Reiser, B. J. (Eds.), Helping students make sense of the world using next generation science and engineering practices (pp. 33–58). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association. Ball, D. L., & Forzani, F. M. (2009). The work of teaching and the challenge for teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(5), 497–511. Burgart, D., Crowe, C., Oliver, M., Earlie, K., & Black, K. (February 4, 2021). Creating ethical space towards decolonizing engineering and STEM education [Webinar]. Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary. Calabrese Barton, A., Tan, E., & Birmingham, D.  J. (2020). Rethinking high-­ leverage practices in justice-oriented ways. Journal of Teacher Education, 71(4), 477–494. Claris, L., & Riley, D. (2012). Situation critical: critical theory and critical thinking in engineering education. Engineering Studies, 4(2), 101–120. Cohen, D. K. (2011). Teaching and its predicaments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT Press. Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse. Duke University Press. Fallon, S., Connolly, P., & Enig, M. G. (1999). Nourishing traditions: The cookbook that challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats (Revised second edition.). NewTrends Pub. Figueiredo, A. D. D. (2008, November). Toward an epistemology of engineering. In 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering, The Royal Academy of Engineering, London. Forzani, F. (2014). Understanding “core practices” and “practice based” teacher education: Learning from the past. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 357–368. Grossman, P. (2018). Teaching core practices in teacher education. Harvard Education Press. Grossman, P., Hammerness, K., & McDonald, M. (2009). Redefining teaching, re-imagining teacher education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15, 273–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540600902875340 Haraldsson, H.  V. (2004). Introduction to system thinking and causal loop diagrams (pp. 3–4). Lund, Sweden: Department of chemical engineering, Lund University.

34 

V. CASSONE MCGOWAN ET AL.

Hertz, T., Garcia, M.  M., & Schlüter, M. (2020). From nouns to verbs: How process ontologies enhance our understanding of social-ecological systems understood as complex adaptive systems. People and Nature, 2, 328–338. Lampert, M., Franke, M., Kazemi, E., Ghousseini, H., Turrou, A., Beasley, H., … Crowe, K. (2013). Keeping it complex: Using rehearsals to support novice teacher learning of ambitious teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3), 226–243. Learning in Places Collaborative. (2021). Framework: Complex Socio-Ecological Systems. Bothell, Seattle, WA & Evanston, Il: Learning in Places. Liboiron, M. & Lepaswky, J. (2002). Discard studies: Wasting, systems, and power. MIT Press. McDonald, M., Kazemi, E., & Kavanagh, S. (2013). Core practices and pedagogies of teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(5), 378–386. McGowan, V. C., & Bell, P. (2020). Engineering education as the development of critical sociotechnical literacy. Science & Education, 29(4), 981–1005. McGowan, V. C., & Bell, P. (2022). “I now deeply care about the effects humans are having on the world”: Cultivating ecological care and responsibility through complex systems modelling and investigations. Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 39(1), 116–131. McGowan, V.  C., & Campbell, D.  T. (2023). Engineering for ecological and social justice: What can pollinators teach us about designing healthier cities for humans and other species in the face of climate change? Science Scope. NSTA Press. Mensah, F. M. (2022). “Now, I see”: Multicultural science curriculum as transformation and social action. The Urban Review, 54(1), 155–181. Mensah, F.  M., & Jackson, I. (2018). Whiteness as property in science teacher education. Teachers College Record, 120(1), 1–38. Nasir, N. I. S., Rosebery, A. S., Warren, B., & Lee, C. D. (2006). Learning as a cultural process: Achieving equity through diversity. The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences, 489–504. National Research Council. (2009). Engineering in K-12 education: Understanding the status and improving the prospects. National Academies Press. Philip, T.  M., & Azevedo, F.  S. (2017). Everyday science learning and equity: Mapping the contested terrain. Science Education, 101(4), 526–532. Philip, T. M., Souto-Manning, M., Anderson, L., Horn, I., Andrews, C. Stillman, J., & Varghese, M. (2019). Making justice peripheral by constructing practice as “core”: How the increasing prominence of core practices challenges teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 70(3), 251–264. Pierson, A. E., Brady, C. E., Clark, D. B., & Sengupta, P. (2022). Students’ epistemic commitments in a heterogeneity-seeking modeling curriculum. Cognition and Instruction, 1–33.

2  DESIGNING FOR COLLECTIVE FUTURES: THE ENGINEERING… 

35

Pugh, P., McGinty, M., & Bang, M. (2019). Relational epistemologies in land-­ based learning environments: reasoning about ecological systems and spatial indexing in motion. Cultural Studies in Science Education, 14, 425–448. Riley, D. (2008). Engineering and social justice. Synthesis Lectures on Engineers, Technology, and Society, 3(1), 1–152. Roggema, R. (2014). The design charrette. In The Design Charrette (pp. 15–34). Springer, Dordrecht. Rojas, A., Black, J.L., Orrego, E., Chapman, G., & Valley, W. (2017), Insights from the Think&EatGreen@School Project: How a community-based action research project contributed to healthy and sustainable school food systems in Vancouver. Can Food Studies, 4(2), 4–24. Taylor, C.  L. & Stallings, V.  A., Eds. (2009). Nutrition standards and meal requirements for national school lunch and breakfast programs: Phase I. Proposed approach for recommending revisions. Tsai, N., Kang, H., Chang, J., Cassese, K. (2022). Adapting existing curriculum for equitable learning experiences, Science Scope, 45(5), 44–51. Tzou, C., & Bell, P. (2010). Micros and ee: Leveraging home and community practices in formal science instruction. In Gomez, K., Lyons, L. & Radinsky, J. (Eds.), Learning in the disciplines: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2010), 1, 1135–1142. Tzou, C., Bang, M., & Bricker, L. (2021). Commentary: Designing science instructional materials that contribute to more just, equitable, and culturally thriving learning and teaching in science education. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 32(7), 858–864. Warren, B., Vossoughi, S., Rosebery, A.  S., Bang, M., & Taylor, E.  V. (2020). Multiple ways of knowing*: Re-imagining disciplinary learning. In Handbook of the cultural foundations of learning (pp. 277–294). Routledge. Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. Zembal-Saul, C., McNeill, K. L., & Hershberger, K. (2013). What’s your evidence? Engaging K-5 children in constructing explanations in science. Pearson Higher Ed.

CHAPTER 3

Contemporary Science Research and Climate Change Education Russell Tytler and Peta White

Introduction Tytler et al. (2017) suggested that in these times of significant technological innovation and socio-ecological disruption, student disengagement can be associated with the disconnect between science classroom pedagogies and contemporary science practice and application. Lyons (2006) conducted a review of research on high school students in Sweden, England, and Australia, identifying how science lessons are often transmissive, decontextualised, and unnecessarily difficult. This chapter provides some of the insight needed to disrupt a depersonalised science curriculum, replacing it with compelling stories of people working in science-related careers and on socio-ecological issues central to these challenging times.

R. Tytler • P. White Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 X. Fazio (ed.), Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37391-6_3

37

38 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

The Imperative of the Anthropocene Since the third Industrial Revolution, there have been increasing and deepening repercussions that manifest beyond point source pollution to human-induced climate breakdown, generating widespread ecological devastation (IPCC, 2021). However, many humans enjoy the highest ever living standard and life expectancy (Pinker, 2018; Rosling et al., 2018), while other organisms live in species-threatening crises. Dirzo et al. (2014) describe how we are now in the sixth mass extinction where biodiversity loss will impact all species, including humans. These challenging socio-­ ecological crises herald the Anthropocene (Lewis & Maslin, 2015), where human impact has changed the Earth’s systems (IPCC, 2021). Humanity now faces uncertain futures as the biosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere are irrevocably changed (IPCC, 2021). Challenges include ensuring clean air and water, providing food security, managing diseases, generating renewable energy, and striving for health and wellbeing for all species (Barnosky et  al., 2012; Rockström et  al., 2009). Sustainable practices and systems (Steffen et  al., 2011) require contributions from science and technology, alongside other disciplines and knowledge systems (Schipper et al., 2021). Young people will need to deal with these challenges in ongoing ways; developing competencies that enable agentic, informed practices is imperative. Creative solutions, systems thinking, and regenerative learning (Poelina et al., 2022) are required to enhance scientific knowledge informing decisions and actions. Individuals and communities must learn to make informed, sustainable living choices to address these challenges (Monroe et al., 2019).

Climate Change Education Climate breakdown drives a new urgency for young people to cultivate scientific knowledge-informed decisions and actions. The urgency and scale of climate crises drives education opportunities beyond efforts towards sustainability. Science education is critical in providing young people with a basic understanding of Earth’s systems and their interactions with human systems. In these uncertain times, young people also need the following set of attitudes and dispositions to work individually, with others, and across generations for systemic change and sustainability (from White et al., 2023):

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

39

• Systems Thinking, which is the ability to recognise complex interactions among relevant variables and understand the consequences of changes to those variables; • Self-efficacy, which refers to the belief that one can act; • Collective efficacy, which is believing that one’s group can meet its goals; • Outcome expectancy, which is the belief that one’s actions will make an impact on the issue of interest; • Agency, which is the perception that one influences one’s own actions and circumstances; and, • Hope, which is the sense that there is a way toward a possible future that is worth achieving. Climate change education calls for an interdisciplinary consideration of climate science as well as the social implications and initiatives for change. White et al. (2021) highlight the importance of political agency comingled with critical science agency (Basu et al., 2009), where students leverage science knowledge and practices to inspire and drive action (Schenkel & Calabrese Barton, 2019). The School Strike 4 Climate has encouraged educators to re-imagine the purpose and future of education (Ross, 2020) towards focusing on student agency and voice. Saeed (2020) argues, “any discussion on the Futures of Education is incomplete without locating student voices and experiences as central to that discussion especially when students have been politically active—organising, agitating, speaking, writing, re-imagining their own future” (p. 7).

Teaching Science through a Climate Change Lens We have been involved for more than a decade in researching partnerships between the scientific community and schools. These were often organised between individual teachers and local scientists but were also based on formal arrangements between schools and scientists and their institutions. The scientists involved in such programs could be academics at local universities or professionals working in research institutes or research-focused industries, but often they were individuals occupying science-related positions in  local councils as engineers, rangers, horticulturists, or forestry workers (Campbell & Tytler, 2018; Tytler et al., 2008, 2011). Research has demonstrated the positive impact on engagement of students who work with scientists in terms of access to identity models exemplifying

40 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

commitment to scientific evidence-based practices and demonstrating the human elements of such commitments. Students also benefit from participating in activities representing contemporary scientific practices such as fish hatchery processes (Tytler et  al., 2017), contemporary astronomy research or tracking of native fish populations (Tytler et al., 2011). Many of these projects focus on sustainability issues, such as monitoring changes in the Snowy River in Australia following damming its headwaters, designing energy-efficient apartments (Tytler et al., 2008) or tracking changes in native fish populations because of pesticide runoff (Tytler et  al., 2011). Such projects, then, have the capacity to support the analysis of science-­ society interactions associated with climate change. A strong feature of these projects has been the creation of pedagogies that are more flexible and responsive to students’ ideas than is often the case in traditional classrooms and the situating of science in contexts and issues of local relevance (Forbes & Skamp, 2014; Kisiel, 2010; Rennie, 2012; Tytler et al., 2011). A major argument for such partnerships is their introduction into schools of representations of contemporary science ideas and practices in contexts that are both local and societally relevant. The experiences of these partnerships have, in Australia, spawned a strong institutional interest in supporting such work. The Australian government has advocated for increased engagement of the scientific community with schools (Office of the Chief Scientist, 2014). A former chief scientist has supported the argument that prevailing science classroom practices no longer adequately represent how science is practised in contemporary settings (Peacock, 2007). The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has for some years run a ‘scientists (now STEM professionals) in schools’ programme that connects teachers with scientists and provides induction materials and support. Evaluations of the program (Tytler et al., 2015) have demonstrated its value for both teachers and students of exposure to scientists and the contemporary ideas they bring. However, it is not always the case that such partnerships bear fruit. Research has shown that some partnerships never get off the ground or do so only briefly (Tytler et al., 2015); and that for a partnership to work, both teachers and scientists must engage in boundary-crossing negotiations to understand and align their respective cultural practices (Tytler et al., 2017). Partly because of these challenges, and particularly because of the challenge of calling on busy scientists’ time to spend time in schools, we have been engaged in research that investigates contemporary

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

41

scientists and their practices and that packages this to produce learning sequences in secondary schools. There are only so many scientists in the country, they are busy, and there are many schools who would call on their time if given the opportunity. The further advantage of this approach is that it provides an opportunity to shape the materials strategically to represent scientists’ practices and ideas in ways that support students’ development of scientific competencies and their perceptions of the nature of scientists and their work. This was not always the case with on-the-ground partnerships between scientists and schools. Our approach has been to work with scientists and scientific groups, through interviews or seminar presentations, to develop insights into their research practices, the context of their research, and their motivations, to develop web-based ‘contemporary science’ resources for schools that match key curricular outcomes. The resources, one of which we unpack in some detail below, variously include: descriptions of the scientists’ context and an account of the science ideas; video of the scientist talking about their work; images of their work environment; examples of publications and of activities in which students deal directly with scientists’ data; and in some cases, activities that highlight societal and ethical aspects of the research. Many of these web-based resources—teaching and learning sequences (found at https://deakinsteme.org/resources/contemporary-­science-­ practice-­in-­schools/) include the socio-ecological settings of science, such as discussions of the ethics of investigations into environmental effects on fish, the environmental impacts of nanoparticles, or controversies around stem cell tourism. We argue, therefore, that representing scientists and their practices in schools is a potentially powerful approach to climate change education from a science curriculum perspective. Many science researchers and their institutions are working on climate-related projects, including: integrative ecology projects focusing on changing environments and species change; bushfire-related change; carbon recycling in the environment; battery technologies and science related to renewable energy production and distribution; and research on climate-related health issues. In pursuing this research, we have focused on both pre-service and in-­service teachers with the aim of bringing contemporary scientists and their epistemic practices into the classroom (White et al., 2018). Pre-service teachers have been part of the production process for these sequences, where they have attended seminars where scientists presented their research and its import, and where pre-service teachers have interviewed scientists and constructed activities based on

42 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

their work (White & Tytler, 2022). This sequence construction was supported through access to an experienced science teacher who provided feedback and, in some cases, refined the sequence. A study of a small number of sequences run by teachers (Vamvakas et  al., 2021) found evidence of a widening of perceptions of the nature of science and scientists’ practices; experience of inquiry processes, including data analyses of authentic data that went beyond teachers’ normal expectations; exposure to scientific careers; a widened range of pedagogies; and enhanced student engagement. We argue that these sequences can be powerful for engaging students in authentic, contemporary science, including its societal links, making them potentially powerful for dealing with the socio-­ecological challenges represented by climate change. In this chapter, we explore the following question: What are possibilities for representing contemporary scientists’ practices to contribute to climate change education? In answering this question, we utilise findings from a European initiative to focus on the pedagogical possibilities from ‘controversy mapping’ (Hervé, 2014; Venturini & Munk, 2021), where we provide some examples of socioscientific issues (Sadler, 2011) and how to explore them in a classroom setting. We then describe four teaching and learning sequences to illustrate how they attend to sustainability issues and how they might be extended to foreground the wider aspects of science-society interactions that we regard as fundamental to effective climate change education.

Controversy Mapping The Promoting Attainment of Responsible Research & Innovation in Science Education (PARRISE) project (https://www.parrise.eu/) represented a significant European initiative to combine the strands of inquiry processes of science and investigation of socioscientific issues and responsible citizenship. PARRISE took as its overarching principle Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), which has been a major principle of thinking about science R&D policy in Europe for some years. PARRISE involved a partnership over four years between 18 teacher education institutions across 11 European countries, developing approaches to pre- and in-service education that pulled together these strands. The socioscientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) pedagogy underpinning the project was developed and refined over the life of the project, theorising relations among post-normal perspectives on science (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 2018;

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

43

Ravetz, 1999; Levinson, 2006; Levinson & the PARRISE Consortium, 2017) that emphasised its societal entanglement, science inquiry processes, and citizenship education and RRI. SSIBL was developed drawing on two significant strands of science education thinking, each of which was represented by different members of PARRISE: inquiry-­based learning in science, which emphasises student exploration and inquiry skill development; and socioscientific issues, which involve exploration and reasoning about complexities in socio-ecological issues related to contemporary science R&D and personal or societal actions that flow from this (Fig. 3.1). A model of socioscientific reasoning associated with sustainability socioscientific issues was developed by Morin et al. (2014, 2017), which

Fig. 3.1  Core features of SSIBL. (Adapted from PARRISE, n.d.-a)

44 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

Table 3.1  Summary of the Socioscientific Sustainability Reasoning (S3R) Framework (Adapted from Morin et al. 2017), articulating and exemplifying the dimensions and nature of higher-level reasoning S3R Dimension

Exemplification

P: Problematisation—Are the different aspects of the situation (environmental, social, economic) tackled from different perspectives? I: Interactions—Are the interactions within socio-ecological systems recognised over different scales?

Increasing awareness of complexity in the construction of the problem Increasing awareness of complexity within systems at local, global, short, and long terms K: Knowledges—How are different knowledges Clearer articulation of different brought into play? forms of knowledge—academic, practical U: Uncertainties and risks—Are the limitations and Increasing expression of uncertainties in knowledge, and the associated risks epistemological doubt and recognised? recognition of the contextual nature of knowledge claims V: Values—Is there an awareness of the values Increased recognition and involved in the issue? clarification of value positions G: Governance—Are the relationships between Increased awareness of regulatory private and general interests considered for a variety processes to enable citizen of institutions such as peer and family groups, participation in balancing professions, public institutions, nations? interests

consisted of six dimensions, along each of which positions of varying levels of sophistication are described. These dimensions are shown in Table 3.1. The S3R framework detailed in Table 3.1 offers a model for how post-­ normal science might be represented in students’ investigating and reasoning activity around socioscientific issues in science classrooms, and potentially offers a way for teachers to envisage the planning, support, and assessment of quality learning experiences around societally-related science. Our contention is that marrying such an agenda with experience of authentic and contemporary scientific R&D that pays attention to scientific practices offers a fresh way of engaging students in building science competencies for dealing with the socio-ecological challenges to come and the sense of agency and purpose needed to tackle these challenges. In the PARRISE project, there were two aspects of SSIBL about and for which participating teams spent much time discussing and developing a variety of approaches. These were: (1) the selection of a controversy that

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

45

stimulated sustained socioscientific inquiry and the mapping of different views and, (2) the definition of ‘action’ in the framework. The latter issue is relevant to our focus on agency about climate change education, which can imply a degree of empowerment to act or confidence in the potential efficacy of community action, and a commitment to informed action (Levinson, 2022). For some environmental and science educators, this commitment to action is crucial to achieve the meaningful social change necessary, and an activist orientation is viewed as a necessary component of sustainability education (Bencze & Carter, 2011; Zouda et al., 2022). In PARRISE, ‘action’ was conceptualised in several ways: making an artefact; lobbying powerful institutions; generating instructional/informational materials such as poster displays; promoting change in school (Bencze, 2017) or local council policy; or holding a discussion forum. Many of these involved group or community action. Regarding controversy mapping, PARRISE members created several approaches to analysing a socioscientific issue to create a ‘controversy map’. Examples can be found at https://www.parrise.eu/wp-­content/ uploads/2018/04/parrise-­en-­rgb.pdf. A common approach was to identify, using sticky notes or through digital means, networks of stakeholders or ‘actants’ with an interest in an issue and values or technical positions that can be taken on the issue. The questions students engage with are: . What is the issue at stake? What is the controversy? 1 2. Which stakeholders are involved and what are their interests? 3. What is the relevant science knowledge? 4. What questions could be raised that we need to explore? A controversy map can be jointly constructed on a sheet of paper, often using sticky notes for flexibility in relating the elements of the controversy. The map contains stakeholders, the issues and positions, and knowledge and values that are in play, with the links between them identified using lines or arrows. It is usually easier to start with stakeholders and their interests, then identify their opinions and arguments (including relevant science and other knowledges such as economic or governance constraints), and finally the values at play. These are then connected using arrows or lines. Figure 3.2 represents a complex and sophisticated version of a controversy map generated by pre-service teachers working with the PARRISE ENSFEA (École nationale supérieure de formation de l’enseignement agricole) team from Toulouse University, showing the

46 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

Fig. 3.2  Controversy map on agricultural policy, constructed using a digital platform as part of the ENSFEA (University of Toulouse) PARRISE activity. (PARRISE, n.d.-b, ENSFEA; Printed with permission from Utrecht University and ENSFEA)

different actants and the different positions in the controversy. The discussions around the construction of such a map were very detailed and comprehensive. The map and associated Démarche D’Enquête (Socioscientific Inquiry in French) approach is described on the PARRISE website. Figure 3.3 shows a simpler controversy map around the socially acute question “Should we eat meat?”, drawing on groups of teachers using sticky notes. Socially Acute Questions (Morin et al., 2017) emphasise the “acuteness” of open-ended, complex questions that bring out the uncertainties embedded in ill-structured socioscientific problems. Another approach to controversy mapping is to identify the main arguments or positions for or against an action and construct a map of the actants/stakeholders on either side of that line. Figure 3.4 illustrates such an approach.

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

47

Fig. 3.3  Controversy map representing stakeholders (actants) in the question “Should we eat meat?” (From authors)

There are also a variety of experiential-based approaches to articulating awareness of the complexity of socio-ecological issues, such as the creation of a ‘controversy line’. After an introduction to a socioscientific issue, students organise themselves to take up a position along a line representing the extent to which they agree or disagree with a position on an issue. This can be extended to a debate or managed drama performance where groups clustered around positions can articulate their understandings and values.

Developing Learning Sequences in Sustainability-Related Science In the teaching and learning sequences presented as online resources that we and our pre-service teachers have constructed (https://deakinsteme. org/resources/contemporary-­science-­practice-­in-­schools/), many but not all have clear links to sustainability/climate change-related topics. They all, however, focus on contemporary scientific ideas and scientists’ practices in settings of high social relevance. In this section, we first

48 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

Fig. 3.4  Mapping interest groups for the question of fast phasing out fossil fuels

describe their nature using some examples related to sustainability before focusing on one learning sequence representing a significant and rich socioscientific issue. We then discuss the potential of such online resources to offer learning opportunities in science that bring together three significant strands of contemporary thinking in science education: (1) knowledge of contemporary scientific ideas and practices, including human aspects of epistemic practices; (2) engagement of students in scientific inquiry practices; and (3) socioscientific issues that include engagement with science and entanglements needing urgent attention in climate change education (Hsu et al., 2022; Tytler & White, 2022). Each resource includes a video of scientists talking about their practice and a few activities where students engage with the science, its purpose and its implications. In some cases, students engage with authentic data. In other cases, they explore internet interpretations of the issue. The activities are accompanied by teacher notes. We describe four sequences below.

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

49

Nurdles This resource begins with a short video by a young Deakin University Australia scientist explaining his research into microplastic ‘nurdles’ and the problems that arise. Students are then directed to a series of five activities: (1) watching a video about the accumulation of nurdles in the ocean and then researching a range of environmental aspects related to nurdles; (2) reading articles about metal accumulation on nurdles, their impact on food webs, and finally an analysis of nurdle distribution based on online data; (3) a teacher demonstration of a flame test and then an activity interpreting the global origin of nurdles based on their metal content; (4) discussing and deciding on personal actions to reduce nurdles and identifying the variety of stakeholders this would affect; and (5) a debate where students take on the role of stakeholders, including industry, the public, and scientists. This topic introduces analyses of plastic pollution at a global scale and invites students to consider a personal stance on the issue. Nanotoxicology This sequence starts with a video of a nanotechnology scientist, Dr. Aaron Schulz (https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-­deakin/people/aaron-­schultz), discussing the adequacy of regulatory testing of nanoparticles and the science around their potential environmental effects. He discusses his own research and the different careers possible with a science degree. This is accompanied by a scientific paper on nanotoxicology. This is followed by four activities: (1) students take structured notes on a worksheet based on a video about nanomaterials; (2) a laboratory experiment to explore the effect of surface area on diffusion rates and the implications for nanomaterials’ effects in the environment; (3) a role-play around the use of nanoparticles involving different stakeholder views; and (4) students are challenged to create an experimental design to explore the impacts of nanoparticles from socks on fish, drawing on scientific research information. This topic encourages consideration of the uncertainty and risk associated with scientific knowledge and technological advances (Simonneaux et al., 2013) and the necessity of a science of environmental regulation.

50 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

Small Mammals This sequence features the research project of Dr. John White at Parks Victoria tracing the effects of climate change over 11  years to date on small mammals in a Victorian National Park. The sequence is introduced by a video in which Dr. White discusses the impacts of climate change on rainfall, fire and vegetation and the response of ecosystems. The Grampians National Park is used as a model landscape to study and report the effects of climate change on ecosystems. Small mammals are used as a model to study these changes and their impacts. The sequence involves five student activity sessions: (1) structured unpacking of the nature and import of the research using the video; (2) analysis of changes in vegetation index over time in a related region using data from the Victorian Bureau of Meteorology, Australia, analysing and interpreting ‘climate analogues’ from Climate Change Australia’s website; (3) exploring their own carbon footprint and carbon emissions resulting from different activities; (4) analysing data concerning the link between rainfall and small mammal numbers and interpreting differential effects on different mammals; and (5) a debate about the worthwhileness of this research project given costs, intended outcomes, and methodology. The topic directly addresses climate change impacts, data generation, and analyses illustrating how science deals with the complexity of longer-term trends in ecosystems. Feral Horses This sequence focuses on the research of Professor Don Driscoll (https:// dondriscoll.com/) on the socioscientific controversy surrounding feral horses, known as brumbies, in alpine regions of Eastern Australia. The sequence opens with a statement of the issue, which is the destruction by these horses of habitat crucial to a range of native species, and opposition from and political support for groups objecting to culling of the horse population. This is followed by a video of a presentation by Prof. Driscoll that addresses the distribution of horses across the entire alpine region; scientific evidence, both direct and inferential, for the link between horse damage and reduction or even local extinction of a number of native species; evidence countering the claim that deer, not horses, are responsible for the problem; evidence concerning the population density of horses that can be sustained without threat; a discussion of methods of culling horses comparing economics, efficiency, humaneness and examining value

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

51

positions; and finally, a summary and rebuttal of arguments used in parliament to ban removal of horses from the high plains (alpine regions). The next aspect of the resources is a brief overview of Professor Driscoll’s work and interview in which he explains his commitment to biodiversity conservation and his agenda of using science to stimulate public and political commitment to this issue. Again, he argues forcefully against the positions taken by the pro-brumby lobby group. He is very active in this debate, using his website (https://dondriscoll.com/) and public blogs and news media to advance this agenda. Following this, the sequence involves two activities: (1) introducing the role of ‘stakeholders’ in socioscientific debates using videos of a range of interests concerning genetically modified (GM) foods and (2) a debate about the feral horse issue, involving first the viewing of videos representing the views and arguments of different stakeholders and then a ‘ladder of opinion’ in which students physically position themselves according to their own views. They then group together to participate in the debate, which aims to support discernment of the different value positions and evidence forms involved.

Discussion As we have argued in the introduction, drawing on contemporary perspectives on climate change education (CCE), there are several key features of CCE that need to be emphasised, and the science curriculum must occupy a central place in this. Considerations of the drivers of climate change, of the complex effects of climate change on socio-ecological systems, and of potential ways to address the challenges these present that involve both technical development and personal and political action involve scientific knowledge and practice and are the substance of much scientific R&D across all science disciplines. However, the science involved in all three areas has been to various degrees contested because of its entanglement with human personal, industrial, and political processes, presenting a very different view of science and scientific practice than that of traditional science curricula, which deal with a scientific canon that is settled and uncontested, and largely removed from human influence and societal entanglement. We live in an era of unprecedented access to knowledge and opinion via the internet and social media, fake news and misrepresentation of science related to issues where vested interests or strong value positions are increasingly an issue (Osborne et al., 2022).

52 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

On this basis, a science education that is part of CCE needs to address not only science knowledge but also the basis on which such knowledge is generated and validated against evidence and how scientific research operates in complex contemporary settings. Furthermore, to develop student agency and a sense of hope for a future where we need to tackle major socio-ecological crises related to climate change, CCE needs to canvas the ways in which science operates in relation to societal challenges and decision-­ making processes so that the body of research around SSIs becomes crucial for informing students’ reasoning and action. To enlist students to a sense of appreciation of and confidence in a responsible and influential scientific R&D agenda, we also need to excite them to the vibrancy, relevance, and challenge of contemporary science research and the types of motivation and commitment of the scientific community that offer models for students to consider future science-­ related work in these important areas. Thus, we argue that the approach to contemporary science education represented by these resources offers a model for science teaching and learning as part of a CCE that deals not only with recognition of the issues and the development of a personal stance and sense of agency in relation to these, but also with models of STEM futures that might enlist students in future STEM-related work and develop their STEM skills. In analysing the features of the four learning sequences described in the previous section, we can see a range of features that are consistent with this vision. Broadly, the sequences as a set incorporate three distinctive features of a science education that would enrich a vision of CCE in their attendance to: (1) engagement with contemporary science knowledge and practice consistent with current curriculum advocacy (e.g., US National Research Council, 2012); (2) the nature of contemporary science and scientists’ lives and associated entanglement with socio-ecological challenges consistent with post-normal science; (3) reasoning about socioscientific issues, including the interaction of scientific knowledge with multiple knowledges, values and stakeholder interests; and (4) activities that emphasise student decision making and agency and the development of an informed personal stance on socio-ecological issues. Across the four sequences, we draw attention to: • Representation of scientists and their work, including their motivations and enthusiasms.

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

53

• Representation of scientists’ personal commitments to sustainability agendas and their willingness to use their scientific expertise to challenge and shape public opinion or government policy. • Representation of the pervasive entanglement of science R&D with societal issues. • Access to authentic scientific data and, in some cases, analysis of these data. • Presentation of scientific epistemic practices such as ecosystem modelling, measurement, experimental design, communication through scientific papers, and monitoring protocols. • Experience with hands-on experimentation and experimental design. • Access to and analysis of a range of publicly available scientific articles and data. • Attention to socioscientific sustainability reasoning and associated future global competencies (e.g., the 2030 project of OECD, https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-­project/teaching-­and-­ learning/learning/learning-­c ompass-­2 030/in_brief_Learning_ Compass.pdf) across a range of dimensions, for instance: –– looking at socio-ecological challenges from a range of perspectives. –– recognising different knowledges at play and their interactions. –– identifying values underpinning different stakeholder positions. –– viewing socioscientific challenges from local to global perspectives. –– discussing governance dimensions of the resolution of issues. –– recognising limitations to scientific knowledge and the uncertainties and risks associated with decision making. –– Invitation to take and justify a personal stance on a socioscientific issue and actions needed to respond to the issue. There are concerns, globally, with students’ lack of engagement with STEM subjects and futures and with the capacity of current science education to prepare students for an uncertain and challenging future (Oxford University Press, 2022). Given the multiple crises represented by the sixth mass extinction and environmental degradation, challenges of the fourth Industrial Revolution, and above all climate change, we need to rethink our science education to prepare students for such a future. Science

54 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

curricula have been criticised for lack of attention to the competencies needed for students to become competent citizens in such a world (Marope et  al., 2017; Tytler & Self, 2020), instead retaining a focus on abstract concepts and limited engagement with scientific practices. We argue that the approach to science education represented by the modules described above offers a fresh perspective on a science education needed for a world in which climate change will increasingly throw challenges that can only be resolved by a prepared citizenry cognisant of the intimate relationships among scientific knowledge, scientists’ practices and the socio-ecological entanglements characteristic of the climate crisis in the Anthropocene.

References Barnosky, A.  D., Hadly, E.  A., Bascompte, J., Berlow, E.  L., Brown, J.  H., Fortelius, M., ... Smith, A. B. (2012). Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere. Nature, 486(7401), 52–58. Basu, S.J., Calabrese Barton, A., Clairmont, N., & Locke, D. (2009). Developing a framework for critical science agency through case study in a conceptual physics context. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4, 345–371. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11422-­008-­9135-­8 Bencze, L. (Ed.) (2017). Science and technology education promoting wellbeing for individuals, societies and environments: STEPWISE. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 14. Springer. Bencze, L., & Carter, L. (2011). Globalizing students acting for the common good. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48(6), 648–669. Campbell, C., & Tytler, R. (2018). Scientists and mathematicians in schools: CSIRO, Australia. In L. Hobbs, C. Campbell & M. Jones (Eds.) School-based partnerships in teacher education (pp. 247–257). Singapore: Springer. Dirzo, R., Young, H.  S., Galetti, M., Ceballos, G., Isaac, N.  J., & Collen, B. (2014). Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science, 345(6195), 401–406. Forbes, A., & Skamp, K. (2014). “Because we weren’t actually teaching them, we thought they weren’t learning”: Primary teacher perspectives from the MyScience initiative. Research in Science Education, 44(1), 1–25. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11165-­013-­9367-­9. Funtowicz, S., & Ravetz, J.  K. (2018). Post-normal science. In N.  Castree, M.  Hulme & J.D.  Proctor (Eds) Companion to Environmental Studies (pp. 443–447). London: Routledge. Hervé, N. (2014). Cartographier des controverses pour apprendre la complexité des technosciences: l’étude des gaz de schiste en lycée agricole. Revue francophone du développement durable, 4, 155–170.

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

55

Hsu, Y-S, Tytler, R., & White, P.J. (2022). Innovative Approaches to Socio-Scientific Issues and Sustainability Education—Linking Research to Practice. Learning Sciences for Higher Education. Singapore: Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­981-­19-­1840-­7 IPCC (2021). The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J. B. R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu & B. Zhou (Eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. Kisiel, J. (2010). Exploring a school-aquarium collaboration: An intersection of communities of practice. Science Education, 94(1), 95–121. Levinson, R. (2006). Towards a theoretical framework for teaching controversial socio-scientific issues. International Journal of Science Education, 28(10), 1201–1224. Levinson, R. (2022). Teaching SSIs: An epistemology based on social justice through the meta theory of critical realism. In Y-S. Hsu, R. Tytler & P.J. White (Eds). Innovative Approaches to Socioscientific Issues and Sustainability Education (pp. 367–379). Springer, Singapore. Levinson, R., & the PARRISE Consortium. (2017). Socio-scientific inquiry-based learning: Taking off from STEPWISE. In Science and technology education promoting wellbeing for individuals, societies and environments (pp. 477–502). Springer. Lewis, S.  L., & Maslin, M.  A. (2015). Defining the Anthropocene. Nature, 519(7542), 171–180. Lyons, T. (2006). Different countries, same science classes: Students’ experiences of school science in their own words. International Journal of Science Education, 28(6), 591–613. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690500339621 Marope, M., Griffin, P.& Gallagher, C. (2017). Future Competences and the future of curriculum: a global reference for curricular transformation. Geneva: UNESCO International Bureau of Education, pp. 31–33. Monroe, M. C., Plate, R. R., Oxarart, A., Bowers, A., & Chaves, W. A. (2019). Identifying effective climate change education strategies: A systematic review of the research. Environmental Education Research, 25(6), 791–812. Morin, O., Simonneaux, L., Simonneaux, J., Tytler, R., & Barraza, L. (2014). Developing and using an S3R model to analyze reasoning in web-based cross-­ national exchanges on sustainability. Science Education, 98(3), 517–542. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce21113. Morin, O., Simonneaux, L., & Tytler, R. (2017). Engaging with socially acute questions: Development and validation of an interactional reasoning framework. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 54(7), 825–851.

56 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

National Research Council (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13165. Office of the Chief Scientist (2014, March). Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Australia’s Future. http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-­ content/uploads/STEM_AustraliasFuture_Sept2014_Web.pdf. Osborne, J., Pimentel, D., Alberts, B., Allchin, D., Barzilai, S., Bergstrom, C., ... Wineburg, S. (2022). Science Education in an Age of Misinformation. Stanford University Press. Oxford University Press (2022). The evolution of science education. https://www. oup.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/186832/The-­e volution-­o f-­ science-­education-­Oxford-­University-­Press.pdf PARRISE (Promoting Attainment of responsible research and innovation in science education (n.d.-a). https://www.parrise.eu/our-­approach/ PARRISE (Promoting Attainment of Responsible Research and Innovation in Science Education (n.d.-b, ENSFEA). https://www.parrise.eu/wp-­content/ uploads/2017/12/HANDOUTS_Car tography_feed_the_planet_ ENSFEA.pdf Peacock, J. (2007). Foreword to Tytler, R. (2007). Re-imagining Science Education: Engaging students in science for Australia’s future. Australian Education Review No. 51. Camberwell: Australian Council for Education Research, ACER Press. www.acer.edu.au/research_reports/AER.html Pinker, S. (2018). Enlightenment now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress. Viking: New York. Poelina, A., Wooltorton, S., Blaise, M., Aniere, C., Horwitz, P., White, P., & Muecke, S. (2022). Regeneration time: Ancient wisdom for planetary wellbeing. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 1–18. https://doi. org/10.1017/aee.2021.34 Ravetz, J. R. (1999). What is Post-Normal Science? Futures, 31, 647–653. Rennie, L. (2012). “A very valuable partnership”. Evaluation of the scientists in schools project, 2011–2012. Dickson, Australia: CSIRO Education. Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., Lambin, E. F., ... Foley, J.  A. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461(7263), 472–475. Ross, D. (2020). From ‘dare to think!’ to ‘how dare you!’ and back again. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52(4), 466–474. Rosling, H., Rönnlund, A. R., & Rosling, O. (2018). Factfulness: Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world—and why things are better than you think. Flatiron Books: New York. Sadler, T. D., Ed. (2011). Socio-scientific issues in the classroom: Teaching, Learning and Research. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­94-­007-­1159-­4_1

3  CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION 

57

Saeed, T. (2020). Re-imagining education: Student movements and the possibility of a critical pedagogy and feminist praxis. UNESCO, Education Sector. Schenkel, K, & Calabrese Barton, A. (2019). Critical science agency and power hierarchies: Restructuring power within groups to address injustice beyond them. Science Education, 104(3), 500–529. https://doi.org/10.1002/ sce.21564 Schipper, E.  L. F., Dubash, N.  K., & Mulugetta, Y. (2021). Climate change research and the search for solutions: Rethinking interdisciplinarity. Climatic Change, 168(3), 1–11. Simonneaux, L., Panissal, N., & Brossais, E. (2013). Students’ perception of risk about nanotechnology after an SAQ teaching strategy. International Journal of Science Education, 35(14), 2376–2406. Steffen, W., Persson, Deutsch L., Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Richardson, K., ... Svedin, U. (2011). The Anthropocene: From global change to planetary stewardship. Ambio, 40(7), 739–761. Tytler, R., & Self, J. (2020). Designing a contemporary STEM curriculum. UNESCO In progress Reflection. UNESCO Digital Library. https://unesdoc. unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374146 Tytler, R., Symington, D., & Cripps Clark, J. (2017). Community-school collaborations in science: Towards improved outcomes through better understanding of boundary issues. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 15(4), 643–661. Tytler, R., Symington, D., Kirkwood, V., & Malcolm, C. (2008). Engaging students in authentic science through school—community links: learning from the rural experience. Teaching Science, the Journal of the Australian Science Teachers Association, 54(3), 13–18. Tytler, R., Symington, D., & Smith, C. (2011). A curriculum innovation framework for science, technology and mathematics education. Research in Science Education, 41 (1), 19–38. Tytler, R., Symington, D., Williams, G., White, P., Campbell, C., Chittleborough, G., Upstill, G., Roper, E., & Dziadkiewicz (2015). Building productive partnerships for STEM Education: Evaluating the model and outcomes of the Scientists and Mathematicians in Schools program. Melbourne: Deakin University. Available at: https://www.csiro.au/en/Education/Programs/ STEM-­Professionals-­in-­Schools/How-­the-­program-­works/Program-­evaluation Tytler, R., & White, P. (2022). Responsible research, innovation and socio-­ scientific inquiry approaches in a European teacher education project. In Y-S. Hsu, R. Tytler & P.J. White (Eds). Innovative Approaches to Socio-Scientific Issues and Sustainability Education—Linking Research to Practice (pp. 101–118). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

58 

R. TYTLER AND P. WHITE

Vamvakas, M., White, P., & Tytler, R. (2021). Contemporary science practice in the classroom: A phenomenological exploration into how online curriculum resources can facilitate learning. International Journal of Science Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500693.2021.1952333 Venturini, T., & Munk, A. K. (2021). Controversy mapping: A field guide. John Wiley & Sons. White, P.J., Ferguson, J.P., O’Connor Smith N., & O’Shea Carré, H. (2021). School strikers enacting politics for climate justice: Daring to think differently about education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 38(1), 26–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/aee.2021.24 White, P.J., Ardoin, N.A., Eames, C., & Monroe, M.C. (2023). Agency in the Anthropocene: Supporting document to the PISA 2025 Science Framework, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 297, OECD Publishing, Paris. https:// doi.org/10.1787/8d3b6cfa-en White, P., & Tytler, R. (2022). Pre-service teachers representing socioscientific aspects of scientists’ work. In Y-S. Hsu, R. Tytler & P.J. White (Eds). Innovative Approaches to Socio-Scientific Issues and Sustainability Education—Linking Research to Practice (pp. 15–31). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. White, P., Tytler, R., & Palmer, S. (2018). Exploring models of interaction between scientists and pre-service teachers. In S. Dinham, R. Tytler, D. Corrigan & D. Hoxley (Eds.). Reconceptualising Maths and Science Teacher Education (pp. 92–110). Camberwell: ACER Press. Zouda, M., Tsoubaris, D., El Halwany, S., Milanovic, M., Padamsi, Z., Qureshi, N., & Bencze, L. (2022). Conceptions on STSE issues and relationships: Toward activism in science education. Journal for Activist Science and Technology Education, 12(1). https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/jaste/article/ view/38139

CHAPTER 4

Energy and Your Environment (EYE): Place-­Based Curriculum Unit to Foster Students’ Energy Literacy Laura Zangori, Suzy Otto, Laura B. Cole, Rebekah Snyder, R. Tanner Oertli, and Sepideh Fallahhosseini

Introduction Improving unsustainable energy systems and reducing energy consumption can substantially decrease environmental degradation and increase public health (U.S. Department of Energy [DOE], 2012, 2015). For students to take informed action and address energy issues, they require a

L. Zangori • S. Otto • R. Snyder • R. T. Oertli Department of Learning, Teaching, & Curriculum, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA L. B. Cole Department of Design and Merchandising, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA S. Fallahhosseini Department of Architectural Studies, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 X. Fazio (ed.), Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37391-6_4

59

60 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

robust understanding of energy flow across human and Earth systems. Yet, the intersection of energy flow and societal systems is rarely a focus in educational environments (Kandpal & Broman, 2014). However, the significance of understanding energy system connections is critical given the severity of global carbon emissions, which is directly related to societal energy consumption (United Nations [U.N.], 2015b). Buildings, in particular, drive energy consumption and global carbon emissions (U.S. DOE, 2015). In the U.S., buildings contribute approximately 40% of the total carbon emissions released into the atmosphere globally (Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction [GABC], 2018). Despite the sizable environmental impact of buildings, learning about how energy is harnessed and used within the built environment is rarely discussed within science lessons (Cole, 2013; Wals et al., 2014). Without this knowledge, it is challenging to advance public understanding of energy and sustainability so that individuals can make informed decisions regarding energy use in their daily lives (Coyle, 2005; DeWaters & Powers, 2011). This curriculum unit project, Energy and Your Environment (EYE), contributes a novel place-based energy literacy curriculum that endeavors to seed energy literacy in middle school students (see Fig. 4.1). EYE uses the U.S. DOE (2012) energy literacy definition, which is the most widely The practice of iterative scientific modeling to elucidate complex systems

Systems Modeling

Place-based education using the local school building

Place-based Education

Energy Literacy

Fig. 4.1  EYE curriculum unit theoretical framing

EYE Curriculum Unit

Learning how electrical energy is harnessed, transferred, and ultimately impacts climate

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

61

accepted energy literacy definition (Martins et al., 2020). Energy literacy is defined as an “understanding of the nature and role of energy in the universe and in our lives…and the ability to apply this understanding to answer questions and solve problems” (p. 4). Enhancing energy literacy requires a combination of knowledge, affect, and behaviors about energy flow, use, impacts, and outputs across individual, societal, and natural systems (DeWaters & Powers, 2011). Energy literacy cannot be accomplished without systems thinking (UNESCO, 2017). Systems thinkers can look at individual parts and processes of a system and understand how these elements both fit within and affect the system as a whole (Capra, 1996). Systems thinking is identified as an essential twenty-first century practice for STEM literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 2011) but is one of the most difficult higher-order thinking skills to master (Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo, 2006). Students do not develop systems thinking abilities without intentional learning experiences that provide support in defining an energy system boundary and considering the structural and dynamic elements and relationships within that boundary that lead to system behavior (Cabrera et al., 2015). We work toward building students’ systems thinking in EYE through place-based learning. Large systems, such as energy systems, occur at different scales (e.g., classroom, building, or community level) and are not confined to a singular place. Learners are thus stitching together a multiplicity of places to comprehend energy systems. To capture these connections within our place-based unit, we use the term system-in-place. Our unit is place-based, as it is situated in the physical environments that students inhabit daily (the school building), but energy systems are also dynamic systems that expand outward to the surrounding community. Connecting school buildings to energy systems provides students opportunities to use their everyday experiences to build a rich understanding about interconnections and interactions across a large system. The curriculum unit asks students to consider how energy is generated for the building, how choices made in building design impact the energy efficiency of the building, and how those choices impact global systems. EYE also strives to go beyond presenting a bleak picture of environmental demise. Instead, the unit is designed to empower students to make concrete personal decisions that contribute to a more sustainable energy future (U.S. DOE, 2012; U.N., 2015a, b). Scaffolding is built into the unit to support students in asking questions that can be investigated within

62 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

the constraints of the unit, and evaluating and revising their ideas through the practice of modeling as they learn more about the components of the energy system in place. The unit summative assessment involves engineering design processes (sketching, writing, building) to design and build a prototype of a one-room energy efficient building using available classroom materials. This engineering design challenge is the unit capstone project.

Background & Theoretical Framing Energy Literacy in the School Building Understanding the concept of energy is central to science education, as core ideas across all science domains require “a basic understanding of matter and energy” (National Research Council [NRC], 2012, p. 104). The ideas students hold about energy and the ways in which instruction has attempted to challenge those ideas were extensively studied in the 1980s and 1990s (Duit, 2014). Outcomes from this work found that when energy is taught as isolated ideas about an object, students form conceptions of energy as a commodity that can be added to, stored within, or developed from individual objects (Watts, 1983; Trumper, 1993). To improve energy learning, physics educators have long advocated that energy should be taught at the system level rather than at the object level (Chisholm et al., 1992; McIldowie, 1995). Recent learning progression research also supports this notion, finding that students’ ideas about energy and energy flow are woven together in “complex networks of ideas” (Herrmann-Abell & DeBoer, 2018, p.  3) so that multiple and interrelated energy ideas co-develop (Fortus et  al., 2019; Tobin et al., 2018). Preparing students to become energy literate meets these needs. Energy literacy requires the ability to conceptualize energy flow within systems (see Table 4.1). As students build increasingly sophisticated mental models of energy systems, they are able to use this knowledge for tasks such as assessing energy sources, discerning credible sources of information, communicating energy ideas, evaluating the amount of electrical energy they personally consume, and making informed decisions about energy usage. Developing an understanding of energy as a system with different types of interaction patterns, and then using this knowledge to consider personal and societal energy choices, builds energy literacy and supports energy

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

63

Table 4.1  EYE curriculum unit theoretical alignment Theoretical principle

Energy literacy principles

Systems thinking hierarchical model

Epistemic features of modeling

Analysis of system components

• Energy transformation • Energy transfer • Energy dissipates • Humans transfer and transform energy from the environment into forms useful for human endeavors • Energy takes many forms that are transformed by special machines or engines • Humans are part of Earth’s ecosystems and influence energy flow through these systems • Earth has limited energy resources

• Identify the components of a system and processes within the system

Components: Words, numbers, and objects used to represent elements of the modeled phenomenon

Synthesis of system components

Implementation

• Identify relationships between or among the system’s components. • Identify dynamic relationships within the system. • Organize the systems’ components, processes, and their interactions within a framework of relationships • Sources of energy for • Identify cycles of human use can be matter and energy transformed, within the system— transported, and the cyclic nature of stored. Each has systems. different benefits and • Recognize hidden drawbacks dimensions of the • Energy decisions can system to understand be made using a natural phenomena systems-based through patterns and approach interrelationships not • Environmental seen on the surface. quality is impacted by energy choices

Sequences: The actions and relationships between represented components.

Explanatory Process: Using the model to articulate how and why the causal relationships within the model are occurring and associate the relationships with the underlying causal mechanism(s).

64 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

education toward global environmental substantiality goals. The criticality of energy literacy is explicit within U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Across these goals, the U.N. defines global needs for affordable and clean energy (goal seven) and sustainable consumption and production of natural resources for energy production (goal twelve) to mitigate global CO2 emissions (goal thirteen) (U.N., 2015a, b). These broader goals guided the design of the EYE unit (see Table 4.1). We intertwine energy in scientific phenomena (energy flow within the school building system) with energy in environmental phenomena (impact of societal energy choices on the natural environment). Within the curriculum unit, students learn to trace causal interactions of energy within large societal energy systems (such as energy harnessing from renewable or nonrenewable sources) to localized environments (such as energy usage in their own school building). The unit was developed with place-based learning in mind. Within the environmental education literature, place-based learning is typically focused on the human–nature connection, with nature as the “place” of interest (e.g., Sobel, 2008). However, “sense of place” is a multidimensional construct with physical, psychological, sociocultural and political facets. It has been described as “the complex cognitive, affective, and evaluative relationships people develop with social and ecological communities through a variety of mechanisms” (Ardoin, 2006, p. 118). Building architecture can foster a sense of place. Within the context of schools, the building is arguably one of the largest and most visible systems that contributes to sense of place on a school campus. Furthermore, the school building itself is a systems causal model for energy flow between societal and natural systems beginning from earth systems (e.g., energy flowing in through power lines) to human energy consumption (e.g., light switch behaviors) to energy outputs (e.g., carbon emissions). School buildings present the opportunity to engage in what we call system-in-place for middle school students to learn about energy flow. In our unit, the system-in-place is the energy system that encompasses the multiple levels of ‘place’ through which energy resources travel, inclusive of the school building and the surrounding urban and ecological environments.

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

65

Systems Reasoning Using Systems Models U.S. students entering middle school have not had much experience investigating scientific phenomena, as science is drastically minimized in K-5 due to federal policy that focuses instruction on math and reading (Plumley, 2019). EYE is intended as a middle school unit. Middle school within the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States) is identified as 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Sixth grade is the earliest grade level within U.S. public schooling where students typically experience daily science instruction. When considering a system thinking framework within which to situate the EYE unit, an important factor was the few prior opportunities 6th-grade students might have to develop systems thinking. Therefore, EYE required a framework that provided a systems thinking process view so that students could build systems understanding systematically across the unit. For these reasons, we chose the systems thinking hierarchical model (STHM) (Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Orion, 2005, 2010). The STHM was developed at the middle school grade levels (Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Orion, 2005) and elementary grade levels (Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Orion, 2010). This model is divided into three hierarchical levels that build on each other (see Table  4.1). We chose STHM as our systems thinking framework for EYE, as 6th grade is a transition year between elementary and middle school. Our goal for systems thinking is obtained at the highest system level within the framework, what Ben-Zvi Assaraf and Orion (2005) call implementation and that others have referred to as systems reasoning (e.g., Hokayem & Gotwals, 2016) or system behavior (Mambrey et al., 2020). At this level, students are considering causal relations and interactions within the system. It is here where students are building energy literacy as they are reasoning, for example, where heat energy is flowing to and from (diffusion), how it is flowing (transfer of thermal energy from hotter to colder regions) and connecting to the underlying mechanism for why it is flowing (conduction) (Perkins & Grotzer, 2005). This final layer of articulating why is the most complex element of systems thinking (Zangori et al., 2020). It is complex as system causal interaction patterns are sometimes counterintuitive to what students (and adults) observe. Causal interaction patterns within a system frequently do not have easily perceived effects and are “hidden” from view. This is certainly the case with energy systems where many steps of energy transfer and transformation across the system are not visible in daily life (e.g., how raw energy sources become electrical

66 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

energy in our homes or how light energy enters buildings through windows and transfers into heat energy that impacts HVAC systems). Within systems, causal interactions can span both spatial and temporal dimensions and are nonlinear. They consist of bidirectionality, such as feedback loops in which causes become effects and effects become causes. Even though students (and adults) experience energy causal interaction patterns daily, their reasoning about these experiences rarely includes complexity beyond a visual causal chain of what is happening (Booth Sweeney & Sternman, 2007). It is not uncommon for students to struggle to determine causal patterns within systems and, as a result, draw faulty conclusions about components, processes, interactions, and system function (Zangori et  al., 2017). Students need ways to visualize the hidden components, processes, and their interactions to provide a means to reason about how the system works. To provide this visualization, we use system models. System models occur through modeling practices to support students in defining system boundaries and the elements, relationships, processes, organization, and causal interactions within the system. We draw upon the epistemic features of modeling (Forbes et  al., 2015), which we overlay with the STHM framework. This provides us with a means to use students’ 2D diagrammatic models to identify their development of systems thinking and reasoning (see Table 4.1). Modeling and systems thinking work in concert to support students in building conceptual ideas (Duschl et al., 2016; Verhoeff et al., 2008). Throughout the curriculum unit, students develop 2D diagrammatic models to answer a question or consider a problem about energy flow. They use their models to make the hidden aspects of the system visible, a key element of systems thinking (Mambrey et al., 2020). Students can also simplify their models, pulling out key system elements to focus on how causal interaction processes occur within these elements. They can foreground some interrelationships while backgrounding others to determine how the system’s elements work together. The practices of modeling also support systems reasoning, as they can draw recurring causal interaction patterns, such as feedback loops and cyclic causality, and determine associated causal mechanisms that underlie these interaction patterns. Students use their models as system reasoning tools to consider how and why the elements, processes, and relationships within the system work, coordinating their observations and new knowledge within their existing theories (Duschl et al., 2016). The models also serve as historical artifacts for students’ understanding of and reasoning about energy systems.

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

67

The use of systems models in our previous studies has revealed the importance of using a systems perspective in energy education. Our preliminary analyses of middle and elementary school systems models about energy revealed several pervasive misconceptions: (1) energy is “created” by sources such as solar panels rather than a phenomenon that is continuously converted from one form to another (the Law of Conservation of Energy), and (2) there is no distinction between the terms of energy, electricity, power, and fuel (Cole et al., 2022). Both of these common misconceptions relate to gaps in the mental models that students have regarding energy systems.

EYE Unit Description With the EYE Unit, we take an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum design as we interweave and move across science education, architectural education, and environmental education. We do this across four modules, each containing between one to five lessons. Our focus is to converge science and environmental education (Wals et al., 2014) in which learning about energy flow within the school building develops a richer picture of energy systems and energy use for students (Liu & Park, 2014). Our U.S. curriculum standards alignment includes MS-PS3 Energy, MS-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity and MS-ETS1, Engineering Design. Our inclusion of MS-ESS3 is the focus of the unit. Energy is the pressing issue, and engineering design presents solutions for students to consider how human systems impact Earth systems and their ability to make informed decisions. The unit is designed to be taught over approximately six weeks, with flexibility for teachers to adjust the pacing to meet the specific needs of their unique students and school contexts. Each module consists of multiple, pedagogically diverse lessons, utilizing a variety of hands-on experiences, demonstrations, data collection and analysis activities, and multimedia tools that support the development and application of energy knowledge. The EYE unit represents an interdisciplinary approach across science, architectural design, and a technology-supported engineering design process motivating students’ energy literacy. The unit outline is presented in Table 4.2. Appendix E of the NGSS (2013) lays out a general progression for the development of students’ conceptual understanding of energy, benefits and concerns around natural resources and the impacts, including climate change, that human activities can have on the environment. The first

68 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

Table 4.2  EYE curriculum unit outline Module Module title No.

Theoretical alignment

1

Introduction to Analysis of Energy Systems system and Engineering components Design

2

Lighting Our Classroom

3

Staying Warm and Cool in the Classroom Designing and Constructing Your Classroom

4

Synthesis of systems components

Implementation

Description Presents the overall energy system. System components focus on energy source origination within natural systems that supply energy to the school building (renewable versus non renewable energy) to human energy consumption within the building (e.g., light switch behaviors) to energy outputs from the building (e.g., carbon emissions). Building components are pulled out to teach different energy forms (such as light energy or thermal energy). As students learn about sequences of energy transfer and transformations between components, students begin to form ideas for how the individual components link together and trace energy flow through the building elements.

Students use their energy knowledge to engineer an energy efficient one-room building and examine how their choices impact natural systems.

module of the EYE unit assumes that middle school students, in alignment with the NGSS, have been exposed to fundamental energy concepts, including kinetic and potential energy and the ability of energy to be transferred between and transformed within various systems, which is typically taught in 4th and 5th grade. In addition, students entering middle school will have some knowledge of how Earth’s natural resources are acquired and used, which is taught in 5th-grade U.S. social studies content (National Council for Social Studies, 2013). The EYE unit builds upon these fundamentals, focusing specifically on energy-related natural resources and using energy concepts to explore the features of buildings that interact with Earth’s systems.

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

69

Module 1: Introduction to Energy Systems and Engineering Design At the beginning of Module 1, students tour their school building to make initial conjectures about energy flow within the building. They also create pre-unit systems models by drawing and writing about their initial understanding of how energy flows from the natural environment to their school building and how that process affects the natural environment. A pre-system model is shown in Table  4.3. Students are asked to use this initial model as a reasoning tool to answer reflective prompts about what is happening as energy flows to their school building, how this happens, and why this happens. From there, we begin the unit with a large systems perspective asking students to consider relationships between energy flow for human use and environmental impact. As we dive into examining this relationship, we use a NASA-developed interactive website1 to see the relationship between human energy use output (greenhouse gases) and effect (climate change). The unit then shifts to community greenhouse gas emissions using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data. The presentation of EPA data establishes electrical power generation as the major emissions source in the local community, providing justification for why it is important to understand energy systems. The focus in Module 1 is on the analysis of system components. It concludes with an overview of the engineering design problem and introduction of the engineering design process that will be threaded throughout the remainder of the EYE unit lessons. Students will begin to think about energy flow within their school building (such as through windows, doors, electricity, air conditioning, and heating) to consider how building design could reduce energy consumption and thereby greenhouse gas emissions. In Module 1, as part of engineering design, students interview school stakeholders to consider an optimal one-room schoolhouse design and then establish success criteria and relevant constraints in their individual engineering design worksheets. Module 2: Lighting Our Classroom Module 2 provides students with opportunities to explore various types of artificial lighting while emphasizing how the intentional use of natural lighting can reduce external electrical energy usage in the overall building 1

 https://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/climate-time-machine/

My model is showing how a building absorbs energy and how it keeps it because solar panels take in heat from the sun for energy. The black roof absorbs energy from the sun. The high insulation walls keep in the heat (and more).

Post-­model

Student writing My model shows the sun giving energy light to plants and plants giving us food because the sun is an energy source.

System model (Student 147)

Pre-­model

Time point

Table 4.3  Example of pre- and post-system model

70  L. ZANGORI ET AL.

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

71

system. Scientific vocabulary is introduced in the context of building components and the relationships these materials have with light. For example, windows (a building component) are discussed as transparent materials that allow the transmission of sunlight into the building (simple relationship). Students use 2D and 3D models of houses and the school building to understand how light angle and intensity vary across different seasons and times of day. They note how these differences impact the ways that light enters and interacts with the building environment over time (dynamic relationship). Students directly measure light illuminance in their classroom with an iPad-based light meter. This provides students with powerful evidence to understand how factors such as light source origin and presence of window coverings impact the quality of light available in the classroom. Electrical lighting is discussed as a complement to daylight that ensures that enough light is available to support classroom activities. The efficiencies of different types of light bulbs are compared in a lab activity. Students make engineering design decisions throughout the module, selecting light bulb types and quantities, building and window positioning, window coverings, and roof orientation to support solar panel installations. At the end of Module 2, students evaluate their 2D models drawn in Module 1 for the simple and dynamic relationships they represented with light energy. They redraw their systems models to answer the same question (how energy flows from the natural environment to their school building and how that process affects the natural environment) and articulate their thoughts in writing. Module 3: Staying Warm and Cool in the Classroom Thermal energy is the focus of Module 3, with students exploring patterns of temperature and heat transfer in their system-in-place school environment. The role of light energy is also revisited in Module 3, given that sunlight can enter through windows and impact the heating and cooling of a building. A solar oven activity is suggested as a tangible model for understanding conduction, convection, and radiation. Once built, the solar oven provides a useful proxy for a building envelope, allowing examination of the ways that insulation and leaks can affect the goals to warm the interior of the box. Additional hands-on experiments further reinforce student understanding of the three modes of heat transfer, while architectural concepts such as sealing the building envelope, avoiding thermal

72 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

bridges, and using adequate wall and roof insulation bring heat transfer ideas into the real-life context. Throughout the module, students are examining their own school building and the ways in which it works to keep occupants warm and cool. Engineering decisions about the one-room schoolhouse designs are also threaded throughout Module 3 with students selecting window frame material, window quantities, single versus double pane windows, window shading/coverings and deciding on insulation types for the building walls and roof. At the end of Module 3, students again evaluate their prior system models for the simple and dynamic relationships about thermal energy. They redrew their models responding to the same question (how energy flows from the natural environment to their school building and how that process affects the natural environment) and to writing prompts. Module 4: Engineering Design Module 4 is the EYE unit capstone. Students collaboratively apply their knowledge of energy systems and energy-efficient building design features to design and construct a prototype of a one-room energy conscious classroom. The series of preliminary engineering design decisions related to building configuration, placement, window design, insulation, and lighting are the starting points for a collaborative design process. Students form teams and use their individual design decisions in the negotiation and consensus-building process. Within their teams, they are challenged to articulate how and why their design ideas work and should be applied to the team’s final design. To aid decision-making, students have a deck of EYE game cards designed by the research team and contain basic information about the design choices such as product name, price, and leaf count. The leaf count is used as an eco-smart symbol for the design choice. A higher leaf count symbolizes the degree to which the design choice contributes to energy-smart design (Fig. 4.2). Students’ final design choices are input into an analog worksheet that works in concert with the interactive Design Sheet (Fig. 4.3) created using Google Sheets. As students use the game cards to make decisions about building features, they enter their choices into the Design Sheet, which adds the picture of the design feature and automatically tallies and colors in the average leaf count for the design and calculates the design cost. Inputting each design decision into the Design Sheet allows students to evaluate and test whether their design meets the leaf count and building

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

73

Fig. 4.2  EYE game cards for engineering design decisions

cost constraints. Students record on the worksheet their consensus and collective reasoning about the design choices. Once all choices are made, students use the images produced in the Google Sheet to draw their one-­room schoolhouse. For example, the interactive spreadsheet includes information from the EYE game card deck to provide both a running cost total and a running measure of the eco-smart (leaf count) rating. Given the focus on energy systems, eco-smart in this project relates to the level of energy consciousness in the design decisions. As teams enter their design choices into the spreadsheet, they can quickly see the cost and environmental impact of each decision and are able to optimize their overall energy system design as they work. Finally, after the team completes their design decisions in the worksheet and spreadsheet, they construct a physical prototype using wall templates, cardboard, LED lights, small solar panels, and other miscellaneous materials. Students test their classroom models outdoors and present their designs and results to classmates and other school stakeholders. At the end of the unit, students again evaluate their system models. They redraw their system model to the same question (how energy flows from the natural environment to their school building and how that process affects the natural environment) and to writing prompts.

74 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

Fig. 4.3  Design Sheet used in engineering design process

Unit Implementation Results The unit was piloted in fall of 2021 with five middle school teachers across four public middle schools within the same school district in Columbia, Missouri (pop. ~122,000). All five teachers took part in a workshop to critically review and modify the unit for their own teaching contexts. Here, we report preliminary findings for students (n=80) from the classrooms of

4  ENERGY AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT (EYE): PLACE-BASED CURRICULUM… 

75

two participant teachers who consented to providing us with complete data across the unit. This included teacher feedback after each day of implementation, classroom observations, and collection of all student artifacts (including models and engineering design worksheets). Data collection for these two teachers occurred during the initial face-to-face return to classrooms after COVID-19 when student interviews were still prohibited by the district. Our preliminary analysis focused on students’ 2D pre-systems model (created during Module 1) and post-systems model (created during Module 4) and writings. We designed three holistic scoring rubrics to analyze the accuracy and depth of reasoning students used in their systems models. We drew on the learning progression literature for the ways in which students build conceptual energy knowledge (Herrmann-Abell & DeBoer, 2018; Lacy et al., 2014) and on the foundational energy literacy principles (U.S. DOE, 2012) to define energy transfer and transformation elements within the rubrics as students’ systems thinking is integrated with their understanding of the content and system representation (Mambrey et  al., 2020). We use the epistemic features of modeling to analytically measure how students build systems reasoning. Each rubric has multiple scoring levels within it, and each rubric builds on the next. We provide the sequences and explanatory processes rubric in Table 4.4. The visual components are the base rubric scoring for elements in the models (such as sun and building). The second rubric level is sequence relationships (both simple and dynamic) that students show between components. The third and highest level is students’ explanatory processes where students visualize and articulate the hidden mechanisms and causality patterns that define system behavior. For example, to determine how energy is transformed and transferred from an energy source to the school building, components might be the sun with rays, a solar panel on the roof of the building, wiring from the solar panel to the building, wiring in the building to an electrical outlet, an object plugged into an electrical outlet, and the object emitting light and/or thermal energy. Their sequences would show the connections between each of these objects. Their articulation of the underlying causal mechanism would consider energy transfer and transformation within the sequences as well as energy conservation measures. In the preliminary analysis, we used a statistical paired samples t-test to measure differences between pre- and post-system models. The results indicate statistically significant growth across all three measures

76 

L. ZANGORI ET AL.

Table 4.4  Sequences and explanatory process rubrics Level Sequences 1

2

3

4

• Energy flow is connected in one direction, unidirectional • Energy transformation is not considered • Outputs due to energy flow are not considered • Energy flow is connected in one direction, unidirectional. • Energy transformation and/or transfer is considered, but may be implicit such as “takes in sunlight for energy” • Outputs due to energy flow are considered, but may not be implicit (ex. “Energy causes the lights to come on”) • Energy flow is connected in more than one direction, multi-directional •B  oth energy transformation and/or transfer and outputs are considered but only one (energy transformation, transfer, or output) is explicit • Energy flow is connected in more than one direction, multi-directional •B  oth energy transformation and/or transfer and outputs are considered with explicit links such as sunlight shining on the exterior of a building window. On the interior of the window, both light energy and thermal energy are transferring into the classroom from sunlight. Light energy is used to light the classroom while thermal energy is used to heat the classroom

Explanatory process Energy flow is not considered, statement only tells what is in the model (ex. “I included solar panels in my design”) Energy flow is not considered, but does discuss relationships as to what is happening (ex. “In the winter we have to turn the heat up a lot and that causes air pollution”)

Energy flow is considered; may demonstrate that energy flows in a system; describes what is happening and how it is happening; but not why Energy flow is demonstrated through a cycle to show energy flow from outside the building, through the building, and back out to the environment; explains what, how and why (mechanisms: energy transfer, transformation, and/or conservation)

(Components: t  =  19.33, p