Promoting Young Learners’ NOS Views Through Place-Based SSI Instruction

Abstract

Promoting a functional scientific literacy entails preparing people to effectively engage and make decisions regarding real-world socioscientfic issues (SSI) through consideration of the relevant products and processes of science, as well as social, cultural, environmental, and ethical factors. Students can develop a functional scientific literacy through place-based pedagogical approaches focused on real-world SSI that augment formal classroom instruction. This quasi-experimental triangulated mixed-methods study investigated how 50 fourth graders in an intervention group, in comparison to their 79 classmates, developed nature of science (NOS) views through experiencing a place-based Missouri River SSI education Program (MRSIP). Salient themes of the month-long MRSIP included Missouri River human impacts, pallid sturgeon decline and recovery, and how scientists investigate and manage those issues. Our findings demonstrate that the MRSIP participants and their non-participating classroom peers expressed NOS views ranging from those that were largely stereotypical (e.g., science must proceed by a set method in a laboratory) to those that transcended stereotypes (e.g., science proceeds by many methods implemented in various field settings). However, after students participated in the MRSIP, they expressed significantly more sophisticated non-stereotypical views about how scientists research and understand Missouri River SSI and the role science plays in resolving those issues. The comparison group of the MRSIP participating students’ classmates realized no such gains across the same time period. Pedagogical implications include how place-based SSI teaching can leverage young learners’ sense of place and augment their classroom experiences in ways that help them understand NOS and engage local SSI.