Personally Relevant Science News Stories as Boundary Objects Within and Beyond a Hybrid, Distributed Activity System

• In Event: Science Artifacts as Boundary Objects: Designs That Cross Social Settings

Abstract

Purpose
The Science Literacy through Science Journalism (SciJourn) project began with the recognition that practices of professional science journalists—such as making use of multiple, credible sources—relate to skills that scientifically literate adults could use fifteen years after they graduate from high school (Polman, et al., 2010). SciJourn is now a distributed activity system of 25 school sites, an informal science institution, and a university, organized around reform teaching based on a hybrid journalism model and the production of science news stories for a print regional science newspaper and online publication. We aim to foster learning that is not defined by "usual school practices" and culture, and to foster engagement that results in identity shifts. In this presentation, we will explore how creating science news stories and having them published has engaged participating youth with science in a different way, and the senses in which the news story artifacts became boundary objects opening opportunities for youth agency and hybrid trajectories of identification.
Theoretical Framework
We utilize a sociocultural perspective (Wertsch, 1998) and practice theory to interpret identity and human action in communities of practice (Nasir & Hand, 2008; Polman & Miller, 2010; Wortham, 2006). We conceptualize engagement as consisting of actions, interests, and identifications.
Methods
We utilize interpretive case studies to understand the participation and development of individuals within and beyond the SciJourn learning environment. The data sources include: observational fieldnotes, science news articles (first drafts, revisions, and final) and edits by an outside science editor, and interviews of students.
Results
Four cases from four sites inform our analysis: an African-American young woman in a program at an informal science institution who wrote about chlamydia for her first published story and then proceeded to do research on teen pregnancy that resulted in the creation of an online infographic; an Asian-American at a suburban school who wrote a news article about alternative medicines related to her own headaches; a European American young woman at a suburban school who wrote articles about Blackberry thumb and indoor air quality at the school; and an African-American young man at an urban school who published an article about building mold. Participants' article drafts served as boundary objects by being a focus for mediating discourse between a professional science journalist and school students; the published articles connected youth authors' school work with members of their wider community. Some published articles led to cascading events and new participant trajectories. Thus, our analysis shows the article boundary objects recontextualizing personally relevant topics for youth, and mediating participants' positioning as "competent outsiders" to science (Feinstein, 2010).
Significance
Involving learners in direct science inquiry only gets us so far. Educators have long sought to reframe science literacy as preparing citizens to participate in democratic debates and policymaking related to science and technology, and to make personal decisions informed by current science (e.g., Aikenhead, 2006; Roberts, 2007). Our examination of science news artifact creation and use in a hybrid learning environment may enable us to better reach this goal.

Authors

• Joseph L. Polman, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Jennifer M.G. Hope, McKendree University