The Meaning and Implications of "Sustainability" in the Next Generation Science Standards

• In Event: 46.086 - Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: 46.086-6 - Issues in Environmental Education

Abstract

This essay explores how the Next Generation Science Standards explicitly define and implicitly characterize sustainability. Drawing on science studies literatures, we identify three themes (universalism, scientism, and technocentrism) common in scientific discourses about sustainability, and analyze their appearance in the NGSS. Together, these themes evoke a technology-centered perspective called ecological modernization. We argue that students taught to think about sustainability from this perspective will be less able to see its ethical and political dimensions and less prepared to engage in a pluralist, democratic society that must balance the needs of multiple groups and integrate science with other sources of knowledge to develop contextualized responses to sustainability challenges. One compelling alternative is a systematic collaboration between science and social studies educators.

Authors

• Kathryn Lewkowicz Kirchgasler, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Noah Weeth Feinstein, University of Wisconsin - Madison