Promoting Agency and Relevant Learning for All Through a Citizen Science Design Challenge

• In Event: 52.030 - Using Next Generation Science Standards to Inform and Provide Equitable Instruction, Learning, and Assessments to Diverse Students

Abstract

Objectives
We examine how the integration of a citizen science design challenge into a formal school curriculum can promote more inclusive, meaningful science learning as called for in new visions of reform embodied in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013).

Perspectives
Equitable science instruction requires that all students have opportunities to develop the capacity to solve problems they find relevant to their own lives and communities (McDermott & Weber, 1998). Developing this capacity or agency will require students to have science learning experiences where they engage with and appropriate the practices of scientists and engineers while “figuring out” (Reiser, 2014) phenomena and developing solutions (NRC, 2012). Students, however, often have not had equitable opportunities to experience exemplary science learning (Oakes, 1990). Integrating a citizen science design challenge—where students can wield science in practice (Author, 2014) while contributing a service to their community—into a formal school curriculum has the potential to create opportunities for all students to experience more meaningful science learning.

Methods
Through a co-design approach, researchers and practitioners from an urban school district developed an 8-week ecosystems unit aligned to the NGSS to serve as part of the district’s formal school biology curriculum. Twelve teachers from eight schools with varying demographics volunteered to pilot the unit with approximately 975 students. The unit sought to position students in agentic roles by having them engage in science and engineering practices to solve a citizen science design challenge. Focused on students’ local community in an effort to promote relevance, the design challenge asked students which tree to plant and where to maintain the biodiversity of their ecosystem and maximize the services it provides.

This implementation study employed a mixed methods approach, including statistical analysis of surveys coupled with inductive and deductive coding techniques (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995), to address three research questions: (1) What agency did students have in using science and engineering practices? (2) How relevant did students find their activity? (3) How did the citizen science design challenge figure in students’ perceptions of relevance and agency?
The data sources include: (1) 1224 student survey responses, (2) 24 fieldnotes of classroom observations, (3) 12 focus student interviews, and (4) Four focus teacher interviews.

Results
95% of survey responses indicated students saw their activity as relevant, but more so to their community than themselves. Students felt a sense of agency in the unit, particularly while engaging in the science and engineering practices of investigating and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. When students saw a connection to the design challenge, they saw their activity as having greater relevance to themselves and their school or classroom, and also felt a greater sense of agency.

Significance
We show how formal curriculum materials integrating a citizen science design challenge can provide students from a wide variety of backgrounds with meaningful science learning where they see their learning as relevant and experience agency while taking up science and engineering practices.

Authors

• Samuel Severance, Michigan State University

• Tamara Sumner, University of Colorado

• William R. Penuel, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Katie Van Horne, University of Colorado - Boulder

• David Quigley, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Raymond Johnson, University of Colorado - Boulder