Youth Civic Participation: Using Scientific Argumentation to Make One's Voice Heard on Climate Change

• In Event: Science Education Across Multiple Contexts

Abstract

Civic engagement that leverages scientific concepts and reasoning is cited as a goal of science education (e.g. NRC, 2012), yet little research has attended to authentic enactments of science-related civic engagement that youth undertake currently. We shed light on this understudied area by investigating youth letters written to the (then unknown) future US president in 2016. Using qualitative text analysis, we examined youth reasoning via argumentation about climate change, aiming to clarify how youth reason scientifically within civic engagement. We describe three findings: 1) youth used popular icons of climate change, such as polar bears, in complex scientific arguments; 2) youth intertwined scientific and moralistic reasoning; 3) youth arguments revealed potential for leveraging digital media in science learning.

Authors

• Lynne Zummo, University of Utah

• Emma Gargroetzi, Stanford University