Remixing the Past and Present: Scientific Civic Literacies to Articulate New Futures in Youth-Produced Media

• In Event: Equity in Science for High School Students and Teachers

Abstract

During the 2020 US presidential campaign, youth engaged civically to reimagine their turbulent worlds, publishing media via the website Let’s Talk about Election 2020. We examine 300 pieces of youth-produced media about either climate change or COVID-19. Our goal is to build knowledge around how youth use science in civic lives—specifically, how they integrate science with other epistemologies. As a theoretical lens, we use pluralist notions of literacies, or the multiple, creative ways of reading and inscribing. Through inductive coding, we identified emergent themes. We found that youth drew together voices of the past and present to articulate injustices—a rebuilding of discourses for new futures that draws on scientific concepts and practices yet intertwines them with other knowledges.

Authors

• Lynne Zummo, University of Utah

• Emma Carene Gargroetzi, University of Texas at Austin