“Finding My Niche”: Place-Based Learning, Science Identity, and Critical Environmental Agency Development in Teachers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Empowering Educators and Youth: Building Community, Identity, and Agency (Table 11)

Abstract

This mixed methods study explores middle school science teachers’ critical environmental agency (CEA) through deepening content knowledge, engaging in identity development, developing a critical consciousness of place, and moving toward civic action. We explored the meanings middle school science teachers made of an on-going place-based professional development focused on local watershed citizen science monitoring and the global implications of all water being connected. Data analyses focused on how the teachers’ experiences and meanings were leveraged to develop CEA. Our findings broaden the understanding of how teachers, who teach in low socio-economic rural areas, come to see themselves as people who care about the environment and become empowered to envision a more sustainable future for their students and communities.

Authors

• Lacey D. Huffling, Georgia Southern University

• Heather C. Scott, Georgia Southern University

• Regina P. McCurdy, Georgia Southern University

• Allison Freed, University of Central Arkansas

• Aerin W. Benavides, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Mary E. Thaler, Georgia Southern University