Disturbing the Grammar of Schooling: An Ecological Analysis of Interdisciplinary Climate Change Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Technology, Pedagogy, and Student Learning

Abstract

Transforming secondary education to address complex socio-scientific issues like climate change requires disrupting the traditional "grammar of schooling." This case study examines how a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) at a public middle school designed and spread interdisciplinary, justice-centered, solutions focused, climate change learning experiences across a middle school despite typical structural barriers. Drawing on ecological models to analyze systems change, we found that adaptation was enabled by four key factors: disciplinary and identity diversity among participants, multiple formal and informal roles (including boundary spanners, organizers, and "disturbers"), strategic resource leveraging, and interdependent relationships. The findings contribute to understanding whole-school reform as an ecological system and inform improved design of interdisciplinary initiatives within conventional school structures.

Authors

• Kathryn N. Hayes, California State University - East Bay

• Emily Harris, BSCS Science Learning

• Eric Nolan, California State University East Bay

• Karina Garbesi, California State University - East Bay