Examining student environmental science agency across school science contexts

Abstract

To address the limited time and support for elementary science, science instruction is sometimes distributed among classroom teachers, science specialists, and informal science educators, creating a complex school science culture. We investigate how student agency may be enabled and constrained when school science learning happens simultaneously across multiple school contexts. Using a social practice theory lens, we examine how three third‐grade students with a strong interest in science attempt to pursue their own interest‐driven inquiries across the classroom, school garden, and science lab and how the culture and resources of those contexts may enable or constrain students' understanding and use of environmental science in their lives and communities, or environmental science agency (ESA). Drawing on observations, videos, and interview data, we found that the particular culture of the different science learning settings appeared to enable or constrain students' ESA. The classroom teacher allowed for narrow forms of participation in science practice, and both she and the students reinforced these norms, which seemed to constrain ESA across all three settings. The science teacher allowed for broader forms of student participation, which appeared to support student ESA in the science lab. Students drew on flexible activity structures as well as access to scientific tools, living organisms, and citizen science resources to take actions to pursue their own inquiries. We found ESA for students in the garden was supported by garden resources but narrow forms of participation reinforced by the classroom teacher, garden teacher, and students transferred to the garden context. While this study explored student agency over 2 months, these findings have broader application because students receiving conflicting messages about who one can be in science can have implications for possible futures they might imagine for themselves.

The development of environmental science agency for primary school students through an environmental entrepreneurship intervention programme

“…According to the teachers, however, it is confirmed that students took on specific roles and recognized themselves as experts, both in running their business and in promoting the cultural heritage. This draws upon previous research that reveals that primary school is an appropriate level to invest in such change (Harris & Ballard, 2021).…”

Qualitatively recognizing the dimensions of student environmental identity development within the classroom context

“…The Meadian perspective conceptualizes identity as ever-changing as one navigates the social roles, positions, and interactions in everyday practices (Mead, 1934). Specifically, a social practice theory (SPT) of identity was used to guide this research, as it is the theoretical framework of numerous science identity studies (Barton & Tan, 2010;Carlone et al, 2015;Carlone & Johnson, 2007;Riedinger & McGinnis, 2017), environmental identity studies within an educational context (Blatt, 2013(Blatt, , 2014Simms & Shanahan, 2019;Stapleton, 2015;Williams & Chawla, 2016) and research at the intersection of school science and citizen science (Harris & Ballard, 2021).…”

Citizen Science: Schoolteachers’ Motivation, Experiences, and Recommendations

“…Some studies investigated the effects of CS beyond traditional learning outcomes and focused on the development of (environmental) science agency and STEM identity. Those studies reported evidence for agency development in informal and formal settings (Ballard et al, 2017;Harris & Ballard, 2021) as well as for the development of scientific citizenship (Wallace & Bodzin, 2017). Further, Maass et al (2022) discuss how modelling real-life problems relevant to society, an activity that is essential in many CS projects (e.g.…”

“…Although some studies focused on CS in formal education settings (e.g. Castagneyrol et al, 2020;Harris & Ballard, 2021;Kelemen-Finan et al, 2018;Wallace & Bodzin, 2017), most studies examined the effects on students and only very few focused on teachers. Scheuch et al (2018) were able to show that, when participating in CS with their students, "teachers managed to combine project and curriculum goals concerning environmental education" and successfully supported their students in appreciating biodiversity (p. 86).…”