How do secondary school students handle epistemic uncertainty during an ecological citizen science inquiry?

Abstract

Uncertainty is endemic to scientific research practices; therefore, it is also an important element in learning about science. Nevertheless, students’ experiences of scientific uncertainty in science education are considered to require deliberate designing and scaffolding from the teacher, whereas authentic science practices are not considered to be easily transferable into school settings. To promote an understanding of science as it is being practiced by researchers, students could benefit from experiences of uncertainty typical of an authentic research process. In this study, we explore the ways in which students react to the uncertainty that approximates the uncertainty of authentic science inquiry in a sense that no one knows the desired result or solutions ahead of time. We use video and interview data from an ecological citizen science project to examine how students cope with the uncertainty as it arises during various phases of the inquiry. Our study shows that students manage uncertainty by (a) envisioning alternative narrative scenarios and hypothesis; (b) accepting and maintaining it as part of their argumentation practices, and (c) flexibly reframing their research activities and goals. The findings indicate that students can benefit from the authentic forms of uncertainty as a resource to reframe their actions in ways that are typical of scientific practices and understanding. We further suggest that incorporating experiences of uncertainty that are shared by students and teachers may support doing and learning science in meaningful ways.

From Child–Animal Relations to Multispecies Assemblages and Other-Than-Human Childhoods

“…In our own work, we have tried to purposefully disrupt the romantic and seemingly harmonious connection between children and (charismatic) animals (Taylor, 2011). Thus, we have examined assemblages involving children and neglected "shitgulls" (Rautio et al, 2020); retold childhoods with insects and their co-implication in human colonial and industrial trajectories (Hohti & MacLure, 2022); traced urban environments as shared between young citizens and rats (Aivelo, 2023;Kervinen & Aivelo, 2022;Rautio et al, 2022b); and examined children's engagements with mold in school environments (Tammi, 2019(Tammi, , 2020. The more difficult and sometimes hard-to-notice assemblages of children and other animals have led us to develop methodologies such as an additive post-qualitative method based on "strange objects" (Rautio et al, 2022a), "insect-thinking" (Hohti & MacLure, 2022) and "imagining well" (Pliushchik et al, forthcoming).…”