Beth A. Covitt, Edna Tan, Blakely K. Tsurusaki, Charles W. Anderson

1. Students’ Use of Scientific Knowledge and Practices When Making Decisions in Citizens’ Roles Beth A. Covitt, Edna Tan, Blakely K. Tsurusaki, Charles W. Anderson Findings Introduction • A fundamental challenge for science education in a democratic country is preparing its citizens to make informed socio-environmental decisions. In this poster, we propose a framework for analyzing how students approach public and private environmental decisions and we use the framework to analyze decision-making practices of students we interviewed about two socio-environmental issues. One socio-environmental issue related to food purchasing, the other related to water use. We explore the following questions: • When presented with a socio-environmental issue, how did students investigate and explain the issue? What consequences did they predict for their possible actions? 2. What decisions did the students make and how did they justify those decisions? 3. Given their understanding, what values and other resources did they draw on as they made their decisions? Methods We developed two interview scenarios, one about purchasing strawberries and one about a proposed water bottling business. We conducted 22 interviews with elementary, middle and high school students. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed through a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). We then used an iterative approach to connect the analysis to the creation of the decision-making framework. Making Decisions about Purchasing Strawberries Students were asked to complete 2 ordering tasks of 8 different strawberry products. First they were asked to order various food products from what they deemed most to least nutritious. This task positioned students as consumers. Next, they were asked to order the products from what they thought was most to least environmentally friendly. In both tasks, they were asked to explain their reasoning for the ordering. Making Decisions about a Proposed Water Bottling Venture Students were introduced to a scenario about a company that would like to drill a well near a trout stream to enlarge their water bottling business. In the interviews, the students were introduced to the scenario, asked to explain the science around the issue, and asked about how they would respond to the issue. During the interview, students were presented with additional information from stakeholders that they could use to inform their reasoning and decisions. Decision-making framework Our framework emphasizes that decision-making is guided by students’ Discourses (Gee, 1990, 1991). Students come to school with primary Discourses that reflect their communities of practice, identities, values and funds of knowledge (e.g., Moje, et al., 2004; Wenger, 1998). In school and through other experiences, students may acquire secondary Discourses, such as scientific Discourse. Discourses influence how students engage with issues and make decisions. Students’ practices of investigating, explaining, predicting and deciding are embedded within their Discourses. The extent and ways in which students engage in these practices impacts how informed their decisions will be. While we would not advocate for a student to make one decision or another with regard to a socio-environmental issue, we do place a high value on using science as a tool to inform decisions. To the extent that science is relevant, we suggest that an informed decision makes use of scientific understanding. Discourses: Communities of practice, identities, values, funds of knowledge Discussion and Implications Explaining and Predicting (Accounts) What is happening in this situation? What are the likely consequences of different courses of action? • Reliance on out-of-school funds of knowledge and salient identities. • Our data show the prominent role that factors other than school science played in students’ decision-making practices. Students’ funds of knowledge and identities provided entry points that influenced how the students engaged in a scenario. The students who had everyday practices, such as being a fisherman or an athlete, had an interest in the scenarios and usually drew on knowledge from these practices more than school science. • What is the role of school science? • There was very limited use of school science in students’ decision-making practices. Water scenario students tended to invoke school science more than the strawberry-scenario students. This may be due partly to the way the two Think-Aloud scenarios were structured. Water students were asked to construct a narrative of watersheds before they were presented with questions, while strawberry students constructed narratives after they had ordered the products as explanations for their decisions. In addition, while students learn about the water cycle and about concepts such as food webs and food chains in school, teaching about food supply chains and waste disposal chains and the impact of these on natural systems are not a salient part of the K-12 curriculum. • Questions our research raises: • How can school science help students think critically about socio-environmental issues? • What sort of science content should be taught in school that is relevant to the everyday socio-environmental decisions students have to make? • How should the content be taught so that it resonates with students’ out-of-school identities and funds of knowledge? Investigating What is the problem? Who do I trust? What’s the evidence? Deciding What will I do? References Gee (1990). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in Discourse. London: Falmer. Gee, J. P. (1991). What is literacy? In C. Mitchell & K. Weiler (Eds.), Rewriting literacy: Culture and Discourse of the other (pp. 3-11). Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Moje, E., Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K., Ellis, L., Carrillo, R., & Collazo, T. (2004). Working toward third space in content area literacy: An examination of everyday funds of knowledge and Discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(1), 38-70. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (eds.) (1997) Grounded Theory in Practice. London: Sage Publications. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Figure 1. Framework for analyzing students’ decision-making Discourses and practices