Engaging Elementary Teachers in Developing and Implementing Instructional Materials Promoting Socioscientific Literacy

Navigating complex societal issues such as water shortages, forest fires, and other phenomena-based problems requires understanding the social, technological, and scientific dimensions surrounding the issues and they ways these dimensions interact, shift, and change. Undoubtedly, K-12 students encounter complex problems in their everyday lives now and will do so in the future; how they come to understand an issue and how to tackle it depends on their socioscientific literacy, or the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to understand and address complex societal issues with social, technological, and scientific dimensions. Despite its importance, however, developing students’ socioscientific literacy has received limited attention in elementary science teaching and learning contexts. This project begins to address this problem of practice by focusing first on developing elementary teachers’ socioscientific literacy and their capacity to integrate socioscientific issues and local phenomena in their science teaching practice. The project will do this through the design, development, and facilitation of a year-long professional development program for fourth- and fifth-grade teachers. The project will promote transfer of knowledge and skills gained during professional development into the classroom by supporting teachers in the work of modifying their existing science curriculum materials to integrate socioscientific issues and local phenomena in students’ science learning. The project will also provide continued support as teachers enact their modified science lessons and engage students in scientific sensemaking rooted in socioscientific issues and local phenomena. Curricular materials and resources created during this project will be shared widely with teachers and other educators interested in integrating socioscientific issues and local phenomena in science instruction.

The project is exploratory in nature and applies naturalistic research methodology to study the design, development, and implementation of a year-long professional learning program focused on supporting elementary teachers’ socioscientific literacy and capacity to integrate socioscientific issues and local phenomena in their science teaching practice. The project’s target population is 4th and 5th grade teachers in Des Moines, IA area schools. Professional learning will and focus on six broad socioscientific issues (e.g. access to clean water) situated in local phenomena and data (high nutrient levels in local waterways) aligned to 4th and 5th grade science Next Generation Science Standards. Investigators will examine to what extent and in what ways the professional development impacts teachers’ socioscientific literacy, pedagogical capacity to support students’ socioscientific sensemaking, and teachers’ practice. Data sources include teacher interviews, classroom observations, artifacts from practice and professional development sessions (lesson plans, reflective notes), field notes, and pre- and post- Socioscientific Issues Teaching Efficacy Beliefs surveys. Qualitative analytical approaches will be utilized employing both inductive and deductive coding strategies. The project’s design, implementation, and research activities will generate design principles for professional learning centered on developing elementary teachers’ practice that promotes socioscientific literacy in upper-elementary students.