Learning Progressions in Environmental Science Literacy

Learning Progressions in Environmental Science Literacy Kristin Gunckel,University of Arizona Lindsey Mohan, Michigan State University Beth Covitt,University of Montana Andy Anderson,Michigan State University Important Contributors: Blakely Tsurusaki, Hui Jin, Jing Chen, Hasan Abdel-Kareem, Laurel Hartley, Brooke Wilke, Edna Tan, Jonathon Schramm, Hsin-Yuan Chen, Kennedy Onyancha, Hamin Baek, Josephine Zesaguli, Courtney Schenk, Rebecca Dudek, Mark Wilson, Karen Draney, Yong-Sang Lee, and Jinnie Choi.

Research Grants and Partners This research is supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation: Developing a Research-based Learning Progression for the Role of Carbon in Environmental Systems (REC 0529636), the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science (ESI-0227557), Learning Progression on Carbon-Transforming Processes in Socio-Ecological Systems (NSF 0815993), and Targeted Partnership: Culturally relevant ecology, learning progressions and environmental literacy (NSF-0832173). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Learning Progression Framework for the Environmental Literacy Project

Environmental Literacy Project Environmental Science Literacy - the capacity to understand and participate in evidence-based decision-making about socio-ecological systems. • Water in socio-ecological systems • Carbon in socio-ecological systems • Biodiversity • Citizenship

Two Aspects of Students’ Learning • Cognitive: What do students’ learning performances tell us about what they do and do not understand about a big idea? • Goal: Identify and describe patterns in student thinking • Sociocultural: Why do students’ responses make sense to the students? • Goal: Explain and situate patterns of thinking in the communities in which students participate

Learning as Mastering a New Discourse Discourse Practice Knowledge Community

Primary Discourse: Force Dynamic Reasoning A theory of the world rooted in and shaped by the grammatical structure of language. • Actors with Abilities • Purposes and Results • Needs or Enablers • Events or Actions • Settings or Scenes

Secondary Discourse: Scientific Model-Based Reasoning • All phenomena are parts of connected and dynamic systems • Operate at multiple scales • Atomic-molecular • Microscopic • Macroscopic • Landscape • Governed by fundamental principles • Conservation of matter and energy • Gravity flow • Relies on models grounded in data and applied consistently to explain phenomena

Practices Accounts = Explaining & Predicting Practices

Knowledge

Learning Progression Framework: Water in Socio-ecological Systems

Level 1: Force-Dynamic Narratives Water as part of the background landscape Movement of water Puddles Question: Where does the water in a puddle go? “I think the water went into the air”(disappeared). Bathtub Question: Could the water from the puddle end up in your bathtub? “No, it already disappeared into the air” Substances in water “lake water,” “ocean water,” “clean water,” “dirty water,” “polluted water”

Level 2: Force Dynamic: with Hidden Mechanisms Actors & Enablers • Movement of water Bathtub Question “Yes. If it was a rainy day and if there were puddles saved from yesterday and you open the door it could go into the bathroom and there would be puddles in your bathtub.” • Substances in water Salty Rain Question: If you live by the ocean, will your rain be salty? Why or why not? “No, because the water is filtered by the sky.”

Level 3: School Science Narratives • Partially connected systems Bathtub Question “Yes. Water could seep down into the ground and slowly reach its way to your pipes, and it would leak in, and could be part of the water in our bathtub.” • Substances mixed with water Salty Rain Question “No, because when water evaporates, it only evaporated as water and leaves the salt behind.”

Level 4: Qualitative Model-Based Reasoning • Movement through connected systems at multiple scales Puddles Question “Into the ground and into the air. The moleculs [sic] are soaked into the ground like a sponge. Then in evaporation the molecules are heated and forced to move more, and eventually become gas.” • Substances mixed with water at multiple scales Salt in Water Question: What happens when salt dissolves in water? “ When salt is dissolved into water the salt breaks up into its ions of Na+ and Cl-”

What Progresses? Primary Discourse Secondary Discourse New Community Home Community Student Primary Discourse Home Community • Learning • New knowledge • New practices • New Discourse Student

Alternative Pathways and Teaching Experiments

Multi-Dimensionality ACCOUNTS (explaining/predicting) Processes: Generation (photosynthesis), Transformation (digestion, biosynthesis and food chains), and Oxidation (cellular respiration, combustion) of organic carbon Principles: Matter (conservation of mass and atoms), Energy (conservation and degradation), and Scale. Naming/Explaining: Words and phrases used, and the types of explanations given.

Matter and Energy Dimensions Based on person-ability estimates Correlation .959, so students likely show similar reasoning about matter and energy Good face validity and make sense to science educators, but for measurement purposes and alternative pathways, these dimensions are not useful.

Multi-Dimensionality For the practice of accounts(explaining/predicting) Processes: Generation (photosynthesis), Transformation (digestion, biosynthesis and food chains), and Oxidation (cellular respiration, combustion) of organic carbon Principles: Matter (conservation of mass and atoms), Energy (conservation and degradation), and Scale. Naming/Explaining: Words and phrases used, and the types of explanations given.

Level 4: Processes and Systems Constrained by Principles Level 3: Chemical change with unsuccessful constraints Level 2: Hidden mechanisms about events Level 1: Force-Dynamic Accounts of Actors and Events Structure-First: Details and Names Learning pathway we’ve documented in classrooms without special instructional intervention. Represents a pathway that is more the norm than the exception. Only 10% of HS students reach Upper Anchor on this pathway.

Level 4: Processes and Systems Constrained by Principles Level 3: Chemical change with unsuccessful constraints Level 2: Hidden mechanisms about events Level 1: Force-Dynamic Accounts of Actors and Events Structure-First: Details and Names Characteristics: Ability to name systems and processes exceeds explanations Detailed stories about individual processes Principles are “assumed”, but not used.

Structure-First: Details and NamesEXAMPLE INTERVIEWER: When the tree grows it becomes heavier, right? It will put on more weight. So where does the mass come from? DRH: It comes from the, like the glucose that it makes, it like keeps building on and building on until it gets as big as it is. INTERVIEWER: So what are the energy sources for the tree? DRH: Well, the same as photosynthesis, vitamins, water, air, light, yeah. …. DRH: Well, yeah I think that it uses like all the same…after it makes its food it uses the glucose for energy. INTERVIEWER: Glucose is a type of energy? DRH: Yep.

Principles-First: Principle-based explanations Level 4: Processes and Systems Constrained by Principles Level 3: Chemical change with unsuccessful constraints Level 3: Principled accounts at molecular scale w/ few chemical details Level 2: Hidden mechanisms about events Level 2: Successful conservation at macroscopic scale Level 1: Force-Dynamic Accounts of Actors and Events

Principles-First: Principle-based explanations Level 4: Processes and Systems Constrained by Principles Level 3: Principled accounts at molecular scale w/ few chemical details Testing through teaching experiments Level 2: Successful conservation at macroscopic scale Level 1: Force-Dynamic Accounts of Actors and Events

Principles-First: Principle-based explanations Level 4: Processes and Systems Constrained by Principles Characteristics: Naming and explaining aligned Connections across systems and processes in terms of matter and energy Principles foregrounded Level 3: Principled accounts at molecular scale w/ few chemical details Level 2: Successful conservation at macroscopic scale Level 1: Force-Dynamic Accounts of Actors and Events

Principles-First: Principle-based explanationsEXAMPLE INTERVIEWER: You said sunlight, can you tell me a little bit about sunlight, how does it supply the tree with energy, do you know how it happens? ER: It comes in, obviously as a form of light energy, and that being a form of energy, it then converts through photosynthesis, it converts that to a form of energy that the tree can use. INTERVIEWER: What form of energy is that? ER: Either kinetic or stored, I am not sure, probably more stored…and it would use kinetic for whatever growing it does at the moment, but it would probably use more stored energy to store it away for another time to use. INTERVIEWER: Where does the tree store its energy? ER: It stores it mostly in the trunk, since that’s the largest area, but in all of the branches of it, in the form of starch. INTERVIEWER: Do you think energy is stored in molecules? ER: No.

Approach to Teaching Experiments • Focus on Principle-based explanations • Sustained (but flexible) use of tools for reasoning • Scale: Powers of Ten • Matter/Energy: Process Tool

Heat Chemical Energy Motion (Energy Input) (Energy Output) (Matter Input) (Matter Output) Car Running Process: Scale: Combustion Octane (CH3(CH2)6CH3) (liquid) Water (H2O) (gas) Atomic-molecular Oxygen (O2) (gas) Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (gas) Process Tool Example

Powers of Ten Example

Validation & Teaching Experiments Three Qualities: • Conceptually coherent • Compatible with current research • Empirically validated • Teaching Experiments: • Help us engage in hypthesis-testing of alternative pathways (documenting what could be as opposed to what is). • Help us understand what it takes to get from one level to the next (and how prescriptive instruction must be).

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Learning Progressions in Environmental Science Literacy