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Learning Progressions in Environmental Science Literacy

This project focuses on developing environmental science literacy in students through evidence-based discussions. It explores socio-ecological systems, teaching practices, and student engagement patterns in the subjects of Carbon, Water, and Biodiversity. The study evaluates student trends across different levels of achievement, from quantitative reasoning to egocentric reflections. Criteria such as inquiry, citizenship, and private/public roles are assessed to enhance educational outcomes. Additionally, the project examines the water cycle and energy systems to dissect students' understanding and responses.

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Learning Progressions in Environmental Science Literacy

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  1. AAAS, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, University of Michigan Center for Curriculum Materials in Science Learning Progressions in Environmental Science Literacy Presented at the Knowledge Sharing Institute of the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science, July 2007

  2. Important Contributors • Lindsey Mohan, Chris Wilson, Beth Covitt, Kristin Gunckel, Blakely Tsurusaki, Hui Jin, Jing Chen, Hasan Abdel-Kareem, Rebecca Dudek, Josephine Zesaguli, Hsin-Yuan Chen, Brook Wilke, Ed Smith, Jim Gallagher, and Edna Tan at Michigan State University • Phil Piety at the University of Michigan • Mark Wilson, Karen Draney, Jinnie Choi, and Yong-Sang Lee at the University of California, Berkeley.

  3. Definition and Guiding Question • Environmental science literacy is the capacity to understand and participate in evidence-based discussions of socio-ecological systems. • What scientific knowledge and practices should all students learn that will give them the capacity to be environmentally responsible citizens?

  4. Structures and Processes of Socio-ecological Systems (Loop Diagram)

  5. Implications for Science Curriculum • Thinking about any of the issues in the loop requires “completing the loop” • Our current curriculum is fragmented and inside the environmental systems box • We need to teach what’s inside the box in ways that enable students to connect to the arrows

  6. Practices (all involve “completing the loop”) • Inquiry: learning from experience • Accounts: using scientific knowledge to explain and predict • Citizenship: making environmentally responsible decisions • Private roles: learner, consumer, worker • Public roles: voter, volunteer, advocate

  7. Strands (Handout Table 1) • Carbon: foods and fuels, global climate change, processes that produce, transform, and oxidize organic carbon • Water: fresh water, water management, processes that move and distribute water, processes that alter water composition • Biodiversity: foods and land for living, settlement and management for production, processes that create, sustain, and reduce biodiversity

  8. What have we learned about how current students engage in these practices?

  9. Students and Methods • Students: Grade 4 through high school, urban, suburban rural • Methods • Paper and pencil assessments (about 2000 in all) • Clinical interviews (about 65 in all) • Some teaching experiment data (not analyzed for this session)

  10. Trends from Younger to Older Students • Awareness of Systems and Processes: From Invisible to Visible (small- and large-scale systems, invisible mechanisms, gases) • Precision in Measurement and Description: From Impressions to Data (trust and accuracy in measurement, scientific terms, categories, data representation) • Nature of Accounts: From Stories and Procedures to Models Constrained by Principles (changing balance between stories and models, using principles to constrain and connect models, distinguishing models from observations and patterns)

  11. Levels of Achievement (Table 2) • Level 7: Quantitative reasoning about uncertainty (expert reports such as IPCC). • Level 6: Quantitative reasoning about processes and change over time (decisions based on rates of change). • Level 5: Successful qualitative model-based reasoning about processes in socio-ecological systems (high school standards). • Level 4: “School science” narratives of processes in systems (middle school standards). • Level 3: Events driven by hidden mechanisms (elementary standards). • Level 2: Sequences of events with little attention to hidden mechanisms. • Level 1: Egocentric reasoning about events.

  12. The Water Cycle Framing Questions • Where does water come from and go to? (water) • What is in water and how can that change? (materials in water)

  13. The Water Cycle “After it rains you notice puddles in the middle of the soccer field. After a few days you notice that the puddles are gone. Where did the water go?” • What did 2nd-grade students answer? • What did high school students answer? • What is your answer? Come to the water cycle poster and find out how your answer compares to theirs.

  14. Energy in Environmental Systems Trend: Level 1: People make things happen. Level 2: Things happen because of conditions or triggering events Level 3: Energy sources help to make things happen Level 4: Use matter-energy conversion to constrain processes Level 5: Use matter transformation and energy transformation to constrain processes separately Level 6: Use bond energy to constrain processes quantitatively Basic Question: What does energy have to do with why things happen?

  15. Sample Question: You eat a grape high in glucose content. How could a glucose molecule from the grape provide energy to move your little finger? Describe as many intermediate stages and processes as you can. How would you expect students at different levels to respond? Check out the poster to find out!

  16. What happens to “stuff” in the carbon cycle? Framework: • Generation of organic carbon (photosynthesis) • Transformation of organic carbon (digestion, biosynthesis, food chains) • Oxidation of organic carbon (cellular respiration, combustion)

  17. Sample Items:How could cutting down trees affect global climate change? When you are riding in a car, the car burns gasoline to make it run. Eventually the gasoline tank becomes empty. What happens to the matter the gasoline is made of? Can using gasoline in a car affect global warming? How did students answer these questions? Come find out….

  18. Biological Diversity and Change over Time in Environmental Systems A third critical component of Environmental Science Literacy is Biodiversity across scales, and how human systems modify and benefit from it.

  19. Data on student reasoning about structure/function, e.g. . . . and change over time, e.g.Pesticide resistance (Natural selection at the intersection between natural and human systems).

  20. Connecting Actions Framing Question • How are we connected to and dependent upon natural environments?

  21. Question: You go through the lunch line at school and see that they are serving hamburgers. Where did the hamburgers come from? The ground beef in the hamburger patties wasn’t always ground beef. It wasn’t even always beef. Fill in the table with your ideas about what it was and where it came from before it came to the school cafeteria. Trace the beef back asyou can.

  22. Citizenship • How do students make socio-ecological decisions?

  23. What products do you think are most nutritious? Least nutritious? • What products do you think are more environmentally friendly? Least environmentally friendly?

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