A+Proposal+for+Improvement

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This year I attempted to use an STSE approach in my grade 7 science class. One research project that I was particularly proud of was, "Pollution in your neighbourhood." This was part of the Mixtures and Pure Substances strand, in which students are required to investigate how pure substances are used, stored and disposed. I set up the project on wikispaces and it can be viewed at Research Project, Mixtures and Pure Substances. You can read the on going feedback I gave students at Ongoing Research Project Feedback and Summative Research Project Feedback. I included the Feedback because it could be used to improve the project if you wished to adapt it. Students were assigned a public area of wikispaces (by creating a project link with their name) to complete the project. The public nature of the process allowed students to provide peer feedback and also to provide modeling for struggling students.

Why was this a STSE project? The students were investigating government-documented pollution in their own neighbourhood/city that could potentially impact themselves and their families. The project involved action research i.e. phoning the companies to conduct an interview. It was sufficiently open ended for students to have to navigate authentic issues faced by environmental advocates and concerned citizens e.g. many students had difficulty getting answers from companies or were refused access to information. They also had to weigh multiple perspectives through their consequence mapping. It is not useful to lead students to the conclusion that all pollution should be banned outright as this is unrealistic and would have devastating consequences on society, the economy and sometimes the environment (e.g. when a product is made that reduces pollution it is important to asses net pollution - pollution created through the creation and distribution of the product subtract the pollution reduced by the product's use). The process of deciding whether to ban the pure substance being researched required students to balance multiple perspectives and even respond with an answer like, "No, but only under the following conditions..."

Yet, I didn't see any unusual impacts on student engagement. Many students found the idea of calling companies engaging and were unusually motivated to complete this part of the project. However, the rest of the research (web-based, responsible research) did not appeal to a significant number of students. At this point, I think it was because I focused on the phone calling as the form of activism. If I was to do this again, I think that the research component (interview and web-based) should have been shared as a form of activism (or used to inform activism). This could have been in the form of a YouTube video to share with the community. It could also have been taking the research a step further by inviting guests (such as a representative from the Ministry of Environment or Ministry of Economic Development) to class so students could present their findings and concerns. Although they took social action by calling polluting companies there was no outlet for them to apply their research perhaps making students less interested in following through with web based research on the pure substances the polluting companies were using. If students felt their research was going to have an audience beyond the classroom community they may have found the act of research more meaningful.

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So where to I go from here? Next year I will be teaching grade 8 science and I have identified the Water Systems strand as a potential area for implementing STSE action research projects. I will have to weigh the possibility of doing a whole class project (similar to the Septic Tank Crisis scenario) vs the possibility of coaching small groups or individuals. For the purposes of this site, I have assumed that small groups will identify issues that are meaningful to them.

New layers that I hope to add to my STSE projects are,


 * doing science within the project vs doing science to understand the theory behind the issue (e.g. to gather data to assess the impact of the socio-scientific issue and/or to assess potential solutions and/or to measure the impact of the solution they choose)
 * ensuring that research findings have an authentic audience beyond the classroom
 * ensuring that research is embedded in the product or action they take
 * students take some form of social action (e.g. advocacy, consciousness raising, designing/inventing or concrete hands on action)
 * students actively explore partnerships with NGOs, community groups, government bodies etc.

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