School Science Students Developing and Mobilizing Eco-Just Engineering Products

In many contexts worldwide, educators are encouraged to integrate aspects of the traditionally-isolated disciplines, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Among variants of STEM education, promotion of engineering design and consciousness of engineering processes, products and services seem particularly prevalent. Innovations/inventions from STEM are said, for instance, to improve people’s lives and to contribute to jurisdictional economic competitiveness. While there are numerous defenders of such foci, several scholars suggest that many STEM education initiatives minimize or alter students’ consciousness of harms to living and nonliving things associated with influences of powerful people (e.g., financiers) and groups (corporations, think tanks, trade organizations, etc.) on fields of science and technology and on many other entities. Accordingly, we report findings from action research involving a secondary school science teacher’s effort to educate students about such problematic relationships and, for areas of their concern, and to encourage them to design and implement STEM-based engineering products that perform intended functions and also addressed matters of social and/or ecological justice. Students developed, for example, a candle recycling device made from waste material, 3D-printed athletic shoes made from biodegradable material and 3D-printed paralletes supports (also biodegradable) for calisthenics training. At the same time, work still seems necessary to help students with abstract concepts like immutable mobiles and techniques for mobilizing such more eco-just technologies across multiple context to perhaps generate an assemblage of co-supportive living, nonliving and symbolic actants. Claims from Science and Technology Studies, such as sociotechnical imaginaries, show great promise in this regard

Sociotechnical Imaginaries: A Possible Contribution to Science Education

This is a conceptual paper that highlights notions of sociotechnical imaginaries (STIs; Jasanoff, 2015) from fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) that seem relevant to science education aimed at preparing critical and active citizens (Bencze, 2017). We extend our discussion to fields of future studies in science education to argue that a needed direction is not merely to get students to imagine desired (often personalized) futures (especially given social and environmental harms), but to interrogate how products of science and technology seem to delimit kinds of futures we ought to desire. That is, technoscientific futures are not just out there, but are already present, actively fashioning current practices and values. Drawing from STS literature, we demonstrate how STIs are enacted through two current technoscientific products: self-tracking devices and algorithms. We argue that such technoscience products have an active role in constructing certain kinds of individuals/publics (e.g., quantified citizens, calculated publics). Roles of material technologies in normalizing moral and political visions and future orientations need to be explicitly addressed in re-centering nature of technology as inseparable from nature of science (Roth, 2001). Notions of STIs further offer more nuanced approaches to discuss power at the interface of the public/private within STS Education (Pedretti & Nazir, 2011). Finally, notions of STIs may present us with new ways for (re-)encountering affect in science education (Alsop, 2016), as feelings of hope and anxieties contour (how we come to re-envision) imaginaries grounded in technoscientific worlds

Conceptions on STSE Issues and Relationships: Toward Activism in Science Education

Addressing problems related to science and technology, particularly with increased influences from powerful groups and ideologies, requires participatory roles of citizens with critical science literacy. Hence, citizens’/youths’ collective socio-political activism through science education has been advocated. Additionally, developing critical understanding of complexities of dynamic networks of power-relations that appear to shape science seems essential to redirect science into more socially and environmentally ‘just’ forms. This paper reports on experiences of a high-school science teacher in the UK implementing a critical and activist science education framework in his teaching. We argue that explicit teaching about power-relations among stakeholders, diverse human and non-human entities, and possible relationships among social, economic and environmental factors seems necessary to address students’ initial naïve/limited conceptions of complexities of STSE relationships. This may facilitate taking effective and realistic socio-political actions

Lured to Linger: Engaged Researcher/Facilitators’ Reflections

This article provides an overview of relationships among science teachers, school science students and science education researchers.&nbsp

School Science Students Envisaging (A)Biotic Alliances Prioritizing Their Informed Values

In many contexts worldwide, educators are encouraged to interrelate aspects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Among STEM education variants, promotion of engineering design and appreciation of engineering commodities seem particularly prevalent. While there are numerous defenders of such foci, several analysts suggest that many STEM education initiatives often compromise students’ consciousness of adverse effects on living and nonliving things of influences of powerful people and groups on STEM fields and beyond. Accordingly, we report collaborative action research findings regarding a secondary school science teacher’s efforts to educate students about such problematic relationships and, for commodities of their concern, enable them to mobilize and normalize their value systems — possibly incorporating social and/or ecological justice priorities — across networks of (mostly) cooperating actants (dispositifs). Results suggest that students’ visions of mobilizations of ideologies were characterized and enabled by ontological, epistemological and axiological factors; but, that more post-humanist pedagogies may help

Science Students’ Ecojust Engineering Designs: Teacher and Student Bricoleurs

In many contexts worldwide, educators are encouraged to integrate/interrelate aspects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Among STEM education variants, promotion of engineering design and appreciation of engineering products and services seems particularly prevalent. While there are many defenders of such foci, several scholars and others suggest that many STEM education initiatives compromise students’ consciousness of adverse effects on living and nonliving things of influences of powerful people and groups on STEM fields and beyond. Accordingly, we report action research findings involving a secondary school science teacher’s efforts to educate students about such problematic relationships and, for areas of their interest, enable them to design and implement functional engineering products that also address their social and/or ecological justice priorities — within and beyond the products

STEAM not STEaM: Revisioned Pedagogies Prioritizing Social Justice and Ecological Sustainability in STEAM Education

This paper reflects on ways to revision possibilities for teaching and learning science that offer students possibilities for learning harms/issues/actions regarding social justice and environmental sustainability. For this paper, we examine intersections between art and science, particularly how values inherent to a particular science education framework can be located in art forms and introduced through art. To ground this conceptualization, we first suggest a gap in literature on STEAM education, one that revealed pedagogical moments where art integration into science or STEM practices were reduced to learning concepts generated by fields of science for creativity, advanced career interests, or aesthetics. Beauty masks relationships among science, technology, societies and environments (STSE), instead of applying STEAM pedagogies for sociopolitical action and education for sustainability. Reflecting on ongoing importance of integrating social justice and environmental sustainability more explicitly in science education, this paper concludes with recommendations for revisioning pedagogical practices in STEAM education