CAREER: Cultivating Environmental Science Data Agency Through Data Storytelling and Issue-Based Learning

About This Grant

Environmental issues like wildfires can serve as effective science learning contexts to promote scientific literacy and citizenship. This project will partner with teachers, teacher educators, and disciplinary experts in data science, fire ecology, public health, and environmental communication to co-design a data-driven, justice-oriented, and issue-based unit on wildfires. In the unit, student will engage in various data practices to gain insights into the issue of wildfires and how it affects their lives and communities. They will create data stories targeting specific stakeholders as a culminating activity. This project will contribute to the field by examining how data science can be meaningfully incorporated into K-12 science education to prepare informed and responsible citizens. It will directly impact approximately 15 middle school teachers and 1500 middle school students in Northwestern Nevada, including students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds and underrepresented groups. This project seeks to theorize how learners can leverage disciplinary knowledge and practices in environmental and data science as a foundation for making data-informed actions towards a more just and sustainable society. The construct of environmental science data literacy will be developed to include three interconnected components: 1) understanding environmental science and/or data science ideas and practice, 2) identifying areas of own expertise within environmental science and/or data science, and 3) using environmental science and/or data science as a foundation for change. Accordingly, student learning outcomes examined in this project include proficiency in science and data practices, identity formation, and agency development. The project will also investigate teacher professional learning during curriculum co-design and enactments through a cultural-historical activity theory lens. This project is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) that seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.