Through this review of research on public engagement with science, Feinstein, Allen, and Jenkins advocate supporting students as “competent outsiders”—untrained in formal sciences, yet using science in ways relevant to their lives. Both formal and informal settings can be well suited for work in which students translate scientific content and practices into meaningful actions.
How do people make sense of conflicting beliefs? Although Gottlieb & Wineburg’s paper is about highly educated professionals reading history, informal science educators will recognize similar issues when working with people who hold beliefs incompatible with scientific ways of understanding the world. “Epistemic switching” was a way of considering criteria for truth, reliability, and validity according to one belief system or another. Rather than simply believing or excluding ideas as people who held to only one value system, the people with multiple, competing affiliations actually more
Dahlstrom and Ho offer advice on using narrative to communicate about science. They conclude that the rhetorical purpose of the narrative should be thoroughly examined so as not to unfairly influence a reader or listener.
Brewer and Ley surveyed 851 participants in a U.S. city and revealed relationships among demographic characteristics, religious beliefs, political views, and trust in multiple forms of science communication sources.
Design-based research (DBR) is a method for testing educational theories while simultaneously studying the process of creating and refining educational interventions. In this article, Sandoval proposes “conjecture mapping” as a technique to guide DBR processes. Conjecture mapping responds to critiques that DBR lacks clear standards and methodological rigor.
In-class projects can be an effective way for students to learn subject material that relates to authentic problems people address outside of classrooms. Jurow investigated middle-schoolers’ participation in an in-school math project based on the premise of creating a research station in Antarctica. Students’ engagement with the project and meaning making with math content shifted as students navigated through the different and often competing figured worlds of the classroom and “Antarctica.”