Charles W. (Andy) Anderson

June 16, 2008

Learning Progressions in Environmental Science Literacy

The Forest: Three Stories about Environmental Literacy Learning Progressions

• A policy story concerning the implications of research on learning progressions for environmental science literacy on standards, assessments, and curricula.

• A research story, about the iterative process of developing and validating a learning progression.

• A learning story about how children can develop understanding and responsible citizenship in a complex and important domain: Processes that transform carbon, water, and biodiversity in socio-ecological systems.

The Policy Story

Implications of Research on Learning Progressions for

Standards, Assessments, and Curricula

Environmental Science Literacy as a Curricular Goal

One measure of science literacy: The ability to understand and critically evaluate scientifically-based arguments about socio-ecological issues, such as the reports that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize:

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

• ESA position statement on biofuels

Question: Are these publications just for the

experts, or do members of the general public need to

understand them?

What do politicians do?

• Hillary Clinton on gas tax holiday: Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with economists…

• Tom Friedman on Egyptian regime spending:– Fuel subsidies: $11 billion/year– Education: $6 billion/year– “…the pain of removing the subsidies would

be politically suicidal.”

Conclusions

• People, and politicians, will ignore what the experts say if the message is painful and they don’t understand it.

• This is a problem for science education

Processes in Socio-ecological Systems (Loop Diagram: Figure 1 on Handout)

The Research Story

Iterative Development and Validation of Learning

Progressions

Learning Progression Framework(Handout Table 1)

Levels of Achievement

Progress Variables

Typ es (e.g, different processes, different sca les) and el e me nts (e .g., life, matter, cau s e/e nergy, models) of acc ounts

5: Q ualitative model-bas e d acco unts

4: “Sc hool scienc e ” nar ratives

3: Events with hidde n mec hanis ms

1-2: Na rratives bas e d on informal cultu ral models /met a phors

Learni ng performances for spec ific pro ces ses

and Leve ls of Achieve ment:

Accounts of p rocesses in soc io-eco logica l sy stems

Parts of Framework

• Progress Variables (columns of the table): Aspects of knowledge and practice that are present in some form at all Levels of Achievement, so that their development can be traced across Levels.

• Levels of Achievement (rows of the table): Patterns in learners’ knowledge and practice that extend across Progress Variables.

• Learning Performances (cells of the table): specific practices characteristic of students who are at a particular Level of Achievement and reasoning about a particular Progress Variable.

Criteria for Validation

• Conceptual coherence: a learning progression should “make sense,” in that it tells a comprehensible and reasonable story of how initially naïve students can develop mastery in a domain.

• Compatibility with current research: a learning progression should build on findings or frameworks of the best current research about student learning.

• Empirical validation: The assertions we make about student learning should be grounded in empirical data about real students.

Applying the Criteria to Specific Parts of the Framework (Handout Table 2)

Characteristic of Learning

Progressions

Conc ept ual Coheren ce

Compati bility wi th Current Research

Empirical Validat ion

Indiv idual cells:

Learni ng performances

• Learnin gperformances ar e

describedi nconsistent ways, including (a) knowledge, (b) practice, an ( )d c context—real-w orldsystems andphenomena.

• Learnin gperformances ar ecompatible with th ose

describedi n th e research litera .ture

• Learning performa nces describe actual observe d

performances by rea lstuden .ts

• Students are consisten t across differen t questions o r

modes of assessment (e.g., written assessments an dclinical in ) terviews tha t

assess the same learnin gperformance

:Rows Level sof

Achievement

• Levels ar econceptually coherent: Different Learnin gPerformances reflec tsome underlyi ngconsistency in reasoning or outlook

• Levels reflec tconsideration (explici t

or implici ) t of strand s of scientific li teracy

( see above).

• Levels have predictive power: Students should show simi lar

Levelso f Achievement f orLearnin g Performance sassociated wi th differe ntProgress Variable.

Columns: Strands a nd

ProgressVariables

• Definition of Pro gressVariable capture simportant asp ects o fLearnin gPerformances at a ll

Levelso f Achievement

• Progress from o neLevel to the nex t isconsistent wit h

research on students’ learning, considerin g

alls trands of scientif icliteracy

• Progress from one L evel t othe next can be achieve dthrough teaching strateg iesthat directly address th edif ferences betw een Learnin gPerformances

Development and Validation: An Iterative Process

• Develop initial framework

• Develop assessments (e.g. written tests, interviews) and/or teaching experiments based on the framework

• Use data from assessments and teaching experiments to revise framework

• Develop new assessments….

The Learning Story

Levels of Achievement and Trends

What Kind of Achievement?

Practices of Environmental Science Literate Citizens

• Inquiry: developing accounts by learning from experience

• Accounts: using scientific knowledge to explain and predict

• Citizenship: making environmentally responsible decisions based on accounts• Private roles: learner, consumer, worker

• Public roles: voter, volunteer, advocate

Strands: Types of Accounts

• Carbon: Processes that generate, transform, and oxidize organic carbon in socio-ecological systems

• Water: Processes that move and transform water, and substances in water in socio-ecological systems

• Biodiversity: Processes that affect survival, growth, reproduction, and selection of organisms in socio-ecological systems

Progress Variables:Connected Accounts within Strands

• Types of accounts: connected processes– e.g., processes that generate, transform, and

oxidize organic carbon

• Types of accounts: connected scales– Cellular/atomic-molecular

– Organismal/macroscopic

– Large-scale in space and time

• Elements of accounts– e.g., life, matter, cause/energy, models

What makes things happen?

• Carbon: plant and animal growth, animal movement, decay, combustion

• Water: rain and snow, water soaking into the ground, springs, wells, lakes and streams, water pollution and purification

• Biodiversity: organisms living their life cycles, evolution, succession

Informal Explanations:Power Prevails

• Force-dynamic causation: Things happen because of the interplay of “forces”– “Natural tendencies” of organisms (plants, animals), materials

(water), or other agents (flames)– Enablers that help agents to express their natural tendencies

(e.g., food, air, water, warm conditions– Antagonists that work against expression of natural tendencies

• Strongest force wins!

Informal Explanations of Events

• Carbon: Food goes to your stomach, then it helps you to grow (food enables your natural tendency to grow)

• Water: water is “soaked up” by the ground (natural tendencies of water to run downhill and ground to soak it up)

• Biodiversity: dogs adapt to living with humans (natural tendency of animals to adapt)

Scientific Explanations: Hierarchy of Systems and the Rule of Law

• Hierarchy of systems at different scales. From macroscopic, visible processes and systems to:– Explanations of mechanisms based on hidden

subsystems and

– Explanations of contexts that connect accounts in space and time.

• Principles or laws that always apply in their domains. From strongest force wins to all parts of the system are constrained by principles:– Conservation of matter (mass and atoms)

– Conservation of energy

– Fixed genetic resources for every organism

Scientific Explanations of Events

• Carbon: Large food molecules (polymers) are broken down into monomers (digestion), carried by your blood to cells that make them into new polymers (biosynthesis) (tracing matter)

• Water: Water and dissolved/suspended substances enter groundwater. Suspended substances are filtered out, but not dissolved substances (tracing water and materials in water)

• Biodiversity: humans breed dogs selectively. Dogs with genetic traits we like survive and reproduce; other dogs die without reproducing (gene expression and selection--life or death--rather than individuals adapting)

Levels of Achievement:Upper Elementary through High School

• Level 4: Successful principled, model-based reasoning about processes in socio-ecological systems (high school standards).

• Level 3: “School science” narratives of processes in systems (middle school standards).

• Level 2: Events driven by hidden mechanisms (elementary standards).

• Level 1: Macroscopic accounts based on force-dynamic causation (natural tendencies with enablers or antagonists) and linked by informal cultural models

Table 4: Contrasting Ways of Grouping and Explaining Carbon-transforming Processes

Carbon-transforming process

Generat ing organ ic carbon

Trans forming organ ic car bon Oxidizing org anic car bon

Scie ntific acc oun t

Photosynthes is Biosynthes is Digest ion Biosynthes is Ce llular resp irat ion Combust ion

Macros copic process

Plant gro wth Animal gro wth Breath ing, exerc ise

Decay Burn ing

Informal acc oun t

Natura l processes in p lants and an imals, en abled by food, water, sun light, an d/or a ir

Natura l process in dead things

Flame consu ming fue l

Black: Processes that students at all Levels have accounts forRed: Level 2 accounts based on informal cultural modelsGreen: Level 5 accounts based on scientific models

Trends from Younger to Older Students for Types of Carbon Accounts

• Types of accounts: connected processes. From connections by informal cultural models to tracing matter and energy.

• Types of accounts: connected scales. From macroscopic, visible processes and systems to:– Explanations of mechanisms based on hidden

subsystems and

– Explanations of contexts that connect accounts in space and time.

Trends from Younger to Older Students for Elements of Carbon Accounts

• Life: from vitalistic accounts (living and non-living things have different natural tendencies) to tracing matter and energy through chemical processes in living systems

• Matter: from matter as enabler of processes (e.g., food for growth, fuel for flames) to tracing matter (substances with chemical identities) through processes

• Cause/energy: from force-dynamic accounts (natural tendencies with enablers and antagonists) to transformations and degradation of energy

• Models– Metaphors: From informal personal connections to formal

mechanisms

– Principles: Developing “sense of necessity” that processes are constrained by principles

– Representations: Developing mastery of codified scientific representations

Level 5 Reasoning about the Carbon Cycle

Combustion, cellular respiration

Photosynthesis

Matter: CO2, H2O, and minerals

Matter: Organic matter & O2

Biosynthesis, digestion, food webs, fossil fuel formation

Movement of CO2, H2O, and minerals

Energy: Sunlight

Energy: Chemicalpotential energy

Energy: Work& heat

Level 3 Reasoning about the Carbon Cycle

Animals

Plants

Carbon dioxide

Oxygen

Decay

Plants

Nutrients Food chains

SunlightThe oxygen-carbon

dioxide cycle

Energy sources for plants: sunlight, nutrients, water

Energy sources for animals: food,

water

Decomposers don’t need energy

Water Accounts

• Types of processes: movement of water, substances in water

• Level 1 accounts: surface water running downhill, underground ponds; “pollution” as quality of water rather than materials in water (Valerie on well location)

• Level 4 accounts: flow of water (visible and invisible) through watersheds; other materials going in and out of solution and suspension

Biodiversity Accounts

• Types of processes: Individual life cycles in niche and habitat, evolution, succession

• Level 1 accounts: Individuals adapt to environment, undifferentiated landscapes

• Level 4 accounts:– Individuals live or die with fixed genetic

resources– Evolution as change in populations caused by

reproduction and selection– Succession as change in ecosystems caused

by “selection” of populations

Next Steps

• Sessions in this workshop– Env lit session, looking at your students’ tests– Other sessions: are you discussing any of these

processes?

• REESE proposal: Continue carbon strand with better teaching materials and experiments

• MSP proposal: Continue all 3 strands with 3 other LTER’s

• GLBRC: What do students need to know about biofuels?– John Greenler, Jonathon Schramm

Thank You

Major ContributorsLindsey Mohan, Hui Jin, Kristin Gunckel, Beth Covitt, Edna Tan, Blakely Tsurusaki, Jing Chen, Hasan Abdel-Kareem, Rebecca Dudek, Josephine Zesaguli, Hsin-Yuan Chen, Brook Wilke, Laurel Hartley, Hamin Baek, Kennedy Onyancha, Chris Wilson, Ed Smith, and Jim Gallagher at Michigan State University

Mark Wilson, Karen Draney, Jinnie Choi, and Yong-Sang Lee at the University of California, Berkeley.

This research is supported in part by three grants from the National Science Foundation: Developing a Research-based Learning Progression for the Role of Carbon in Environmental Systems (REC 0529636), the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science (ESI-0227557) and Long-term Ecological Research in Row-crop Agriculture (DEB 0423627. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Website: http://edr1.educ.msu.edu/EnvironmentalLit/index.htm