Charles W. (Andy) Anderson

Presentation to the National Research Council Board on Science Education

December 7, 2009

Learning in High School: Learning Progressions for Environmental

Science Literacy

Questions to Address

1. Are there any cognitive or contextual factors that make learning science in HS different from learning in earlier grades or post-secondary school?

2. What concepts or skills are most difficult for students to learn in HS? Are these difficult to learn concepts and skill different from those that middle school or post-secondary school students struggle with?

3. In your learning progression work have you found patterns in the way students made progress toward more sophisticated reasoning about scientific concepts?

4. What strategies and resources are effective in helping students learn difficult concepts and skills?

Question 1

Are there any cognitive or contextual factors that make learning science in HS different from learning in earlier grades or post-secondary school? •No•Developmentally, I see continuity between middle school and high school and college•Institutionally, high schools are uniquely important—the last chance we have to prepare all students for responsible citizenship•This leads to the focus of our work: Learning progressions for environmental science literacy

Learning Progressions: Addressing Both the Forest and the Trees

“Learning progressions are descriptions of the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about a topic that can follow one another as students learn about and investigate a topic over a broad span of time.” (NRC, Taking Science to School, 2007)

Upper Anchor: Processes in Socio-ecological Systems(Loop Diagram based on LTER Decadal Plan)

• What is essential scientific knowledge for ALL our citizens?• Only a few things, and this is one of them.

Question 2

What concepts or skills are most difficult for students to learn in HS? Are these difficult to learn concepts and skill different from those that middle school or post-secondary school students struggle with?•Every topic in the curriculum has conceptually difficult aspects (e.g., those discussed in Mohan and Guckel papers and other research)•These are “the trees”•What’s the shape of “the forest”—some common patterns that tie those difficulties together across topics?

Five Key Transitions for High School Students (Handout)

Hierarchical reasoning: connected spatial and temporal scales

1.Macroscopic systems and processes2.Subsystem models3.Large-scale systemsPractice and discourse4.Principled reasoning (scientific discourse)5.Inquiry and arguments from evidence

Macroscopic Reasoning: Grouping and Explaining Carbon-transforming Processes

Carbon-transforming process

Generating organic carbon

Transforming organic carbon Oxidizing organic carbon

Scientific account

Photosynthesis Biosynthesis Digestion Biosynthesis Cellular respiration Combustion

Linking process

Plant growth Animal growth Breathing, exercise

Decay Burning

Informal account

Natural processes in plants and animals, enabled by food, water, sunlight, and/or air

Natural process in dead things

Flame consuming fuel

Black: Linking processes that students at all levels can tell us aboutRed: Lower anchor accounts based on informal discourseGreen: Upper anchor accounts based on scientific models

Atomic Molecular Facts and Models

• High school students learn atomic-molecular facts, such as the equation for cellular respiration.

• They have a great deal of trouble using those facts as working models:– What happens to the atoms in a person’s fat

when he loses weight? (They are burned for energy.)

– How are weight loss in humans and in decaying trees alike (They aren’t. Humans burn fat for energy. Trees decay back into the soil because they are dead.)

Large-scale Systems: Scientific 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

Informal 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

Informal Interpretation of Heredity and Environment

Heredity and environment both shape the organism by“pulling in different directions.”

Scientific Interpretation of Heredity and Environment

Genetic resources constrain phenotypic plasticity

Phenotype (morphology and behavior)is determined by organism’s responseto biological community and non-living environment

Notes about scientific model:• Heredity and environment act differently• Phenotypic response does not affect genetic resources• Diversity of genetic resources becomes essential for change

Questions 3 and 4

3. In your learning progression work have you found patterns in the way students made progress toward more sophisticated reasoning about scientific concepts?

4. What strategies and resources are effective in helping students learn difficult concepts and skills?

Hypothesis: Alternate Learning Trajectories

LEVEL 4. Causal Reasoning Pattern: Successful Constraints on Processes Across Scales

LEVEL 3. Causal Reasoning Pattern: Unsuccessful Constraints on

Processes

LEVEL 3. Causal Reasoning Pattern: Successful Constraints on atomic-molecular

processes with limited details

LEVEL 2. Causal Reasoning Pattern: Hidden Mechanisms involving changes

of matter or energy

LEVEL 2. Causal Reasoning Pattern: Macroscopic changes of matter/energy

constrained by conservation laws

LEVEL 1. Macro Force-dynamic Causation

Structure-first Learning Trajectory

Principles-first Learning Trajectory

?

Matter and Energy Process Tool Example

Car Running

Process:

Scale:

(Matter Input) (Matter Output)

(Energy Output)(Energy Input)

Chemical Energy Heat

Motion

Octane (CH3(CH2)6CH3)(liquid)

Water (H2O) (gas)

Oxygen (O2) (gas) Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (gas)

Combustion

Atomic-molecular

Powers of Ten Example

Final Aspect of Scientific Reasoning: Inquiry and Argument

• Uncertainty as a core issue for scientific inquiry

• Scientific position: – Our knowledge of past, present, and future is

inevitably uncertain– BUT We can reduce uncertainty, by:

• Giving authority to arguments from evidence rather than individual people

• Commitment to rigor in research methods• Collective validation through consensus of

scientific communities

Alternate Positions• Truth is relative; everyone is biased or arguing from

self interest• High school student’s evaluations of position

statements on drilling a well near a northern Michigan trout stream– “… Nestle wants to build the factory so they're going to say

any lie to you. – …They [Nestle] might have to pay for the water, so the

Dept of EQ might be telling a little bit of fib because they might be getting a little money out of it and people might do a little for money.

– (Interviewer asked, “What about Trout Unlimited?”) I think they're telling a fib because they don't want it to be built.”

• "These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit," said U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

Alternate Positions

• Truth comes from people who know• “I was at a painting class and the topic of Obama's

citizenship came up. Everyone in the room felt that he was born in Kenya.. and raised in Malaysia.. and that the Obama administration had not provided anything to refute it. (What are they trying to hide???) I said he was born in Hawai'i and this had been repeatedly shown to be true.. they countered with the information that his grandmother was quoted as saying she had been at his birth in Kenya! So how do you argue with people that 'just know' things...” (Kay Gross)

Possible Consequences

• Political discourse and personal decisions dominated by different subcultures each constructing their own “reality”—the Prius drivers, the SUV drivers, etc.

• BUT the Earth’s atmosphere, water systems, and biological communities do not know about political discourse

• In 50 years we will know for sure who is right and who is wrong

• Our children and grandchildren will live with the consequences

Science Education Gives People Choices

• Informal reasoning:– Interplay of “forces” (needs, desires, willpower)

determines course of events. The strongest “force” wins.

– We search for truth by finding the most authoritative and least biased informants

• Scientific reasoning: – The course of events can be predicted by

applying laws (e.g., conservation of matter and energy) to hierarchically organized systems

– We reduce uncertainty by commitment to arguments from evidence, rigor in method, and collective validation

What’s at Stake?

• CORE GOAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION: Make a place for scientific knowledge and arguments from scientific evidence in political discourse and personal decision making.

• NOTE that this is a different goal from getting people to accept the authority of science.

• CURRENT EVIDENCE: We are achieving this goal for less than 10% of high school students.