My Personal Research

I have once again revised my research question to: In what ways can STEMS^2 driven units impact a 4^th grade student on their environmental literacy in Hawaii.  Originally I had the word “increase” instead of “impact.”  Through our online discussions and our readings I’ve realized that that made my question a little bias because I am already hypothesizing that the units will INCREASE the students environmental literacy and in actuality it might not. 

I am continuing to find more literature on the topic of environmental literacy.  I am in the final stages of developing my pre-assessment.  It was very challenging because environmental literacy is very new.  There are not very many assessments out there for me to gage my understanding about what is expected at each level of literacy.  In order to come up with my assessment I used the definitions of each level (awareness, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and participation) as well as the 4^th grade standards that aligned to environmental literacy to develop a set of questions that I feel will best fit my research question and the type of information that I want to collect. 

The main form of data that I will collect of course will be qualitative.  I made a Nearpod presentation, which I am really excited about.  It is an online presentation, which has open-ended questions, quiz questions, and poll questions for the students to answer as they follow along with the presentation on their own devices.  I plan to do this with my students within the next couple of days.  Some questions are: Is it safe to drink the river water in Hawaii? Name an animal that is endangered in Hawaii.  What are some things the state of Hawaii does to protect its unique environment?  On a scale from 1-10 how important is it to you to learn about the environment?

Students have been learning about ecosystems already however more on a grander scale not specific to Hawaii.  However through that students are beginning to understand the interdependency of living things and their environment. 

That is currently where I am at with my personal research.  I am still at the very beginning stages of it but I feel like it was necessary to hold off on diving head first into my units until I had a better understanding of environmental literacy and what it might look like.  However understanding it is still a process.  Hawaii actually has an environmental education and environmental literacy plan but it is still in its early stages.  The plan is still in proposal form.  Teachers still need to be trained, assessments and curriculum still need to be created.  

Literature

          Current research questions:  How can using STEMS^2 driven units in the classroom help teach environmental literacy to fourth graders in Hawaii? (awareness, concern, understanding, action) Or in what ways does  STEMS^2 driven units increase environmental literacy in fourth graders in Hawaii.  I actually am really excited about this question and have come to this question by looking for literature that would help me. 

I want to see if students can think outside of themselves and be concerned with the world around them.  However I struggle when I think about how I am going to measure that using the methods and styles that we have been reading about.  A survey can only give me surface information.  So I was thinking about using the surveys to create focus groups to get more information from my students.

The definition of environmental education according to the 1977 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization is: Environmental education is a life-long, multidisciplinary approach to teaching, mass communication, community participation or some other activity aimed at the development of a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment, and its associated problems that has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations, and commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions of current problems and prevention of new ones.  In 1997 Environmental Literacy was included:  Environmental literacy is a basic functional education for all people, which provides them with elementary knowledge, skills, and motives to cope with environmental needs and contribute to sustainable development. 

          I have found literature that supports the need for environmental literacy in the classroom.  “Teaching for Environmental Literacy” by Christine Moseley was my primary motivation. Moseley talks about the goal of education being the production of literate citizens and within recent years it has moved beyond reading and writing to include other areas such as environmental literacy. Moseley explains that there are four categories awareness, concern, understanding, and action.  There are also different types of literacies within environmental literacy: Nominal, Functional, and Operational.  These categories and types of literacy will help me to collect data on my students.  (Moseley 2000)

             Another article I found supports the one of the units I am implementing, which is centered around place-based education and the need for students in Hawaii to learn about their environment.  An article titled “Developing a Sense of Place and an Environmental Ethic: A Transformative Role for Hawaiian/Indigenous Science in Teacher Education?” written by Pauline W.U. Chinn talks about educating teachers in Hawaii so that they can educate their students about Hawaii’s uniqueness when it comes to the environment.  “But Hawaiʻi’s students historically study mainstream, textbook-based science. They may become literate in school science but seldom learn about issues of endangered and invasive species or soil and water pollution in their own communities” (Chinn). Chinn also sites this  “A focus on place-based, environmental literacy in science teacher education and curriculum development takes on urgency given evidence that human activities have become the most important evolutionary force in the world (Palumbi, 2001).” These directly relate to the purpose and importance of finding out what the outcome of the unit is. 

              So far the articles that I have focused on searching for stress the importance of teaching environmental literacy. There are many articles out there because of the shift towards sustainability and clearly it starts with environmental literacy.  I am continuing to search for articles connecting environmental literacy and place-based education.  

           I came to this research question because I was constantly trying to think of a question that I was passionate about. That was the easy part.  The hard part was finding literature to support it as well as how I was going to collect data.  I am sure I will still have to revise my question throughout but I am starting to feel more confident in what I am doing. 

Spring Blog Post #1 Plan B

At this point in my journey as a STEMS^2 student I am working on refining my Plan B.  I am planning on implementing my Unit plan and gathering data from that.  My unit-plan focuses on ecosystems, primarily food webs from before western contact and after western contact. Students will compare the changes in the food webs and come to conclusions.  The unit focuses on balance and interdependence. My goal is for students to see that everything is connected and the world has a sense of natural harmony, that when disturbed can change this drastically. 

 My research question is still in the refining stages.  I am having a hard time determining a research question and making sure it is not just the goals from the unit. Maxwell’s (2013) chapter 4 explains that sometimes research questions are not final until some data is collected.  I feel that this helped put me at ease because I do not know exactly what kind of responses I will be getting from the data I collect.  It also showed me that my research question should evolve and develop through the process.
           My tentative research question is: In what ways does learning about changes in the ecosystems where the student lives change the sense of responsibility towards the future of the environment in a fourth grader? I have arrived at this question through observations of students over the past several years.  My students have been very egocentric.  I am wondering if a unit that is hands on and place-based can engage students to think beyond themselves.  Like Maxwell explains I have thought of the possibility that through this all my students attitudes towards the future of the environment will not change. 

I am currently planning on collecting qualitative data. . I plan to use both open ended and close ended questioning.  I would like to do a pre and post attitude survey towards the topic which even though result in numbers will be used in qualitative data.  I would also like to have an open-ended opinion or argumentative writing about the topic where I can truly gather the students’ thoughts towards my research question.  Like Creswell (2008)  “Selection of Research Design” states many people gather information in the ways that they are most experienced.  Being an elementary teacher I feel that I use qualitative strategies daily to adjust my teaching practices. The audience that I would be writing for is other elementary teachers.

I am still working on clarifying all aspects of my Plan B.  As I do more research I find myself becoming indecisive when it comes to which direction to take my project.  The articles helped to me understand how to approach the research questions and in what ways I will be gathering my data.   

What's in a STEMS^2 Unit?

A strong STEMS^2 unit should seamlessly incorporate all aspects of STEMS^2.  Each lesson should involve multiple areas of the curriculum including Language Arts that way it can be justified to be taught in any block of the day.  It should be applicable to the everyday lives of the students and the teachers, so the students find meaning in it and the teachers find purpose in teaching it. 

Students should experience hands-on activities and exploration.  They should also be required to do research of some kind.  I find that in my classroom through guided/independent research students really learn what they need to learn.  They also learn skills that they will need through out their life. Students should have opportunities to work in small groups and independently.   Students should create something throughout this process to have a product that shows their learning.  Teachers should experience being a facilitator.  In the beginning of the unit they may need to do a lot more modeling and scaffolding but as the unit progresses teachers should slowly become the facilitator.  Teachers should also experience something relatable in the unit.  When a unit is meaningful to the teacher it makes the teacher enthusiastic to teach it and in turn the students are impacted by that enthusiasm. 

The length of a unit really depends on the class, the topic, time allowed for the unit, and the teacher.  At an elementary level I’d say a STEMS^2 unit could take anywhere between six weeks to a full quarter. The unit would involve anywhere between 8-15 lessons.  Some of those lessons may carry over to more than one lesson block and can even extend over several days.  (For example if one lesson was to research information on the surrounding Ahupua’a, that lesson might take 2-3 days)

The Unit should have room for change to fit any classes needs or environment especially since it has place-based education as a factor.  It should also take into account learning gaps.  Many of the curriculum that I work with now do not take into account the learning gaps and just expect students to know everything that they are supposed to know at the start of the lesson.  So the unit should come with resources for building background knowledge.  There should also be differentiation involved in the unit because not all students learn the same way or have the same way of presenting information. All unit plans should have an overview of the lesson explaining its importance and relevance, with clear and specific learning objectives.