Connecting Mathematics and Science in Primary School STEM Education: Modeling the Population Growth of Species

Abstract

In this research, we explored the potential of using a research-based teaching and learning sequence to promote pupils’ engagement in practices that are coherent with those of real world mathematical and scientific activity. This STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematis) sequence was designed and implemented by pre-service teachers and science and mathematics education researchers with the aim of modeling the growth of a real population of rabbits. Results show explicit evidence of pupils’ engagement in relevant mathematical and scientific practices, as well as detailed descriptions of mathematical connections that emerged from those practices. We discuss how these practices and connections allowed the progressive construction of models, and the implications that this proposal may have for STEM task design and for the analysis of extra-mathematical connections.

The effects of modeling‐based pedagogy on conceptual understanding, scientific reasoning skills, and attitudes towards science of English learners

“…In modeling classrooms students are routinely expected to connect multiple representations, including mathematical ones, with the science phenomena thus modeling students might demonstrate larger shifts in concepts and beliefs, including epistemic practices and reasoning about science (Chinn & Buckland, 2012). Some progress in terms of conceptual understanding has been shown when deploying modeling units with non-ELs for both concepts (e.g., Christensen & Lombardi, 2020;Gamboa et al, 2021;Núñez et al, 2022) and with food chains for ELs (Pearce et al, 2020). In sheltered instruction, ELs learn both language and content through interactions (Buxton & Caswell, 2020).…”

Literature review on networking of theories developed in mathematics education context

“…Just as research has been carried out on networking or theoretical connections, there have also been works focused on mathematical connections, which is a relevant topic in mathematics education because the establishment of connections contributes to the understanding of mathematical concepts (De Gamboa et al, 2020Gamboa et al, , 2021. Most of the research work on establishing connections has been carried out on key calculus concepts such as the derivative (Rodríguez-Nieto et al, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2022, the derivative and its relationship with the integral (García-García & Dolores-Flores, 2019, 2021), the rate of change ; and on functions, such as exponential and logarithmic function (Campo-Meneses & García-García, 2020;Campo-Meneses et al, 2021), quadratic function (Businskas, 2008).…”