Different Countries, Same Science Classes: Students’ experiences of school science in their own words

Challenges and Support When Teaching Science Through an Integrated Inquiry and Literacy Approach

“…The above studies fit well with an increasing body of research indicating that school science is frequently experienced as the transmission of decontextualized scientific knowledge from expert sources, like the teacher or the textbook (Lyons, 2006;Osborne & Dillon, 2008). In this mode of science teaching, students' reading and writing activities are often reduced to copying information from the blackboard or the textbook, and answering textbook questions (Lindahl, 2003;Osborne & Collins, 2001).…”

“…A possible explanation is offered by Knain (2001, p. 322), whose study of Norwegian 8 th grade science textbooks found that "textbooks create (and are part of) a discourse which focus on the end products of science". Unfortunately, as indicated by Lyons' (2006) review, these are patterns that appear to be consistent across national boundaries.…”

“…In a social view of literacy, reading and writing cannot be seen as additional elements to inquiry-based science education (or to scientific inquiry), but must be regarded as constitutive of its practice (Gee, 2004;Osborne, 2002). Not only does this challenge how reading and writing in school science are often reduced to copying scientific information (e.g., Lyons, 2006;Osborne & Collins, 2001), it also questions why experimentation tends to be taught in isolation from the specialized ways of reading, writing, and talking science in many inquiry-based approaches to science education (National Research Council, 2012). In this sense, the findings of the empirical studies provide science teachers with illustrative examples of how literacy is interwoven in the practices of six specific inquiry-based science classrooms, and how multiple school science literacies can emerge when teachers explicitly emphasize disciplinary literacy practices during inquiry-based science instruction at primary school levels.…”

“…This is elaborated in Article III, in which we argue that a social view of literacy enables science educators to consider contexts that are particularly relevant to our vision of scientific literacy. From a social view of literacy, it also becomes apparent that the literacies of school science rarely transcends the context of school science, but are too often embedded in a transmissive pedagogy (Lyons, 2006). In this mode of science teaching, school science literacies are reduced to practices concerning copying scientific information from expert sources (e.g., Danielsson, 2010) or answering textbook questions (e.g., Driscoll et al, 1994).…”

What do Students Gain from a Week at Science Camp? Youth perceptions and the design of an immersive, research‐oriented astronomy camp

“…In a time when disenchantment with the sciences in schools is up and enrolment in many countries is down (Lyons, 2006), informal, inquiry-based science education opportunities may provide ways for youth to increase and maintain their interest and identification with science over a long period of time (Gibson & Chase, 2002). As Kay Andrews (2001) notes about 'extra' educational programmes in the UK, 'Research suggests that involvement in science clubs provides the 'little bit extra' that can be the all-important difference between going on with science or not ' (pp.…”