Socioscientific Issues as a Curriculum Emphasis

Contextualization of Nature of Science Within the Socioscientific Issues Framework: A Review of Research

“…Incorporating SSI in science learning creates opportunity for the students to analyze others" points of view, emphasizes critical reasoning over memorizing, promotes the practice of participatory decision making, allows students to critically evaluate, argue, discuss and debate competing scientific claims, and promotes character and moral sensitivity of students to ethical issues (Zeidler, 2014). The use of SSI strategies challenges students to reevaluate their prior understandings, providing an opportunity for them to restructure their conceptual understanding of subject matter through personal experiences and social discourse (Zeidler & Nichols, 2009).…”

Eliciting Students' Understanding of a Local Socioscientific Issue Through the Use of Critical Response Pedagogies

“…While expressing their opinions and beliefs about a local controversial issue, the students often shared their personal feelings, observations, and experiences to support their arguments. Pedagogical goals around these issues aim at engaging students in dialogue, discussion, debate, and argument (Zeidler, 2014) and personally meaningful and relevant discussions around socioscientific issues provide students opportunities to participate in the conversation around those issues (Burek & Zeidler, 2015). This study showed that a personally meaningful and relevant scenario presented with an image of a familiar location promoted both a quality and quantity of arguments.…”

“…This study showed that a personally meaningful and relevant scenario presented with an image of a familiar location promoted both a quality and quantity of arguments. Science education literature indicates that students may not always feel comfortable in having conversations around SSI (Zeidler, 2014). This is especially the case when they are personally part of the controversy.…”

“…The literature has highlighted SSI approaches for an essential reform to science curricula, focusing on controversial and socially relevant issues (Kolsto, 2001; Lee & Witz, 2009;Levinson, 2006;Zeidler, 2014). While some science educators have expressed concerns that using socially relevant curricula can threaten the integrity of traditional science instruction and students" understanding of basic science concepts (DeBoer, 1991), several science educators have strongly advocated for using socioscientific issues as a context for teaching science (Bingle & Gaskell, 1994;Zeidler & Keefer, 2003, Zeidler, 2014. Traditional classroom science translates, simplifies, and abstracts many concepts from their contextual origins causing students difficulty in understanding these concepts (Sadler, 2009).…”

“…Despite the pedagogical potentials of controversial SSI to enhance dialogue and discussion among students (Zeidler, 2014) and provide students opportunities to learn complex decision making processes (Burek & Zeidler, 2015), the literature indicates that such local, controversial issues cause hesitancy due to potential conflicts between teachers, students, and community members (McGinnis & Simmons, 1999). Thus, this study adapts an arts-based critical technique to facilitate meaningful dialogue in focus group settings in order to reveal participant perception of a controversial community-based SSI.…”