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Socio-scientific Issues for Scientific Literacy – The Evolution of an Environmental Education Program with a Focus on Birds

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Animals and Science Education

Part of the book series: Environmental Discourses in Science Education ((EDSE,volume 2))

Abstract

Students can relate with birds in a variety of contexts, from casual observations of birds in the schoolyard to keeping birds as pets or engaging in bird identification. In this chapter, we describe the evolution of an environmental education program for high school students that has used ornithology as an organizing theme. A central component of the program is student participation in a bird banding research program. Initially, the program adopted a relatively simple citizen science model: students collected data on birds, following protocols provided by ornithology researchers, and then submitted their findings to a national database. An early modification to the program was the addition of water quality monitoring at the site of the avian field research. The latest innovations involve incorporating citizen science activities related to birds and water within a broader socio-scientific issues (SSI) approach. This chapter will describe and document ways in which this shift from stand-alone citizen science projects to a coherently framed SSI-based learning experience enhanced the extent to which the program met its ultimate goals for student learning including development of scientific literacy in a derived and progressive sense.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The ReSTEM Institute College of Education, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Andrew T. Kinslow & Troy D. Sadler

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  1. Andrew T. Kinslow
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  2. Troy D. Sadler
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Correspondence to Andrew T. Kinslow .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska, USA

    Michael P. Mueller

  2. University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

    Deborah J. Tippins

  3. Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

    Arthur J. Stewart

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figure d

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Kinslow, A.T., Sadler, T.D. (2017). Socio-scientific Issues for Scientific Literacy – The Evolution of an Environmental Education Program with a Focus on Birds. In: Mueller, M., Tippins, D., Stewart, A. (eds) Animals and Science Education. Environmental Discourses in Science Education, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56375-6_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56375-6_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56374-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56375-6

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