Connecting Formal Science Classroom Learning to Community, Culture and Context in India

Abstract

The perception of separation between school and home/community is related to diminished achievement in school and lack of motivation to learn STEM subjects. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is among many research organisations that have strongly recommended that schools bridge the disconnect between school-based knowledge and learners’ everyday knowledge. We designed the SPIRALS (Supporting and Promoting Indigenous and Rural Adolescents’ Learning of Science) curriculum to bridge this gap between formal science and students’ everyday lives. SPIRALS helps students explore community-based practices to learn about science, environmental sustainability and systems thinking. We implemented the SPIRALS curriculum in a private, urban, English medium school in Western India with approximately 315 students and their four teachers, 214 (or 68%) of whom also participated in the research from which our conclusions are drawn. Our findings about program impacts rely upon analysis of interviews with teachers and students, as well as student work, and conference participation assessment surveys distributed after a capstone experience at which students present their work. This chapter describes our findings about how students learned science, environmental sustainability, and systems thinking through engagement with community-based practices. We also discuss the process of how the SPIRALS approach worked in India and how it could be expanded into a broader learning model across different socio-cultural contexts within India.

Appendix

How to Use SPIRALS in the Classroom

The SPIRALS curriculum is composed of nine activity-based lessons or ‘spirals’ that guide learners on an investigation into the concept of sustainability. The details of how to implement each of these 9 spirals can be found at http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spiralsintro.shtml.

The overall spirals curriculum is structured around three main parts: (1) Sustainability and Community, (2) Examining a sustainable practice, (3) Telling a story.

Through the SPIRALS activities, mentors guide learners in selecting a community practice that the learners are curious about and believe is sustainable. The nine units of the curriculum can be divided into three parts: the first part centres on introducing the concepts of sustainability and community, the second part focuses on learners’ researching a sustainable practice, and the third part emphasises telling a story about the sustainable practice the learners researched.

Sustainability and Community

Spirals 1–3 combine an exploration of personal and community sustainability. During these first spiral units, the learners begin to think about what sustainability means and are introduced to the four system conditions of sustainability, which will help guide them in conceptualising the topic. Additionally, groups begin to think about community practices that they might like to investigate in more detail.

Investigation of a Sustainable Practice

During spirals 4–7, groups select a community practice that they feel is sustainable and feasible to study. Groups create maps detailing everything they already know about the practice as a system of interrelated parts. As part of this process, learners reflect on identifying the sources of their knowledge about their selected practice. Next, they create a plan to collect more information about their practice. Once they have collected some data, they carefully re-evaluate the practice by using their definition of sustainability and the four system conditions of sustainability. To help learners appreciate and recall what they have learned, they create a second map of their practice as a system of interrelated parts to display the ways in which they feel their chosen practice is sustainable.

Telling a Story

In spirals 8 and 9, the learners create a digital project and then share what they discovered about their sustainable practice with members of the local community (e.g. school, community centre or library) in the form of a story. In addition, groups are invited to share their stories with family, friends and university scholars at a UNH-sponsored conference specifically for the participants in the SPIRALS program.

The details about each of the spirals can be found listed below:

Spiral 1: What is in My Everyday? (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals1.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners reflect on their community and identify features that they feel are significant to them.

  • Learners create ‘My Everyday Maps’ to explore the interactions between themselves, the people, places, and things that they feel are important to their everyday experiences.

Spiral 2: What Sustains Me? (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals2.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners reflect on how their everyday activities keep them going or sustain them.

  • Learners reflect on what could be considered a ‘need’ and what could be considered a ‘want’ with regard to their life.

  • Learners may consider how different features of their everyday help to sustain them in different ways such as emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally.

Spiral 3: Understandings About Sustainability in My Community (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals3.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners explore the concept of sustainability.

  • Learners identify several practices that they may like to explore further for their group’s SPIRALS project.

  • Learners use the ‘four systems conditions’ of sustainability (listed below) to discuss the sustainability of the practices they are considering.

    • 1. Does the practice support reducing energy use?

    • 2. Does the practice contribute to lessening man-made waste?

    • 3. Does the practice reduce destruction of the natural environment?

    • 4. Is there fairness to all living things (human and non-human)?

  • Learners reflect on identifying the sources of their knowledge with regard to the practices they selected through the discussion of traditional ecological knowledge/local knowledge.

Spiral 4: Deciding Our Project Together (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals4.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners come to a consensus on which sustainable practice is of interest to the group.

  • Groups select a sustainable practice that they can explore.

Spiral 5: Mapping our Sustainable Practice (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals5.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners create a systems map rooted in both traditional ecological knowledge and science of the practice they are interested in exploring.

  • Learners should be encouraged to reflect on what and how they know about their topic by demonstrating that there are multiple perspectives to understanding sustainability, including both traditional ecological knowledge and science.

  • Learners should discuss and define the SPIRALS core concepts ‘system’ and ‘science’.

Spiral 6: Exploring the Sustainability of Our Practice (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals6.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners set goals for exploring the sustainability of their practice and establish plans for gathering the necessary information to complete their project.

  • Learners identify the tools and resources necessary and available to investigate their chosen practice.

Spiral 7: Understanding What We Found (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals7.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners organise what they have found about their sustainable practice into categories.

  • Learners use what they have learned to begin to form a story or stories about their practice to better understand and share the who, what, where, when, how, and why of their sustainable project.

Spiral 8: Creating Our Stories (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals8.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners choose a format for their final project presentations. These presentations tell the story about their sustainable practice.

  • The story should reflect:

    • Their understanding of sustainability

    • What they have learned about their sustainable practice

Spiral 9: Sharing Our Presentations (http://www.spirals.unh.edu/spirals9.shtml).

• Objectives:

  • Learners prepare to present their findings to a specific audience (school principal, school board, local conservation commission, etc.).

  • The group brainstorm the people and places that might benefit from or enjoy hearing the story of their findings that they composed in Spiral 8.