This article reports on a 2½-year collaborate project to reform the teaching and learning of science in the context of Mae Jemison Elementary, the lowest performing elementary school in the state of Louisiana. I outline a taxonomy of authentic science inquiry experiences and then use the resulting framework to focus on how project participants interpreted and enacted ideas about collaboration and authenticity. The resulting contextually authentic science inquiry model links the strengths of a canonically authentic model of science inquiry (grounded in the Western scientific canon) with the strengths of a youth-centered model of authenticity (grounded in student-generated inquiry), thus bringing together relevant content standards and topics with critical social relevance. I address the question of how such enactments may or may not promote doing science together and consider the implications of this model for urban science education. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 695–721, 2006

An Authentic Science Conference.

Creating contextually authentic science in a “low‐performing” urban elementary school

Articles in the National Association for Science Teachers [NSTA] elementary journal Science and Children that describe an activity related to teaching nature of science [NOS] were analysed to ascertain the extent to which those activities align with research based suggestions for teaching NOS and the extent to which articles have potential for informing teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge [PCK] for teaching NOS. The results showed that the majority of activities focused on broad ideas such as “science as a human endeavour”, whereas other aspects of NOS were emphasized less frequently or not at all. In terms of the potential of articles to improve teachers’ PCK for NOS, we found authors included very little information relevant to teachers’ knowledge of assessment of NOS and knowledge of learners. We suggest further study into the degree to which ‘activities that work’ (Appleton, 2006) from teacher professional journals may be a source of PCK.

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An Authentic Science Conference.

Citations

Creating contextually authentic science in a “low‐performing” urban elementary school

Professional Journals as a Source of Information about Teaching NOS: An Examination of Articles Published in Science & Children, 1996-2010.

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