Approach to Equity 1:
Increasing Opportunity & Access
Goals: We need to ensure that every child has the opportunity to engage in rigorous, consequential, equitable, and just science. This supports them in future job opportunities in STEM but – even more important – helps them in consequential decision-making later and opens them up to experience wonder about the natural world. In schools where resources are limited and/or science is given short-shrift, we need to know how to mitigate those limitations and need to work to do so.
Historical Background
Black, Indigenous, and other people of color and other marginalized groups have historically had opportunities foreclosed. Redlining precluded Black people from moving into white neighborhoods. Many colleges excluded Black students. This led to less accumulation of wealth and fewer opportunities to study science in college. In addition, science has historically been viewed as a hard subject, leading to people believing it is a subject best done by “smart white men.”
Funding for schools in the US is tied to property taxes, which are tied to property values. Some schools have been inadequately funded for generations. Because of state accountability, these schools often have outsized focus on test scores, leading to focus on ELA and math to the exclusion of everything else – including science. Thus, students may lack opportunities and access to science.
Knowledge & Frames
Reminders about systemic issues
Science should be taught in the elementary grades, and children should engage in sensemaking around first-hand investigations.
Schools that serve mainly students of color are often more likely to eliminate science from the schedule.
Moves
What could I try to do?
(Here are some examples of these moves.)
Privilege first-hand science investigations that involve natural phenomena.
Find or adapt investigations that use everyday materials, without assuming families can provide those materials for you.
Provide a shared experience with a natural phenomenon to launch a science investigation.
When crafting opportunities to learn that go beyond first-hand experiences, provide multiple modalities (e.g., audio, video, text) for children to engage with ideas, to make the ideas accessible for a wider range of learners.
Make science a long-term endeavor, so that children consistently have opportunities for science learning.
Adapt curriculum materials to infuse sensemaking opportunities—give opportunities for thinking and knowledge generation, not just hands-on science.
Use participation structures that give students opportunities for scientific discourse and to build on one another’s ideas.
Develop talk moves to support scientific discourse (consider using posters, table tents, back-pocket questions), while making sure to not make students’ use of talk moves simply another way of enforcing the teacher’s rules.
Introduce academic language after experience with the phenomenon. Don’t pre-teach vocab about concepts, because in science this often takes away the opportunity for inquiry.
Use language supports and other scaffolding for emergent multilingual learners and children with learning differences.
Use local museums, zoos, outdoor spaces, or aquaria as opportunities for science learning grounded in the local community.
Advocacy & Reflection
Questions to ask myself
How am I making time in the day (and week, and year) for science?
How am I ensuring children have the opportunity to experience wonder about the natural world, and the joy that comes from understanding it?
How do I make sure that all students have equal footing with respect to the contexts?
How do I use language in accessible and accurate ways, and help students to do so?
What content knowledge do I need to teach this effectively? Where are the gaps in my own knowledge? What content do I need to learn more about to teach this effectively?
Support
Tools, frameworks, and activities that can help me
Use the talk moves tool to help you engage children in authentic scientific discourse.
Use the science practices scaffolding continuum (SPSC) tool to help you engage children in the science practices.
Contact the high school shop teacher to ask about having something built for your classroom.
Do a “science materials scavenger hunt” in your school to track down potentially forgotten resources.
Look at Arbor Scientific or Carolina Biological for inexpensive science tools; Lowes has gift certificates and/or discounts for teachers.
Seek out funding for your ideas through sites like Donors Choose or by reaching out to your district or school leaders.
Consider how science and literacy support one another (Nell Duke’s video).
Explore PD opportunities through local science museums or nature centers.
Join the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and/or your state science teachers’ association (e.g., MSTA).
We helped write this Science and Children paper (DOI or PDF for U-M) that gives some ideas about how to make time for elementary science. (If you don't have access to the paper here, please email Betsy directly.)