Developing students' understanding of the nature of science (NOS) is seen as critical for educating scientifically literate citizens, and has emerged as an important curricular goal internationally. In Norway, a new curriculum reform has recently been implemented, intended to improve the Norwegian education in several ways. The reform aims to…

The U.S. Education system is founded on a Eurocentric focus of curriculum, and students of color are not achieving as high as white students on the National Assessment for Education Progress in science. This research aims to repay the education debt owed to students of color by decolonizing science curriculum through the implementation of lessons…

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact a specific socio-scientific inquiry (SSI) unit has on student achievement and attitudes over the course of two years with two different implementations of the unit. Specifically, this study addressed the following research question: What impact does participation in an SSI unit have on student…

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) modules based on the topic of socio-scientific issues are behaved to be effective to improve argumentation skills. This aim of the research was to look at the effectiveness of PBL modules on the topic of socio-scientific issues, in order to empower argumentation skills for students with high and low achievements.…

Science education strives to increase interest in science and facilitate active citizenship. Thus, the aspects of personal and societal relevance are increasingly emphasised in science curricula. Still, little is known about how teachers choose content for their teaching, although their choices translate curricula to teaching practice. We explored…

Previous research has documented that students who engage with socioscientific issues can acquire some of the complex competences and skills typically related to scientific literacy. But an emerging field of research on science teachers' understanding and use of socioscientific issues, has documented that a range of challenges hinders the uptake…

There is an ongoing discussion about what content that should be taught in science education and there are different views among teachers about what represent good science content. However, teachers are not isolated individuals making their own interpretations, but are part of institutionalised systems building on patterns in the selection of…

Scientific literacy has been focused on the construction of students' knowledge to use appropriate and meaningful concepts, critically think, and make balanced, well-informed decisions relevant to their lives. This study presents the effects of integrating socio-scientific issues to enhance the bioethical decision-making skills of biology…

This study explores how web-based scaffolding tools provide instructional support while implementing a socio-scientific inquiry (SSI) unit in a science classroom. This case study focused on how students used web-based scaffolding tools during SSI activities, and how students perceived the SSI unit and the scaffolding tools embedded in the SSI…

This paper reports on the challenge of evaluating students' scientific literacy in a writing-to-learn context, as illustrated by our experience with an online science-writing project. In this mixed methods study, year 9 students in a case study class (13-14 year olds, n?=?26) authored a series of two "hybridised" short stories that…

Given the rapid development of modern biotechnology, attention to socioscientific issues in educational contexts is crucially important to support students in becoming responsible citizens. The authors' research focused on the impact of discussing socioscientific issues during biology lessons under 3 different treatments (teacher guided, student…

This article explores the vertical alignment of two high school classes, biology and chemistry, around the core concept of biodiesel fuel production. High school teachers and university faculty members investigated biodiesel as it relates to societal impact through a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Teachers. Using an action…

Writing-to-learn (WTL) is an effective instructional and learning strategy that centers on the process of organizing and articulating ideas, as opposed to writing-to-communicate, which centers on the finished written product. We describe a WTL model that we have developed and tested with various student groups over several years. With effective…

This dissertation study is a conglomerate of the fields of Science Education and Applied Cognitive Psychology. The goal of this study is to determine what organizational features and knowledge representation patterns high school students exhibit over time for issues pertinent to science and society. Participants are thirteen tenth grade students…

"Evaluative constructivism" is used to describe how students derived learning intentions and made choices about what they would do during a unit of work in a final-year high school biology class, as they conducted an inquiry into the social and ethical issues associated with cancer. The context of the study, theoretical background and…