A perennial goal of science educators is to develop functional scientific literacy in their students, especially those who will not become professional scientists. This article provides an example of implementing a socioscientific issues approach in an undergraduate environmental science course that enables students to develop the knowledge,…

Socially engaged engineering provides for student learning of the design, analysis, and practices of engineering as well as the ways that engineering is situated in sociocultural contexts. This paper provides a conceptual framework regarding socially engaged engineering for K-8 educators, researchers, and curriculum designers. The framework…

Environmental issues in online newspapers allow environmental course instructors to examine social scientific topics in a sustainable. However, it remains a problem for instructors to fully examine the dimensions of knowledge connected to the environment in online newspapers. The purpose of this research is to develop a fundamental framework for…

The instantaneous movement of information and imagery in the current era has fundamentally altered our constructions of reality as the outer world of media becomes a central aspect of the "inner world of society" (Beck, 1996, p.1). In this vein, the very stuff that makes up knowledge, the basic building blocks of our cognition are also…

Controversial scientific issues, or socioscientific issues (SSIs), demand the consideration of more than scientific content when constructing decisions. The Justification for Knowing framework (JFK) was developed to categorize the information sources drawn upon when making SSI decisions within the academic domain of natural sciences. These…

Teachers often struggle to facilitate open discussions about evolution when they perceive it to be at odds with cultural and religious norms. Little is understood about classroom discourse and teacher-student interactions during the teaching of evolution. This study analyzed classroom discourse and teacher-student exchanges in a 10th-grade biology…

Biology education emphasises producing scientifically literate students, mastering biological knowledge, and developing critical thinking. However, in reality, biology instruction only focuses on academic achievement in the Indonesian biology curriculum. Previous research has found that scientific inquiry is a practical approach to improve…

The discovery of frog abnormalities by students on a school field trip in 1995 sparked hundreds of scientific studies in search of the cause of abnormality. This Socio-Scientific Issue has been used as an inquiry-based learning exercise for training in the practice of science, but it is also well-suited to teaching the nature of science. Our goal…

A shift from teaching to learn to learning to think is necessary to promote critical thinkers. Since teachers tend to replicate the educational models they have experienced as students, new references are needed. In order to address these concerns, we present an interdisciplinary intervention in initial teacher education and analyse its impact on…

This paper explores the use of comics as an integrated tool for introducing socioscientific issues (SSI) in elementary school classrooms. To illustrate this, we provide implementation examples from two teachers who facilitated introducing SSI to students using comics. These case studies depict how teachers integrated comics into their classroom…

This study investigated the predictive effect of 11th grade Taiwanese students' (N = 878) self-assessed critical thinking, group participation self-efficacy, and active learning on their genuine learning interest (GLI) in socio-scientific issues (SSI). Results showed that active learning had a direct effect on GLI, while critical thinking and…

While researchers have stressed the importance of engaging students in activities that enhance their reasoning practices, few have scrutinised the factors that impact the reasoning involved in such activities. We explored the role of attitudes in student-group interactions concerning a climate change-related socio-scientific issue and how those…

Facial features are important sources of information about perceived trustworthiness. Masks and protective clothing diminish the visibility of facial cues by either partially concealing the mouth and nose or covering the entire face. During the pandemic, the use of personal protective equipment affected and redefined who trusts whom in society.…

The design of biological systems is a multidisciplinary activity in which biomedical engineers collaborate to build novel biological systems that address society's needs. One of the most relevant skills for designing biological systems is engineering systems thinking (EST). Among the EST elements, the EST cognitive competencies are comparatively…

Learners are expected to discuss and debate, using scientific evidence, the Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) that often overlap with personal experiences and ethical dilemmas. This study investigated the reasoning of 24 Grade 8 Lebanese students when arguing about a scientific scenario as opposed to an SSI. It also examined how students make…