REAL possibilities: innovative and responsive curriculum enactment enabling impactful inquiry in primary science

Abstract

ABSTRACT The goal of the Beyond 2000 report (Millar & Osborne, 1998) to prepare young people for uncertain futures is arguably more crucial than ever. Current educational policies and curricula emphasise STEAM, twenty-first-century skills, and citizenship perspectives for solution generation to address global challenges. However, generative enactment in primary science requires ongoing attention, which is the focus of this paper. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in Melbourne, Australia, our design-based research with Year 6 students and teachers used inductive thematic analysis to identify what we term impactful inquiry. Students scientifically-grounded solutions to an issue relevant to them. Drawing on existing inquiry models, we propose an empirically informed framing of our impactful inquiry as REAL: (a) Relevant-contextually integrated and responsive; (b) Evidence-focused-using epistemic tools, practices and processes of scientific inquiry; (c) Actioned-driving science-informed change in the community; and (d) Linked, to learning and life, with consideration of the past, present, and future including sustained and continued action and curriculum in meaningful ways. We intend the REAL framing of our impactful inquiry to contribute to efforts to innovate responsive curriculum enactment of primary science that prepares students to negotiate socio-ecological issues and realise transformative change, now and into the future.