Abstract
Socio-scientific issue-based science education has been suggested for promoting general educational skills development in science classes. However, there is a lack of operationalized criteria, which can be used to reflect upon societal issues to whether turning them into issues for science classroom instruction. This paper describes a case study based on Participatory Action Research in science education. A lesson plan based on the socio-scientific issue of doping in professional sports and in fitness studios was designed and cyclically refined by a group of teachers and science education researchers. Along this case, together with previous studies of SSI-oriented curriculum development, the action research group started reflecting on the question of operational criteria for reflecting and carrying out socio-scientific issues in science classroom situations. This paper discusses the structure of the above-mentioned lesson plan. Experience gained during lesson plan development and testing will be reported upon. Suggestions stemming from teacher group discussions about the criteria chosen for reflecting socio-scientific issues for classroom use will also be presented.
Highlights
Quite regularly, science education in general and secondary chemistry education in particular have been listed among the most unpopular subjects among most students (Holbrook, 2008; Osborne & Dillon, 2008)
The resulting ideas include e.g. a five-step model to structure socioscientific issues (SSIs)-based classroom activity (Marks & Eilks, 2009) or new pedagogies, which mimic the processes how science-related information is both transferred and employed in societal debate (Eilks, Nielsen & Hofstein, in print). This paper examines another example of the sociocritical and problem-oriented approach to science teaching developed by Participatory Action Research (Eilks & Ralle, 2002)
During the cyclical refinement process, the Participatory Action Research group started focusing on refining criteria as originally suggested by Marks and Eilks (2009) necessary to effectively reflect upon questions taken from society for use as SSIs in the science classroom
Summary
Many people have promoted the use of socioscientific issues (SSIs) as a possible driving force for skills-oriented science education (Sadler, 2004; 2011; Zeidler Sadler, Simmons, & Howes, 2005). SSIs should serve as motivating contexts for science
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