Interdisciplinary Science Education Research Articles

Research on the Impact of Teachers' Creative Thinking in Interdisciplinary Art and Science Education on Students' Comprehensive Competences in Higher Education

Research on the Impact of Teachers' Creative Thinking in Interdisciplinary Art and Science Education on Students' Comprehensive Competences in Higher Education

Connecting mathematics to STEM education: interdisciplinary teaching and learning facilitation

In interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, empirical evidence is required that points to the educational contribution of mathematics. Specifically, researchers are not clear how mathematics weaves itself through the STEM education meta-discourse. This article contributes to pedagogical practices in educational institutions where STEM has been newly introduced - What are the perceptions and experiences of South African teachers on interdisciplinary STEM education, and how do mathematics and interdisciplinary STEM discourses leverage each other at schools of specialisation (SoS) in South Africa? Participant teachers were drawn from ten SoS in South Africa. SoS are STEM-dense schools in South Africa’s Gauteng Province, the country’s industrial and commercial hub. Interview data was collected on teachers’ experiences and practices to explore the affordances of Mathematics and other STEM disciplines to influencing curriculum advancement. Situated cognition, mathematics as explorations and flow theory informed this qualitative study. In the findings, technology was regarded as raising learner motivation and mathematical achievement. Important to the study is that participants have a high regard for mathematics’ role in interdisciplinary STEM education. In the study, teachers had no autonomy to pursue the STEM agenda, as they were bound to adhere to a prescribed curriculum, which hardly refers to implementation of interdisciplinary STEM education. Various recommendations are proffered, such as maintaining the positive perceptions participants have on the role of mathematics in STEM curricula. The research calls for equality and equity of all the STEM disciplines, as one STEM curricula cannot succeed without the other.

Food Fermentations and Flavor: A Curiosity and Creativity Driven Approach for Interdisciplinary and Research-Oriented Science Education

Food Fermentations and Flavor: A Curiosity and Creativity Driven Approach for Interdisciplinary and Research-Oriented Science Education

Institutionalising interdisciplinarity in PhD training: challenging and redefining expertise in problem-oriented research

Interdisciplinary research is gathering increasing support from sustainability scholars, however, there is little dialogue between scholarship on interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary environmental science education. The aim of this paper is to take stock of the insights of studies of interdisciplinary research to inform environmental research and education. We take as our case study a research centre in Spain, which created an interdisciplinary PhD programme on climate change. The analysis is based on 18 interviews with PhD students and supervisors. We focus on: (i) the need to train experts while redefining expertise outside of disciplinary boundaries; (ii) the practical and institutional challenges of interdisciplinarity in the context of PhD training; and (iii) the challenges of assessing the quality across disciplines. Our results show that conflicts with institutional requirements lead to a tendency to abandon interdisciplinary aspects and to the training of experts narrowly centred on the specific problem they analyse.

Incorporating Immunology into the Undergraduate Curriculum to Promote Interdisciplinary Science Education

Abstract The national call for undergraduate education reform in the Vision and Change report identified understanding the importance of interdisciplinary science as a key competency; one that is critical for career success and responding to the evolving needs of the STEM workforce. Immunology provides an ideal platform to foster an appreciation of the interrelationships between multiple disciplines in the natural sciences. Interdisciplinary thinking can be fostered by creating educational interventions that relate concepts in immunology with foundational concepts in other sciences and is critical to tackle current societal challenges, such as the effect of global climate change on emerging infectious diseases and the need for new strategies to combat these threats. Although the discipline of immunology integrates easily with other biological fields such as microbiology and physiology, incorporating interdisciplinary thinking into broad educational practice requires intention and collaboration. In this breakout session, we will introduce a conceptual framework that: i) identifies interdisciplinary immunology focused learning outcomes; and ii) demonstrates classroom strategies to address these outcomes. Participants will engage in an active discussion to better understand ways in which Immunology education can be refocused to enhance interdisciplinary learning. The goal of the session is to empower educators by providing a conceptual framework that will enable them to mindfully and intentionally incorporate backward design into their pedagogy to teach interdisciplinary science using immunological topics. Supported by grant from NSF (#2120806)

Interdisciplinary Science and Social Studies Education in The Context of Five Weeks in a Balloon

This study aims to determine the usability of the book ‘Five Weeks in a Balloon’ authored by Jules Verne, as a context for interdisciplinary teaching of fourth-grade science and social studies courses. As a document review, the book was analyzed based on the Science and Social Studies Curricula/Turkey-2018. The book was associated with all learning areas of the Science Curriculum and five of the seven learning areas of the Social Studies Curriculum. It was determined first the association between the two curricula and the book, then starting points for planning appropriate activities for multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary teaching. As a result, the book can use as a context for fourth-grade science and social studies courses. Also be used in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary teaching to integrate science and social studies courses. Teachers and researchers can carry out various studies by designing interdisciplinary environments by benefiting from the study results.

Complementary teaching approaches facilitating interdisciplinary soil science education

The complementary nature of different teaching approaches in facilitating student learning is rarely discussed in the literature. This study compared diverse teaching approaches in soil science education to explore how a combination of instructional approaches can support student learning. Student perspectives on lectures, problem-based learning, and experiential learning in three upper-level university soil science courses were assessed through student enrolment data and survey responses. Results emphasize the benefits of integrating theory and practice and support the integration of concepts from soil physics, chemistry, and biology within individual courses. All respondents who took two or more courses indicated that the distinct teaching approaches and the integration of soil physics, chemistry, and biology within individual courses were beneficial to their learning. Lectures and problem-based learning were seen as pedagogically reciprocal, with theory supporting the application of knowledge for 75% students, while others noted that having the management course first provided context for learning additional theory. A subset of students (n = 9) indicated the relevance of the interdisciplinary nature of the courses for their current employment. Our findings suggest that combining knowledge-based and competency-based approaches may support both student learning and workforce demands and that diverse teaching approaches can work together to support student learning. The research outcomes call for fellow instructors to diverge from the dichotomy of passive and active learning and to consider the complementary nature of distinct teaching strategies.

Biomimicry of Blue Morpho butterfly wings: An introduction to nanotechnology through an interdisciplinary science education module

AbstractBiomimicry is the practice of imitating naturally occurring bio‐designs through engineering and invention. For instance, Blue Morpho butterfly wing colors are a result of the reflection and refraction of nanostructures embedded in the wing and have inspired practical applications in nanofabrication and photonics. Interdisciplinary science educational materials have been developed that demonstrate the cross‐disciplinary aspects and biomimetic properties used in designing nano‐based devices. The unique optical properties of the Blue Morpho wing provides an excellent source of demonstrating how aspects of chemistry, biology, physics, and nanotechnology relate. Specifically, these educational tools demonstrate concepts including natural selection, chemical and physical properties, structure at the nanoscale, optical, and electromagnetic design. In addition, the engaging activities are correlated to how nanotechnology drives invention and provides students a mechanism to be introduced to the possibilities nanotechnology provides. A comprehensive combination of lab, cleanroom, and classroom activities are suggested to promote remote learning.

The pedagogical representation of mass functions with LEGO and their origin

We promote the teaching of mass functions as an integral part of an interdisciplinary science education. Mass functions characterize the frequency distributions of objects with different masses on all cosmic scales. We intend to enhance experiential learning of this concept with a creative LEGO brick experiment for a diverse student audience. To our surprise, the LEGO mass function is not only qualitatively but also quantitatively comparable to mass functions found across the Universe. We also discuss the relation between gravitation and mass distributions as a possible explanation for the continuity of the universal mass function.

The Future of Undergraduate Immunology Education: Can a Comprehensive Four-Year Immunology Curriculum Answer Calls for Reform in Undergraduate Biology Education?

The field of immunology is rapidly evolving and has significant relevance to understanding human health, particularly in light of the threat from infectious diseases and the ability to harness the immune system to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases, and allergies. Providing opportunities to explore the field of immunology is relevant to undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers in health professions and biomedical research. There are calls for greater emphasis on interdisciplinary science education at the undergraduate level and the acquisition of transferrable competencies that will prepare undergraduates for success in a range of careers. The study of immunology provides an ideal platform to expose students to interdisciplinary science, both at the foundational and applied level. We describe the organization of an immunology curriculum, development of program learning objectives, selection and mapping of content objectives across courses, and programmatic assessment with the intent to meet calls for reform in undergraduate biology education.

The Visualization and Measurements of Mass Functions with LEGO

Abstract We promote the concept of mass functions for interdisciplinary science education and communication. A mass function characterizes the frequency distribution of the masses of objects in the universe. We present an experiment to demonstrate this concept to a diverse audience of science students, using popular LEGO toys. We discovered that the LEGO mass function is surprisingly similar compared to mass functions of astronomical objects such as stars and galaxies.

Modeling astronomy education, the case of F-HOU tools : SalsaJ and Human Orrery

AbstractThis communication introduces two cases of the use of astronomy as a motivating context to interdisciplinary science education with emphasis on modeling activities. Firstly, a dedicated software, called SalsaJ, allows students to reproduce the same data analysis as made by astronomers. The case of exoplanet detection will be used as an exemple. Secondly, bodies of learners are considered to model movements of planets with a Human Orrery (a Spatio-Temporal Map of the Solar System), connecting thus mathematics, physics, geography and arts.

New directions in socioscientific issues research

The socioscientific issues framework has proven to have a significant impact over the last two decades on many areas related to the development of functional scientific literacy in students. In this article, we summarize and synthesize recent trends in socioscientific issues research that impact both disciplinary and interdisciplinary science education research. These trends represent science-in-context investigations that we propose are advanced by three broad and interrelated areas of research including: 1) Socioscientific Issues and the Central Role of Socioscientific Reasoning; 2) Socioscientific Issues and the Primacy of Socioscientific Perspective Taking; and, 3) Socioscientific Issues and the Importance of Informal and Place-Based Contexts. We discuss the most recent research in those areas and explore the educational significance these new trends.

The old ways are the old ways: Chinese medicine care in Canadian Indigenous communities

In this chapter, the authors argue that the school science classroom should help students deal with complex real-life information about health and disease. They also discuss means by which curriculum and instruction in science education can be tied to these issues. The chapter reviews opportunities and challenges presented to individuals by the expectations of participatory health care, focusing on models of health literacy that can help understand and address the challenges. The authors argue that the problem of ensuring effective information use often lies in a transmission approach to health information provision. Transmitted knowledge is often not understood nor applied, as demonstrated in studies of human papillomavirus vaccination education. An alternative to knowledge transmission is the approach that aims to foster critical literacy, which is grounded in critical thinking essential to the practice of science. The chapter reviews a number of interdisciplinary science education activities that introduce health issues in the context of biology, physics, and chemistry education, ensuring deep understanding needed for developing critical literacy. It also discusses science education approaches and theories that encourage the development of deep, culturally meaningful science knowledge. Finally, the chapter reviews professional development and the role of various professionals, including teachers and librarians, in the collaborative endeavor of effective health information provision.

Contribuições do estágio no Clube de Ciências da UFPA para a produção de sentidos subjetivos sobre interdisciplinaridade

O ensino de ciências interdisciplinar ainda não é frequente em nossas escolas. No Clube de Ciências da Universidade Federal do Pará (CCIUFPA), estagiários de diferentes cursos de graduação trabalham em equipes e tem oportunidades de vivenciar a construção de propostas interdisciplinares. Inspirados na Teoria da Subjetividade de Fernando González Rey, investigamos como as práticas pedagógicas interdisciplinares se configuram subjetivamente para professores de ciências, egressos do CCIUFPA e como eles avaliam a contribuição do referido estágio para suas concepções e práticas interdisciplinares atuais. Apresentamos quatro estudos de caso de professores estagiários, cujas informações foram construídas por meio de diferentes instrumentos. Apesar da singularidade das experiências de cada estagiário, eles consideraram que o estágio no Clube de Ciências da UFPA ampliou seus conhecimentos sobre interdisciplinaridade, ensinou-os a enfrentar e superar dificuldades para realização de projetos interdisciplinares, favoreceu o planejamento e a valorização das atividades em equipe, assim como o reconhecimento da importância da motivação dos sócios mirins, da contextualização dos conteúdos e do diálogo em sala de aula. Os professores avaliaram que as experiências no CCIUFPA contribuíram para a construção de sua prática docente atual, sendo que dois deles relataram realizar, mesmo com dificuldades, o ensino interdisciplinar de ciências na escola

Exploring the Role of Ideology in Interdisciplinary Science Education Policy

Despite its popularity in education studies literature, interdisciplinary science education is mostly considered outside the multitude of social forces that drive education reform. This has contributed to a mythologizing of interdisciplinary science education and lead to assumptions about the necessity of its intervention into science education practice. This research constructs a critical analysis of interdisciplinary science education by exploring a philosophical understanding of the relations between scientific disciplines, investigating discourse about interdisciplinarity in science education policy literature, and provides socioeconomic context for this reform movement. In particular, Louis Althusser's theory of ideology as material force, his conception of the spontaneous philosophy of scientists, and his theses on the ideological nature of interdisciplinary science are foundational to this critique. Althusser's contributions allow for critical reflection on interdisciplinarity and the effects of promoting it throughout scientific enterprise. Viewing interdisciplinary science education through this critical lens allows for demarcating the ideological narratives of reformist discourse from the intended outcomes of reform. This investigation elucidates the intervention of interdisciplinarity as an ideological force governing the reproduction of scientific labor, with intended downstream socioeconomic effects, such as shifting science labor from the public sector to private industry to accommodate for austerity. The conclusions of this analysis advocate for historical materialist methodologies in science education research and critical education studies, while emphasizing the role of ideology in socioeconomic reproduction.

Toward Meaningful Interdisciplinary Education: High School Teachers’ Views of Mathematics and Science Integration

Numerous national initiatives call for interdisciplinary mathematics and science education, but few empirical studies have examined practical considerations for integrated instruction in high school settings. The purpose of this qualitative study was twofold. First, the study sought to describe how and to what extent teachers integrate mathematics and science curricula in their classrooms after having participated in an intervention to promote and support mathematics and science integration. Second, the study was intended to expand our understanding of the barriers to and factors that enable integrated approaches in high school classrooms. The theoretical component of this study builds on and adapts previous models of science and mathematics integration to introduce the Intradisciplinary, Cross‐disciplinary, Mutlidisciplinary, Interdisciplinary (ICMI) framework for identifying and defining classroom integration strategies. Findings include a description of several distinct practices high school teachers related to integrated instruction as well as the trade‐offs teachers considered when making decisions related to integrated curricula. The implications of the findings for researchers and practitioners are discussed. Finally, we propose the conceptualization of “interdisciplinary pedagogical content knowledge” in mathematics and science as an area of focus that will enable teachers to successfully move toward interdisciplinary instruction.

Disciplinary Foundations for Solving Interdisciplinary Scientific Problems

Problem-solving has been one of the major strands in science education research. But much of the problem-solving research has been conducted on discipline-based contexts; little research has been done on how students, especially individuals, solve interdisciplinary problems. To understand how individuals reason about interdisciplinary problems, we conducted an interview study with 16 graduate students coming from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. During the interviews, we asked participants to solve two interdisciplinary science problems on the topic of osmosis. We investigated participants’ problem reasoning processes and probed in their attitudes toward general interdisciplinary approach and specific interdisciplinary problems. Through a careful inductive content analysis of their responses, we studied how disciplinary, cognitive, and affective factors influenced their interdisciplinary problems-solving. We found that participants’ prior discipline-based science learning experiences had both positive and negative influences on their interdisciplinary problem-solving. These influences were embodied in their conceptualization of the interdisciplinary problems, the strategies they used to integrate different disciplinary knowledge, and the attitudes they had toward interdisciplinary approach in general and specific interdisciplinary problems. This study sheds light on interdisciplinary science education by revealing the complex relationship between disciplinary learning and interdisciplinary problem-solving.

GAMTOS MOKSLŲ IR MATEMATIKOS DALYKŲ INTEGRAVIMO GALIMYBĖS TYRINĖJANT VANDENS DRUSKINGUMĄ

Interdisciplinary natural science education relations are developed mostly between biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and information technologies. The teachers have to convey education content, consisting of separate concepts, laws, theories as a harmonious whole, revealing interrelation between the analysed phenomena. Organising natural science teaching in this way, the teaching material is reorganised, systemised. Solving interdisciplinary integration problems, active communication and cooperation is going on between individual natural science teachers. Seeking to generally and newly look at the natural science teaching and learning process, grounded on interdisciplinary relations, interdisciplinary experiments are carried out. Water salinity research has been chosen, because in this topic analysis, rather wide integration possibilities are discerned. Physics teacher together with the pupils would deepen the knowledge of conductivity, electrolytes, electric current in the electrolytes, chemistry teachers – of electrolytic dissociation, solution concentration, mathematics teachers - would remember percent calculation, linear equation analysis, biology teachers – about water salinity effect on the man and on the environment surrounding him. In the article, lesson organisation and research performance methodics is discussed, the essence of practical work is explained, tasks and examples are presented. Several different subject (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics) teachers could participate in the lesson, which could form the conditions not in disintegrated way, but systematically convey the pupils the essence of the analysed phenomenon. Key words: education content, interdisciplinary integration, natural science education, science teachers.

TARPDALYKINIŲ RYŠIŲ PAIEŠKA TYRINĖJANT FOTOSINTEZĖS PROCESĄ

Science education is based on knowledge of natural sciences, such as biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy. One of the main tasks of natural science education – to be able to discover the connection between the natural science subjects, and to understand the nature processes and phenomena. Interdisciplinary science education emphasizes in general programs of basic and secondary education. Educational practice and research shows that not all science subjects’ teachers are equally prepared to use interdisciplinarity in their lessons. This analysis focuses on the searching of interdisciplinary links by experimentally exploring the phenomenon of photosynthesis. The process of photosynthesis was selected as one of the most important phenomena of nature, known and understandable for all students at different levels. In order to reveal and highlight the essential integration links of photosynthesis three stages research (an experimental exploring of photosynthesis, a semi-structured interview survey, graph-tree drawing) was carried out. Graph-tree of photosynthesis revealed as content of physics, chemistry and biology subjects are linked by integrative relations. Quite wide and deep interdisciplinary links of photosynthesis process was discerned: knowledge of each subject needed in order to properly understand and master the process of photosynthesis was shown; the main components of photosynthesis process were excluded and aspects of the development of the concept have been provided. Key words: science education, interdisciplinary relations, the process of photosynthesis, graph-tree.