Publications

Existing Publications

Climate Change Education

Aksela, M., & Tolppanen, S. (2022). Towards Student-Centered Climate Change Education Through Co-design Approach in Science Teacher Education. In Innovative Approaches to Socioscientific Issues and Sustainability Education: Linking Research to Practice (pp. 85-99). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. 

Tytler, R., & White, P. (2023). Contemporary science research and Climate Change Education. In X. Fazio (Ed.)Science Curricula for The Anthropocene: Curriculum Models for our Collective Future – Volume II. Palgrave. 

Socio-scientific Issues

Hsu, Y-S, Tytler, R., & White, P.J. (2022). Innovative Approaches to Socio-Scientific Issues and Sustainability Education – Linking Research to Practice. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-1840-7 

Student Agency & Working with Young People

White, P.J., Ardoin, N.M., Eames, C., & Monroe, M.C. (2023), “Agency in the Anthropocene: Supporting document to the PISA 2025 Science Framework”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 297, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/8d3b6cfa-en.

White, P.J. & Ferguson, J.P. (2021). Ethical research with young people: The politics of youth climate strikers in Australia. In P.J. White, R. Tytler, J. Ferguson, & J. Cripps Clark. (Eds).  
Methodological Approaches to STEM Education Research Volume 2. (Chapter 16, pp. 320-335) Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 

Teacher Agency & Working with Teachers

Representing Scientists’ Practice in Schools

Vamvakas, M., Tytler, R., & White, P. (2023). Translating Contemporary Scientists’ Knowledge and Practice into Classrooms: Scalable design supporting identity work. Frontiers in Education.

Conference Presentations

2023

Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference – Melbourne, Victoria

AARE Conference 2023

Future-focused Science Education by Russell Tytler and Peta White

The major crises associated with the Anthropocene – climate change, mass extinctions, AI and the fourth industrial revolution – pose challenges for education generally, and science education in particular, given the pivotal role science plays in these challenges on both sides; cause and response. This presentation asks the question: how can school science prepare students for these future challenges. We will use our experience on the Science Expert Group for PISA 2025 to identify current global perspectives on the role of science education for the future, unpacking the processes by which new directions were negotiated and represented. In particular, we unpack the support document for the Science Framework; ‘Agency in the Anthropocene’ to highlight a shift in thinking about how to frame science education in ways that acknowledge these uncertain futures. We then draw on examples from a current ARC project focused on ‘Enacting Climate Change Education through representing scientists’ practice’ to investigate how these directions might be operationalised. This Design Based Research is working with scientists and teachers to translate contemporary research focused on climate-related socio-ecological challenges into classroom practices that emphasise scientific epistemic practices, socio-scientific thinking, and student agency. We describe the scope of the project which involves three countries, the different approaches to representing scientific practices, the underpinning pedagogy, the research methods used to generate, then analyse teacher professional learning and student learning outcomes.

Science Teachers Association of Victoria (STAV) Conference 2023 – Melbourne, Victoria

STAV 2023

Future-focused Science Education by Russell Tytler and Peta White

The major crises associated with the Anthropocene – climate change, mass extinctions, AI and the fourth industrial revolution – pose challenges for education generally, and science education in particular, given the pivotal role science plays in these challenges on both sides; cause and response. This presentation asks the question: how can school science prepare students for these future challenges. We will use our experience on the Science Expert Group for PISA 2025 to identify current global perspectives on the role of science education for the future, unpacking the processes by which new directions were negotiated and represented. In particular, we unpack the support document for the Science Framework; ‘Agency in the Anthropocene’ to highlight a shift in thinking about how to frame science education in ways that acknowledge these uncertain futures. We then draw on examples from a current ARC project focused on ‘Enacting Climate Change Education through representing scientists’ practice’ to investigate how these directions might be operationalised. This Design Based Research is working with scientists and teachers to translate contemporary research focused on climate-related socio-ecological challenges into classroom practices that emphasise scientific epistemic practices, socio-scientific thinking, and student agency. We describe the scope of the project which involves three countries, the different approaches to representing scientific practices, the underpinning pedagogy, the research methods used to generate, then analyse teacher professional learning and student learning outcomes.

Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE)  National Conference and Research Symposium – Wollongong, New South Wales

AAEE Conference 2023 | Biennial national Conference 2023 Wollongong

Climate Change Education: Engaging scientists in student learning for agency by Russell Tytler and Peta White

The PISA 2025 Science Framework argues for embedding student agency in learning science to address the socio-ecological challenges of the Anthropocene. This positions environmental education as central to the purposes of a contemporary science education in schools internationally. We will describe the development of this framework and explore its implications for environmental educators across Australia. In this presentation we showcase an approach to science education that draws on contemporary climate science related research. Working collaboratively with scientists, teachers, and students we develop and refine teaching and learning sequences designed to increase students understandings and agency with respect to climate impacts. We will illustrate the approach using two examples: one focussed on alternative energy sources and one on biodiversity.

The Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) Conference 2023  – Cairns, Queensland

https://www.asera.org.au/2023-conference/

Symposium: Science education in the Anthropocene 

by Peta White, Russell Tytler, Joe Ferguson & Hilary Whitehouse

The present ethical challenge for all educators is to address the lived realities of the Anthropocene. This is not easy given that our dominant curriculum structures and pedagogical practices remain embedded within an assumed Holocene ideal of stability. This symposium encourages discussion of the destabilising challenges of the Anthropocene within science education and research. The four presenters will discuss student agency and competencies, responses to the challenges of preparing students for highly disrupted futures, how to reset valuing climate science, the development of international and national climate change education policies and emerging dimensions of educating for and in the Anthropocene. The presentations are designed to inform and encourage productive conversations.

Paper 1: Agency in the Anthropocene: The work of science education by Peta White

The OECD mandated that the Science Framework for PISA 2025 should investigate young people’s (15-year-olds) competence concerning 21st century environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. An expert group was contracted for this task, who defined ‘Agency in the Anthropocene’ positioning socio-ecological challenges as centrally relevant for a futures-focused science education. Student agency (individual and collective) has become crucial to work in climate change education as it can attend to eco-anxiety and generate hopefulness and wellbeing. This presentation will showcase the competencies associated with Agency in the Anthropocene and explore how to enact them through school-based science education. One important strategy involves exploring stakeholder perspectives in climate related socio-ecological challenges. Representing these ideas in teacher education is key to establishing science education practices that attend to the challenges of the Anthropocene and support student agency.

Paper 2: Exploring Science in relation to wider social and educational framings: Education and the Anthropocene by Russell Tytler

What are the challenges of preparing students and society for Anthropocene challenges related to biodiversity loss, climate change, and disrupted work futures and energy systems? The Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in March hosted a workshop – Education and Anthropocene – of key researchers from a range of disciplines to discuss this question. In particular the workshop explored the intersections between multiple disciplines theorising Anthropocene challenges and implications, and an education that would represent a productive way forward. The workshop resulted in multiple outputs including a position statement, papers and books, and social media communications, designed to influence policy at a high level. Scientists’ voices and science and environmental educators were among those leading the discussion, as well as researchers in policy, creative arts, work futures and youth studies, indigenous studies, and social justice. In this session I will report on the key messages coming from the workshop with a particular focus on the implications for science education. At the time of writing I am confident this will generate a new and expanded vision for school science curriculum and practice.

Paper 3: Science education in the Anthropocene: The aesthetics of climate change education in an epoch of uncertainty by Joe Ferguson & Peta White

We carry a responsibility as science educators to enact education to collectively rebalance the relationships, disturbed by human-induced climate change. However, to date, climate change education has not been prioritised in school science at a policy, curricula, classroom and community level, due to an aesthetic at play which may not sufficiently value climate science. This could be due to the impacts of misinformation, a lack of value of climate science in the disciplines, or other factors. We argue, from a pragmatist perspective, that an aesthetic shift is required to include science as part of climate change education as a transdisciplinary endeavour that focuses on addressing socio-scientific issues through student agency. We explore the synergy between science education aesthetics and climate change aesthetics as we advocate for an aesthetics of climate change education. We do so through a process of reflection on and conceptualision of our stories of climate change education. We propose that such an aesthetic should not be considered in isolation but as the basis for the ethics (how we ought to conduct ourselves) and logic (how we ought to think) of young people being with us as a community of inquiry in the Anthropocene.

Paper 4: National responses to international moves: Climate change education policy in Australia by Hilary Whitehouse

The UNESCO centre, the Office for Climate Education (OCE) was created in 2018 at the initiative of La main à la pâte Foundation and the scientific community as an ambitious response to global need. The OCE provides curriculum, pedagogical and implementation leadership for member nations as part of the educational response to the (rapidly worsening) climate crisis. International work provides alignment opportunities for socio-scientific learning in Australia. While Australia has no Commonwealth government policy supporting climate change education, this situation is likely change in the next few years. International initiatives are ramping up, Australia has international obligations, and Australian science and environmental education professional networks are pressuring state and federal governments for pragmatic responses to thermodynamic reality. An update on the ‘state of play’ will form the substance of this presentation.