Science Learning and Sense of Place in Urban Middle School PDF

MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE IN A URBAN MIDDLE SCHOOL ABSTRACT. This paper offers an analysis into low-income, urban middle school children’s sense of place and what and how their sense of place matters in science learning by focusing on the following questions: In what ways is students’ sense of place leveraged in a science classroom? How does the content and context of science class shape how students leverage their sense of place? What learning opportunities emerge when sense of place is leveraged in class? Drawing from an ethnographic investigation into an environmental statistics class in a mid-sized public middle school, we examined sense of place events from their source, process, and outcome perspectives. Our findings are presented from two aspects of sense of place events, (1) characterizing students’ sense of place by exploring sources of the sense of place events, and (2) examining processes of how students’ sense of place is being leveraged in the episodes. We also examine two kinds of tensions that emerge in the class when sense of place is leveraged by students and acknowledged by the teacher: epistemological tensions (related to what the students are learning) and procedural tensions (related to how they are learning). KEY WORDS: sense of place, urban science education, connected science I NTRODUCTION This study is an attempt to understand urban children’s sense of place and how their sense of place matters in a science classroom. This inquiry be- gins with the belief that the process of learning is informed by sense of place. Sense of place can be defined as “a living ecological relationship” between a person and a place (Cobb, 1977). A place does not simply mean a geographical location. We view “place” as a complicated, ecological sys- tem that includes physical, biological, social, cultural, and political factors with history and psychological state of the person who share the location (Gruenewald, 2003b; Lutts, 1985). In recent decades, research on place has proliferated in various academic areas outside of education such as geography, environmental psychology, and urban planning and architec- ture (Derr, 2002; Hart, 1979; Moore, 1986; Pearce, 1977; Relph, 1976). In recent years, the education community also has developed an increased in- terest in place-based education (Gruenewald, 2003a; Olwig, 1982; Smith, 2002; Sobel, 1993, 1996), which has led to various place-based educational approaches for educators (e.g., Bailey and Stegelin, 2003; Kriesberg, 1999; Cultural Studies of Science Education (2006) 1: 107–142 DOI: 10.1007/s11422-005-9002-9 C Springer 2006 108 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON Smith, 2002). However, little research attention has been paid to document- ing and explaining what children’s sense of place is and how it might matter in educational contexts (Gruenewald, 2003a). This gap in the literature led to our realization that a fuller understand- ing of children’s place experience is necessary in designing educational approaches. This inquiry grew out of our desire as urban science educators to be informed and secure about designing and implementing place-based education and to understand how the content and context of the science classroom could enhance children’s potential. The main purpose of this study, therefore, is to understand what a sense of place consists of for ur- ban children and to try to uncover what and how it is that a sense of place matters in science learning. This study focuses on the following questions: In what ways do students leverage a sense of place in the science class- room? How does the content and context of science class shape how students leverage their sense of place? What learning opportunities emerge when sense of place is leveraged in class? T HEORETICAL BACKGROUND Bridging efforts for connected science We begin our theoretical exploration of the importance of sense of place with a personal narrative written by the first author (Miyoun). We begin with this narrative for two intersecting reasons. First, as the forum in this issue points out, sense of place is ever present: not only in the learner in the classroom but also in the researcher and the teacher seeking to understand the process of learning or of teaching. To begin an exploration into sense of place, we believe it is important to work to understand one’s own sense of place, and to make aspects of one’s own sense of place (frozen in time and place) visible in one’s effort to construct new knowledge. Second, we want to raise the primary questions, which are also raised in the forum: How does the complex educational system acknowledge and respond to children’s sense of place or not? And, in what ways might a students’ sense of place bump up against a sense of place (or the lack thereof) imposed by the education system? This is Miyoun’s personal story. I was a second grader, I think. Until this day, I remember this one particular question from my social studies exam not only because I got it wrong which put an end to my perfect SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 109 score winning streak too soon (I was only a second grader) but also or more importantly I felt deep-down that I didn’t get it wrong after all. I can’t remember the exact wording of the question but the general idea was something like this: Question: Choose the types of architecture/building that you CANNOT see in Seoul (choose all that apply). 1. High rise buildings 2. Apartments 3. Slate houses 4. Tile-roofed houses 5. Straw-thatched houses I think I chose #5 for my answer. Unfortunately, the answer was sup- posed to be both #3 and #5. In retrospect, I figure that the political agenda behind this question was to teach children that the city of Seoul (in Korea) had developed so much economically and socially that we could no longer find archaic and/or cheap types of architecture in the city such as straw- thatched house and slate houses. But the point of conflict is that at that time, we still had slate houses in the city, at least the neighborhood where I lived. And as a matter of fact my house was partially slate-roofed at the time. If I had lived in a more affluent neighborhood, would I have gotten the perfect score? Maybe. The story brings out the question. Where are the child and the place of the child in this educational event? The hidden message to Miyoun, the second grader, was that her neighborhood was not supposed to or expected to exist under the political and educational agenda. Her lived experiences in that neighborhood became more than obsolete in her learning at school. What she saw, knew, and learned from her house and neighborhood wouldn’t really matter at school and could even become a barrier sometimes. Prob- ably, this was the first “reality bite” for her. Miyoun learned a bitter lesson about how to be a good student at school: separation of home and school. We doubt that this separation of home and school has only happened to Miyoun and/or in her country. We are afraid that this disconnection between children and school might be a universal phenomenon. We suspect all share similar sense of place stories, some more empower- ing than others; some more damaging than others. It is the lack of attention to our own sense of place in both what was taught to us (i.e., science as an acultural construct) or how it was taught (i.e., teaching in a subject-centered fashion) that drives us to examine the importance of sense of place in classrooms today. Almost half a century ago, Dewey (1956) shared his concern regarding the disconnection between the child and the school. He 110 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON pointed out that schools tend to the importance of the subject matter of the curriculum instead of paying attention to the contents of the child’s own experience. Thus schools often forget or neglect that “the child’s life is an integral, a total one” (Dewey, 1956, p. 5). Children cannot utilize the experiences they have outside of school in any complete and meaningful ways in school if they are not provided with supported opportunities to do so. Since Dewey’s critique, several decades have passed, yet it seems that not much has changed. Many education researchers still identify the dis- continuity or incongruence between the school and students’ everyday ex- perience as a fundamental challenge in education (Bouillion and Gomez, 2001; Calabrese Barton, 2000, 2001; Dewey, 1956; Lee and Fradd, 1998; Rosebery et al., 1992, 2001; Seiler, 2001). Science education is no excep- tion. For instance, National Standards in Science Education points out the importance of students “applying” scientific ideas to the world around them (National Research Council, 1996). Despite the fact that there is wide agreement that “place matters” in science education, we have few models for understanding how students learn to bring a sense of place to bear on their science learning or how they might be best supported in doing so (Calabrese Barton, 2002). We know from studies focused on language acquisition and science learning that it is helpful to build “instructional bridges” between the culture of science and students’ home cultures (Lee and Fradd, 1998). We also know from cur- riculum studies that it is important to build curricular experiences around the “funds of knowledge” students bring to the classroom (Bouillion and Gomez, 2001; Moje et al., 2001; Moll et al., 1992). Further, there are stud- ies that investigate what home-based resources youth draw upon to craft “science practices” in both in school and out of school environments (Cal- abrese Barton, 1998a,b, 2003). Finally, researchers have also proposed to examine students’ “social and cultural capital” to connect students’ every- day social and cultural knowledge and practices with schooling (Coleman, 1987; Elmesky, 2003; Monkman et al., 2005; Seiler, 2001; Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Despite the helpfulness of these studies, we are still challenged to de- velop deeper understandings of how youth seek to bridge school science and their lived-experience outside of school. Furthermore while the social and cultural aspects of students’ lived experiences have been the focus of these previously mentioned studies, less attention has been paid to an eco- logical aspect of students’ lived experience. This study seeks to bring an ecological and holistic perspective into science education by focusing on children’s environment and place and by making children’s sense of place explicit within the context of science education. SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 111 Lifeworlds and sense of place in science education We introduce the construct of lifeworlds as a way to view and explore the connection between school science and students’ lived experiences outside of school from an ecological and contextualized perspective. Lifeworld represents the ideal that a set of lived experiences is the core of each being. And because lifeworlds serve as everything in one’s experience, they also serve as the framework used to make sense of new experiences (Habermas, 1984, p. 131). These new experiences then filter back into and become part of one’s lifeworld. Lifeworlds are situated personally, historically, materially, politically, socially, and ecologically. The situated nature of experience leads to both “embodiment” and “embedded” relationships between human beings, their resources, perceptions, and environment. Experience – even individual ex- perience – never transpires within a social vacuum. Thus, lifeworlds em- body the multiple histories that give rise to experience and the interpre- tation of experience as well as the contexts that informed and helped to create those histories. According to Roth and McRobbie (1999), science and technology curriculum research from a lifeworld perspective is based on “embedded” relationships between human beings and their environment that are recognized as situationally conditional, and responsive to the kinds of social and material resources available from moment to moment. The importance of situationally contextual understandings is the primary rea- son why lifeworld has become critical in some nursing circles (Dahiberg, 1997; Walters, 1995). For example, Dahiberg (1997) expresses the impor- tance for the nurse to have a sense of patients’ whole contextual beings in order to promote awareness and wellness. Finally, lifeworlds provide organization and structure to individual and social understanding. This third point regarding organization and structure ties together the first two points about the “whole of experience” and the “embedded” nature of experience. Lifeworlds are often described as “a medium of reference” (Fairtlough, 1991), “shared linguistic and cultural resources” (Habermas, 1994) or “collective consciousness” (Durkheim, cited in Fairtlough, 1991). If we accept the social constructivist argument that experience is mediated socially through language and culture, then we can also think about lifeworld, or the whole of life-experiences, as being made up of a shared culture and language shared by a meaningful col- lection of individuals, such as a community of scientists, or learners, or teachers. In other words, lifeworlds are lenses for both the individual world and the shared social world. Here, the ideal of lifeworld takes on both an individual and a social dimension. Individuals are socialized through role playing, role projection and role definition within lifeworld knowledge. 112 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON We learn to engage as individuals in interpersonal relations that are or- dered in such a way as to make society function effectively (Fairtlough, 1991). A framework for understanding sense of place in urban science education Sense of place and lifeworlds In science classrooms, students’ lifeworlds are reflected in many ways. Although lifeworlds provide comprehensive, holistic and contextualized frames (and backgrounds) of students’ lived experiences, lifeworlds them- selves do not fully capture or address the dialectical relationship between students and their lifeworlds or the meanings that students construct out of their place experiences. A sense of place emerges from one’s lifeworld. In other words, lifeworlds provide the social, geopolitical historical and ecological contexts which give rise to one’s sense of place. Focusing on students’ sense of place helps us to understand how students appropri- ate their lifeworlds in order to build an ecological relationship with their place. Students appropriate their lifeworlds in particular ways as they craft their sense of place. To make sense of how they do so, we have drawn upon Relph’s (1976) conceptualization of the three components of the identity of place: the physical settings, human activities, and human psychologi- cal processes or meanings rooted in the place (see also, Brandenburg and Carroll, 1995; Stedman, 2002). These three components individually make clear the distinctive characteristics of a place. Yet, at the same time, the dialectic relationship among the three components constitutes the identity of that place. For example, when a place interacts with a person, the place develops its own unique and living meaning and the person develops a unique and living sense of the place. We live in an ecologically interdependent world and an “environmental experience is a function of diversity and access which is controlled by a variety of social, cultural and physical factors” (Moore, 1986). All these environmental factors interact with each other and also with the person in a complex ecological system. Thus, a framework for thinking about stu- dents’ sense of place involves the dialectical relationship between students and the environment (Graumann, 2002; Moore, 1986). The framework we developed for our exploration, therefore, focuses on how students appro- priate their lifeworlds from the three component view: (1) how do students perceive and re-present their physically settings of their place, (2) what activities are students engaged in, and (3) what meanings do students con- struct regarding their place(s). SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 113 Why focus on sense of place? Although place has been a popular topic of inquiry in diverse disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, architecture and urban-planning, it has not been a part of education discourse until recent years (Gruenewald, 2003a). As Sanger (1998) reports, standard school practices “teach stu- dents that their relationship with their place is marginal, uninteresting, and unimportant and the quality of the environment demonstrates this marginal- ization” (p. 5). Gruenewald (2003a) similarly critiques the current western education system for its disproportionate emphasis on accountability and standardization, leaving little room for diversification of educational con- cerns or discourses including a concern for a sense of place. For example, today’s education follows an “anywhere and anytime” general approach by establishing national (if not globalized) standards and subsequently devel- oping curricula which can be applicable anywhere and anytime (Arenas, 1999; Pinar, 1991; Smith, 2002). Gruenewald (2003a) argues that the idea of focusing on and including local places and their attributes in education is radical “because current educational discourses seek to standardize the experience of students from diverse geographical and cultural places so that they may compete in the global economy. Such a goal essentially dis- misses the idea of place as a primary experiential or educational context, displaces it with traditional disciplinary content and technological skills, and abandons place to the workings of the global market” (p. 7). Arenas (1999) also points out that the current education system which is based on standardization and universalization disregards local histories, knowledge, stories, and languages in favor of the powerful national ones. Therefore, the importance and values of learning local knowledge and skills have been nearly eliminated in the current education system. There are many examples that address the dangers of marginalizing the role of place in education (Bowers, 1998; Gruenewald, 2003a, 2004; Sanger, 1996; Sobel, 1996). As pointed out earlier, several studies have shown that utilizing student’s social and cultural experiences promotes en- gagement in science among urban youth (Calabrese Barton, 2003; Elmesky, 2003; Seiler, 2001). Hammond (2001) offers a particularly compelling ex- ample. In her research with Hmong-American families, she shows us how family members whose cultural practices were once understood as different from school knowledge at best, and scientifically wrong or detrimental at worst, have helped to transform an elementary science curriculum when that curriculum critically emerged from their lived experiences. The result was that students and their family members were much more highly involved in school science. From an international perspective Thomson (2003), like- wise demonstrates how the centralized and standardized national education 114 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON policy has damaged a sense of place education in Kenya. Thomson, a sci- ence educator in Kenya, has argued that since the beginning of European influence and control of the education system through colonial exploita- tion, indigenous African knowledge in natural science and mathematics in Kenya has been ignored, underestimated, depreciated and held in contempt. National standardized curricula and tests that are insensitive to local knowl- edge have desensitized students’ knowledge and value of their immediate local environment. In short, science education has deprioritized the importance of place to accommodate the push towards standardization and universalization of “what” students need to know and how they can best demonstrate that knowledge (Sanger, 1998). The result is that that whether a child lives in a rain forest in South America, in a hardwood forest in North America, in an island in Japan, or in West Harlem in Manhattan, children tend to get similar education which stereotypes places e.g. pollution in urban environment, deforestation in rainforest ecosystems and endangered species in Africa. In many cases, education seems to have lost its intimate and unique connection with the local community (Sobel, 1996). “Here and now” seem to hardly matter in science education. However, because place has been silenced in the current education cli- mate does not mean that children’s sense of place is absent in classrooms. Since children’s sense of place is an important part of children’s identity affecting who they are and how they learn, it would be logical to expect that children leverage their sense of place when they learn at school. The point of the question is then, in what ways does a sense of place play a role in a child’s science learning. RESEARCH DESIGN The research, informed by ethnographic approaches, explores urban chil- dren’s use of their sense of place in a classroom. This study was conducted with urban middle school students (6–8th graders) at the Union school. The Union is a public, neighborhood, urban middle school located in New York City. Students at Union are mostly racial minorities, the profile being Latina/o (50%), African Americans (44%) and Asian and others (2%) with 4% of White students. About 70% of students are eligible for free lunch. Mr. Nader’s (the collaborating teacher) interests in our research topic and also his prior experiences with the university through several projects and partnerships have facilitated the development of our collaboration. Our study took place in Mr. Nader’s two environmental statistics classes which consisted of mixed graders from 6 through 8. The classes met once a SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 115 week over the spring semester, 2004. This study focuses on two units from the class; a pigeon study unit and a playground study unit (Table I). Methods of data generation included interviews, mapping, autophotog- raphy, content-based think-alouds, participant observation, and the collec- tion of students’ work from class. Data generation and analysis was an iterative process. Interview transcripts, field notes, and collected artifacts underwent a dual coding process. Data analysis began by reviewing class- room data and selecting and summarizing sense of place events. Sense of place events refer to the episodes or stories that were selected from classroom data (e.g. field notes, video-taped sessions, and think-alouds) by researchers and that were considered to present or concern students’ sense of place. To operationalize our three component sense of place in our data, we asked the following analytic questions, consistent with our framework: First, how do students perceive and re-present the physical settings of their place? In other words, how do urban children see their neighborhood? What elements do they selectively draw upon in describing their neighbor- hoods? Second, what activities are students engaged in? Sense of place comes from and through lived experiences in a place. Thus, we were in- terested in: What do children do in their environment? When children are beyond the home and school, what do they do? Where do they go? And whom do they go with? Third, what meanings do students construct regard- ing their place(s). For meanings, we were interested in, what do children think and feel about their environment? This line of analysis is important because some children express positive feelings about and satisfaction with their neighborhood more strongly than others. Some children reveal neg- ative feelings, worries and concerns toward the neighborhood more than others. Some children exhibit relatively larger activity range1 than others. Some have a long history with the place compared to others. Although their sense of place exhibits varying degrees and contents, children tend to de- velop a natural attachment to their environment through place experiences. Thus, data were closed-coded using our framework and themes from the literature and were also open-coded to identify other emergent concepts and categories. A constant comparison strategy was employed to clarify and facilitate the categorization of cases and episodes. After identifying those episodes, the analysis relied on a holistic process approach. Each sense of place episode was analyzed holistically and exhaustively using a holistic process analysis approach, examining sense of place events from their source, process, and outcome perspectives (Figure 1). We examined the sources of students’ sense of place and attempted to define characteristics of sense of place. We explored the process to understand who identifies sense of place as relevant to science class and what the purposes and intentions of 116 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON TABLE I Summaries of class activities of the science units in Mr. Nader’s class The Pigeon Study: The goal of pigeon study unit was to learn to recognize the different color morphs of pigeons. It required about 3 class sessions involving a field trip to observe a pigeon population in the school neighborhood. Part 1. Pigeon KWL chart The class completed “what we know about pigeons” and the “what we want to know about pigeons” columns and discussed the columns together. Part 2. Pigeon watching During the field trip, the class found a pigeon “hang out” in the school neighborhood and observed pigeons for several minutes. In class, students were asked to make detailed drawings of pigeons. Part 3. Pigeon statistics During the field trip, the class provided pigeons with food (bread) to attract them. Then, the students counted and recorded all the pigeons by their morphs and feet colors. In class, students made a graph of the pigeon data and analyzed them. In class, the class completed KWL chart by filling out “what we have learned” column. The Playground Study: The playground study unit was designed for a longer period of time (about 10 sessions). It began with an evaluation of playgrounds in the neighborhood, the students developing a design for their own playground and finally the students building a model playground. Due to time constraints, students weren’t able to finish building playground models and present their final products to the class. Part 1. Evaluating local Students studied and evaluated a couple of local playgrounds (2 sessions) playgrounds in the school neighborhood (for details of the evaluation activity, see appendix, the worksheet that students worked with). Part 2. Designing a playground Choosing company name and slogan: Students were (4–6 sessions) asked to imagine they were members of a playground building company. Students in groups chose a company name that reflected who they were. They also decided a company slogan and logo that reflected the group and the group’s goal. Students in groups designed their advertisement that included their company name and slogan. The class reviewed various criteria that make a good playground e.g. how to make it fun, safe and aesthetically pleasing. The class brainstormed various elements of a playground in terms of what kinds of materials were used and what shapes they were. Then students in groups designed and drew a blueprint of their own playground. (Continued on next page) SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 117 TABLE I (Continued) Part 3. Building a playground Students decided what kinds of materials they could model (2–3 sessions) use for their own playground model. Students calculated a budget for the construction of their playground model. Students built their playground model based on their design plan. Figure 1. A holistic process analysis approach of leveraging sense of place. the identification are. Also we examined the actual process of the events to examine in what ways it is leveraged in class. Finally we tried to understand outcomes and meanings of the events. FINDINGS We present our findings from two aspects of sense of place events, (1) characterizing students’ sense of place by exploring what sense of place is being leveraged, and (2) examining processes of how students’ sense of place is being leveraged in the episodes. In addressing these two aspects, we talk about how these two aspects relate to the meanings of the events and the implications this has for both teachers and students. Characteristics of sense of place that is leveraged in the class The first part of our investigation was to explore characteristics of students’ sense of place leveraged in science class. Students’ sense of place is what comes from and through students’ lived experiences or lifeworlds. Our data reveal that students expressed a sense of place in science class along four important dimensions: (1) a mix of the cognitive with the affect, (2) drawn from several sources, (3) operationalized interdimensionally, and (4) contextualized in ways that made it both subjective and personal. In 118 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON TABLE II Pigeon KWL chart by Mr. Nader’s class What we know What we learned about pigeons (K) What we want to know (W) about pigeons (L) All pigeons are alike Do pigeons carry diseases? Follow each other Rats with wings Where do they come from? Many types or morphs They are dirty How many times they eat? Majorities are bluebars and checkers Eat leftovers Why do they like They get along together although Grains or rice? they are different types Tend to fly in groups Do they carry encephalitis? Pigeons don’t attack disease in brain? (not aggressive) They are ugly Do they eat other pigeons? They fly fast. (maybe they) Carry How often do they mate? diseases like Rabies what follows we draw upon examples from the class to explain each one of these characteristics. Mixed cognition and affect During the pigeon study, the class created a KWL chart in Mr. Nader’s class. In general a KWL chart is a simple yet powerful tool when educators try to understand what goes on in students’ minds. The KWL chart devel- oped by Mr. Nader’s class (see Table II) provides insight into the students’ sense of place and how it connects to what they know and think about pigeons. The KWL chart points to how students’ sense of place combines their cognition with their affect. The “what we know” and “what we want to know” columns show that students’ sense of place revealed not only their knowledge about pigeons (e.g. they tend to fly in groups) but also strong af- fect toward pigeons. The columns show how students’ feelings and attitudes towards pigeons were rather negative (e.g. they are ugly; they are dirty; they are rats with wings; and they might carry diseases). While these columns reflect students’ everyday perceptions and understanding of pigeons, the “what we have learned” column reflects what and how the class studied pigeons. The column reflects the scientific ways of thinking and learning promoted and practiced in Mr. Nader’s class. Contents of the column are observational (e.g., they fly fast; they are not aggressive) and factual (e.g., majorities are bluebars and checkers) information without involving or re- vealing the students’ feelings or attitudes toward pigeons. By reviewing contents of the KWL chart, we believe that we can see that students’ sense of place leveraged in the class refers not only to what they knew about their SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 119 neighborhood but also what they did and what they felt and thought. Thus, sense of place leveraged in class included affective components such as students’ perceptions, feelings, and judgments as well as cognitive com- ponents. What is interesting to us is that our interview data tell us that students’ descriptions of their feelings and attitudes toward pigeons stayed the same after the pigeon study unit. We believe this is because only the cognitive dimension was taken up in class. This is a point we return to later when we discuss the pedagogical tensions that emerge when teachers consider students’ sense of place. Multiple dimensions of sense of place Our data also suggest that students’ sense of place came from diverse sources and dimensions of their lifeworlds. Whereas in school science, students are often guided to rely on and use observational, evidence-based, and objective information, students’ sense of place shows that students uti- lize various sources and dimensions of knowledge. For example, having lived in a neighborhood, students have developed a multidimensional sense of place including geographical (e.g. location of playgrounds in their neigh- borhood), biological (e.g. where they could easily find a flock of pigeons in their neighborhood), historical (e.g. history of neighborhood playgrounds; when they were built and how they have been renovated), socio-cultural (e.g. where they can find “good” playgrounds in the neighborhood) and po- litical (e.g. understanding and opinions of sociopolitical system affecting their neighborhood; how their playgrounds are poorly resourced comparing to ones in richer neighborhoods) understandings of their neighborhood. The KWL chart used in the pigeon study also shows that students’ sense of place utilizes both direct and indirect or secondary sources for their information in their everyday context as shown in the “what we know” and “what we want to know” columns. Information in the “what we have learned” column is mostly based on what they have observed during their field trip or what their teacher has told them in class. As is seen in the “what we know” and “what we want to know” columns, students drew not only on their personal direct experiences in and of places, but also from indirect secondary sources (e.g. “my mom said...”, and “someone told me...”). Also, sense of place that students utilized reveals how they, as members of social or cultural groups, viewed and valued their environment and ele- ments of it. Many of the students presented a rather negative affect towards pigeons when the class was developing the KWL chart, stating such things as “rats with wings”, “it eats leftovers” and “they carry diseases”, which reflects the view of the social and cultural group where the students belong. Although the sources of these statements are not identifiable, this kind of hearsay seems to reveal general perceptions that not only the children hold 120 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON but also to reflect the perceptions that people in the city may hold towards pigeons. Interdisciplinary Students operate their sense of place interdimensionally. Following is an example of how a student operates one’s sense of place interdisciplinarily in the class. After analyzing and discussing data the students collected from a field trip to observe pigeon morphology and behavior, the class was wrapping up the pigeon unit. The teacher was about to sum up what they did the previous week when they had developed the KWL chart and then graphed the number of pigeons in terms of their morphs. Mr. Nader just started to talk about organizational tools and use of graphic organizers, “One of the tools we used...” but he did not get to complete his sentence because he was interrupted by Andre. Andre did not even raise his hand. Evidently Mr. Nader did not call on him. Out of blue, he threw a question to Mr. Nader and to the class, “Can pigeons be racists?” “What?”, Mr. Nader did not hear him the first time. “Can pigeons be racists?” Andre repeated his question. Andre’s questioning led to a whole class discussion which is described in more detail later in this paper. This example demonstrates how Andre attempted to navigate between dimensions of his sense of place to make sense of learning in class. Andre’s question reveals how he leveraged his sense of place – his understanding of the social phenomenon of racism to make sense of what he had observed previously in science class that is pigeon polymorphism. To make sense of his observation, he imposed what he observed (directly and/or indirectly) in society to what he observed among pigeon populations. Andre’s use of anthropomorphization as a sense making strategy shows how he con- ceptually navigated between boundaries and academic disciplines (social studies and science). It shows how Andre leveraged his sense of place blur- ring boundaries and moving between dimensions of place (social, cultural, and biological) to understand what he had observed in science class. When students were studying pigeons in Mr. Nader’s class, the focus of the curriculum was to study the biology of pigeons: to learn about diversity of pigeon morphology and their behavior. Conventionally speaking science learning of environment and ecosystem is likely to involve and focus on (thus be limited to) biological and geographical dimensions of a place. Al- though the focus of the lesson was on biology, students’ sense of place lever- aged during science learning of pigeons was not limited to biology. Students may cross the conventional boundaries of academic disciplines and lever- age their sense of place interdimensionally to make sense of what they learn in science class, as we learned from Andre’s questioning regarding racism. SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 121 Contextualized Students’ sense of place is highly contextual. For example, at the beginning of the playground unit described earlier, students were asked to evaluate a playground in terms of how fun it is and how safe it is. Then they were asked to give an overall rating of the playground. The worksheet accompa- nying this task asked the students to “Fill in the following chart about the different elements found in this playground. To find the ratings, try out the different elements” (See Appendix for a summary of the worksheet). The pedagogical goal for this activity, according to Mr. Nader, was to develop an objective understanding and perspective of what a good playground is, as if students were playground designers and engineers. However, at first, many of the students were confused when the task was given and did not understand the intention of the task. Instructions were not clear about how to carry out the task in terms of “what” perspective to employ. Both ratings of safety and fun could vary depending on who’s using the playground. Many of the students quickly decided and approached the task with their own personal everyday sense of place. They rated the playground as if they were using it. They employed a teenage playground user’s perspective as opposed to a playground designer’s perspective. For example, following is a part of conversation with Andre about what happened at the playground right after he finished up his evaluation. Interviewer: What’s the overall rating for this playground? Andre: Four Interviewer: Four out of ten? Andre: Yeh Interviewer: Why? Andre: Cause it’s not that good. Cause cause it’s supposed for small people. Interviewer: Oh it’s for small people. Andre: Cause.. uh.... I’d like to have a basketball court. It’s small. Andre’s explanation for his rating did not show his understanding or consideration of the pedagogical goal behind the curricular design. To Andre a good playground was what was good for him. The playground under evaluation was not a good one, according to Andre, since it was for small children, not for him. Andre rated the playground as if it were for himself and his rating of 4 out of a possible 10 was based on his subjective sense of place of what was a good playground for him. However, interestingly enough, the playground study unit was designed to utilize this subjective contextualized students’ sense of place to lead to 122 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON meaningful and connected science learning. For example, as the unit pro- gressed, by providing students with conceptual scaffolding such as guiding them to think about various purposes that a playground serves and multiple age groups of users of a playground, the unit provided opportunities for students’ subjective perspectives to expand and transform into more ob- jective perspectives on their neighborhood playground. Following is a part of a conversation with Jameer after completing the playground evaluation activities. Jameer: How did I evaluate it? Interviewer: Right. You guys used the safety rating. Jameer: Oh! Because when I went on them I could see. Like when we had to write the list of things. To me was it fun what I was doing or was it boring or safety was it safe to me or I thought about it this wouldn’t be safe for little kids because if it’s not safe for me it’s definitely not safe for the little kids. Interviewer: So you guys ranked how fun it is and how safe it is. Is there anything else you guys evaluated? Jameer: Yeah, we did this one where you had to write one to four years old what type of things they should be on; and I don’t think a one year old should be on some monkey bars because the monkey bars are high off the ground. Jameer carried out the task of evaluation with an approach that mixed subjective and objective elements. Partly she employed her subjective per- spective to conduct the evaluation. For the fun rating she inquired, “to me, was it fun what I was doing or was it boring?” As the task progressed, Jameer expanded her understanding and perspective by adding another person’s perspective, a little kid’s perspective. We believe that Jameer was trying to expand her understanding by adding and connecting another (a little kid’s) subjectivity to her own subjectivity: if the playground was not safe for Jameer, then it would be definitely not safe for little children. Although developing a more objective understanding of what is a good playground i.e. a playground designer’s perspective, was a pedagogical goal for the unit, students’ subjective understanding of playground i.e., a user’s perspective, was not dismissed as wrong or trivial. Rather students’ subjec- tive perspectives were used as a basis to further and foster their learning of a more objective perspective. This objective designer’s perspective was not simply imposed on students pushing them to abandon their subjectivity and to adopt this objective perspective. Rather this objective perspective was SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 123 suggested as an accumulation of multiple subjectivities; something that one could gain by thoughtfully considering and combining multiple subjectivi- ties. Students were guided by Mr. Nader to develop a playground designer’s comprehensive and a more objective understanding of what makes a good playground by understanding diverse playground user’s perspectives. And this learning process begins with and is based on their own subjective and contextualized understanding and evaluation of a playground. Leveraging sense of place We approach understanding of how students leverage their sense of place towards science learning focusing on two aspects of sense of place events: identification and activation of one’s sense of place. Leveraging sense of place during science learning in class seems to happen when someone recognizes and identifies a student’s sense of place as relevant and/or useful to be brought into the specific context of science learning. We therefore, have explored who is identifying and initiating sense of place events and what is the purpose/intention of the identification. Once sense of place is identified, it then needs to be utilized within the specific context of learning in class. Thus we have explored this activation process: What happens in the sense of place events? In what ways is sense of place activated? Both issues are taken up below. Identifying a sense of place Students’ sense of place, in order to be utilized in science teaching and learning, first needs to be recognized and identified as relevant and appro- priate in a given classroom context. This identification could be initiated by various parties involved in science teaching and learning in a classroom (e.g. science teachers, students, and science curriculum developers). In our study, the teacher, Mr. Nader and the students in his class are the main parties that identified students’ sense of place, since Mr. Nader is the one who also has developed the science curriculum with a group of teachers at the Union school. What would be the purpose of identifying a sense of place? We frame our discussion by reflecting on intentions for sense of place identification of the teacher and the students. From the teacher’s perspective, his primary intention or purpose for identifying students’ sense of place was to use it as a way to provide stu- dents with engaging science learning opportunities. Mr. Nader’s intentions of identifying and integrating students’ sense of place into his class operated mainly in two ways: by incorporating students’ sense of place into design of curriculum (e.g. choosing pigeons and neighborhood playgrounds as top- ics of study; designing class activities around the topics such as the pigeon 124 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON KWL chart and playground survey) and by introducing examples that are related to students’ sense of place (e.g. “have you seen the pigeon popula- tions near the Cathedral?”; “have you seen the bats in the Central park?”). These identifications were based on Mr. Nader’s understanding of his stu- dents’ sense of place therefore they were based on assumed connections between students’ sense of place and science learning. From the students’ perspective, one of the main purposes for identifying their sense of place in science class was to respond to activities and tasks in their science class in ways that were meaningful and relevant to them. For instance, students identified their sense of place when the teacher (through use of examples or curricular design) presented explicit opportunities to do so. For example, this was the case when Mr. Nader elicited student stories about what the students already knew about pigeons in the making of the pigeon KWL chart. Another example was when the students were asked to produce written directions for how to get to the playground from the Union school. Students identified their sense of place i.e. their knowledge of the geographical location of the playground, and generated a step by step direction of how to get there. However, we also found that students identified their sense of place not only in the responsive and reactive way described above but also in a rather active way, when they sought or created opportunities to make their sense of place “an issue” in science class when it was not explicitly elicited. We are primarily interested in understanding the intentions students have behind these active and voluntary contributions because they provide in- sight into students’ sense of place that might not be easily recognized by teachers. Below, we present two exemplars from the playground study unit in order to offer insight into the intentions that guide why and how students actively and voluntarily leverage their sense of place in science learning. Exemplar 1: Babysitter knowledge. At the beginning of the playground unit, students in Mr. Nader’s class conducted surveys of a couple of play- grounds in the school neighborhood. The task was to evaluate playgrounds to determine whether they were good or not. Students were asked to conduct the playground evaluation based on worksheets which posed 15 questions to be answered and filled out by students during the activity (see Appendix). It was the first playground visit for Jameer’s class. The whole class was walking toward a neighborhood park that was only two blocks away from the school. The park was narrow and elongated in shape and housed several playgrounds in it. Mr. Nader had a certain playground in mind to which he brought his other classes for the same activity. The class has arrived at the park and students gathered around Mr. Nader to find out which direction SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 125 to take. He was guiding the class toward north. Then, Jameer spoke up to suggest going south instead. “Mr. Nader! Why do we go there? The one down there is nicer and closer.” “What?... OK!”, Mr. Nader took on her suggestion without much hesitation. Mr. Nader changed the direction for the class and guided students into the other direction. The class ended up going south and used the playground that Jameer recommended. Jameer lived in the neighborhood for nearly her entire life. She was especially knowledgeable about playgrounds in her neighborhood. She grew up with many babysitters herself since both her parents have worked. And now she’s 13 years old and she frequently babysits, taking children to neighborhood playgrounds. When she learned of the teacher’s decision, her view was that the choice of the playground was not optimal given her sense of place. She initiated the process of leveraging her sense of place by making a suggestion to the teacher for changing the playground under investigation. Jameer’s action was more than participating in class activity reactively. When her sense of place conflicted with what was about to happen to her class – or in other words when her sense of place was challenged by the teacher’s decision – she initiated a classroom response that “tended” to or cultivated her sense of place. Her leveraging of her sense of place not only helped her tend her sense of place but also shaped the learning of the entire class with going to a “nicer and closer” playground. Exemplar 2: “I’m too old for it”. When the class arrived at the playground that Jameer suggested, students began conducting their evaluation follow- ing the questions in the worksheets. To rate the elements or equipment in the playground, students were asked to try them out. For the most part, students appeared to be having fun trying out swings, slides, and monkey bars and running around like small kids. This is one reason why Luis stood out. Luis was standing alone outside of the metal fence of the playground. He was not even inside of the playground. Sometimes he wrote on his worksheet, but most of the time he simply stared at his classmates without being engaged in any physical activity with them. When asked why he was not testing out the equipment, he responded that he thought it was inappro- priate for him to participate in the activity. He believed he was too old to try those elements out in that playground. Luis was a quiet yet hardworking student in his class. He rarely spoke up or asked questions in class. But when questions were asked or tasks were given, he worked hard to answer them and participate in them. We believe that his seemingly non-participatory behavior was actually his determina- tion to tend his sense of place, behaving in what is appropriate for him according to his place identity. When his sense of place was challenged, he 126 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON chose to tend his sense of place instead of participating in class activities in teacher-sanctioned ways. Looking at examples from the class we can develop a better understand- ing of students’ intentions for leveraging their sense of place in science class. To begin with, students’ sense of place was present not in a pas- sive, reactive way, but in an active and participatory way. Students in Mr. Nader’s class appeared to leverage their sense of place time and time again to make sense of what went on in their science lessons. As we find from the stories of Andre’s questioning and Jameer’s suggestion, their actions were clearly actively identifying and tending their sense of place. Even Luis’ non-participatory behavior was an active identification of his sense of place, although his activation of sense of place was passive and non communicative, a point we return to later. Furthermore our observations suggest that students’ intentions for lever- aging their sense of place were deeper than simply to respond to science class. When their sense of place was challenged in the class, they ap- peared to initiate their actions to “take care” of their sense of place vol- untarily. As can be observed in Luis’ story, when his sense of place was challenged, he rather chose to maintain his place identity than to partic- ipate in the class activity. So “taking care” of their sense of place is an important purpose for students to identify their sense of place in science class. Activating sense of place In this section, we examine the ways in which students’ sense of place is leveraged in the class. Our data suggest that how sense of place is leveraged plays a critical role for these sense of place events to become meaning- ful and beneficial to science learning and teaching. The previous section demonstrated that the students identified their sense of place when oppor- tunities to leverage their sense of place were presented, either explicitly or implicitly. We believe it is important to understand not only why stu- dents’ sense of place is leveraged but also the process of activation in order to fully understand the relationship between sense of place and science learning. Below we examine how the students and the teacher in the class participate in the activation process to lead to meaningful science learning opportunities. Making sense of place public. The stories of Jameer and Luis presented earlier point to the importance of making their sense of place public. Dif- ferent choices of activation strategies led to quite different results in these classroom events. When Jameer was not satisfied with the teacher’s choice of a playground to investigate, she decided to make a suggestion to the SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 127 teacher and acted accordingly. Jameer’s story shows how she actively communicated her sense of place which led to a better and more con- venient learning opportunity for her and her class mates by investigating a “nicer and closer” playground. On the other hand, when Luis faced a conflict between his place identity and science class, i.e. Luis feeling it was inappropriate to try out the equipment in the playground, he kept the conflict to himself and chose not to communicate it. Luis could have ac- tivated his sense of place by raising his concern or conflict to the teacher and the class. Especially considering that most of his classmates were hav- ing similar thoughts about the playground (that it is for younger children) and feeling confused about the evaluation task (whether to evaluate it as if they are using the playground or as if there were small children using it), if he had brought up his concern, the class could have discussed and resolved the issues and confusion together. However Luis and his class missed the opportunity to benefit from this questioning. His passive and non-communicative activation of his sense of place kept him and his class from a potential learning opportunity. In these two examples of activation, we observed that both Jameer and Luis “took care” of their sense of place when it was challenged by class design. However the different activation strategies between them (making one’s sense of place public vs. tending one’s sense of place silently) led to different science learning opportunities not only at a personal level but also at a community level. By making her sense of place public, Jameer provided an improved learning opportunity for herself and her classmates while by keeping it to himself, Luis missed out on an opportunity to fully engage in science activity. These two stories point out the importance of making a sense of place public in class. Building a community of learners. Andre’s questioning, “can pigeons be racists?” shows another example of how his sense of place be- came public and has developed into interesting learning opportuni- ties in this class through a class discussion. Following is a tran- script of what happened right after Andre posed the question, “can pigeons be racists?” His question led to a whole class discussion. Mr. Nader: Ah.. That is a big question... I mean what is racism? Students: (several students talking simultaneously, inaudible) Mr. Nader: Yeh. Humans do that. Right. Do you think that they judge each other by color? Students: (several students talking simultaneously) Yep! I think so. Mr. Nader: The same way that humans do? 128 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON Students: (several students talking simultaneously) Yes, I think so. Mr. Nader: Wait. Christina has her hands up. Let’s hear from her. Student: I actually do. Mr. Nader: Christina... Christina: I think probably yes the different kinds of pigeons...(inaudible) Their own group that’s the same... they look after for one another. Fred: It’s like a wolf pack. Mr. Nader: Very good point. Why don’t you raise your hand... so I can call on you. Fred? Fred: (inaudible) Mr. Nader: OK! Paul? Paul: I don’t think they are racist. pigeons are racists.. they all Jason: Racist? Paul: (inaudible) Jason: That’s racist? Mr. Nader: He says that he doesn’t think they are racists to each other. Paul: They all fly together..(inaudible)... all types of birds together.. Mr. Nader: You didn’t see them segregating each other. OK Anyone else want to say something? Anyway... just as a side comment, do you know what anniversary is now? [And he talks about Brown vs. Board of Education anniversary] Mr. Nader: OK. (see Fred’s hand is up) Are you gonna comment on pigeon question? Fred: Yeh Mr. Nader: Go ahead. Fred: Like.. If they are racism... like the.. which pigeon has the most money or stuff.. Students: (Laughing) Fred: Like who got the most stuff... This episode of class discussion captures interactions among mem- bers of this community of science learning in Mr. Nader’s class. Andre’s personal sense making effort became a community inquiry inviting and engaging many students in this sense making process. By making his question public, Andre provided interesting learning opportunities for his SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 129 classmates. It seems that the question itself was stimulating enough to open up a learning opportunity of the whole class conversation. Students were developing their discussion building on and responding to each other’s ideas. At first, many students in the class quickly responded with “yes” to Andre’s question. This answer was not based on their observa- tion or any kind of evidence regarding pigeon behavior. Rather they simply assumed pigeons could be “racists” like human beings, as Christina’s an- swer hints, “I think probably yes.” However, Paul brought the students’ attention back to what they have observed during their pigeon field trip. During the field trip they observed that all different morphs of pigeons were gathered together. They did not see any segregating behavior among the different morphs. Andre’s questioning brought up an opportunity for the class to revisit and review what they have observed and to re-think about meanings in a new way. In addition, it appears that Andre’s sense making heuristic (applying a phenomenon/characteristic in a human society to a pigeon population) was presented and shared with the class as well. Toward the end of this discussion, we observed that Fred was trying to formulate a question using a similar strategy as well. In sum, when Andre’s sense of place was leveraged through questioning, it not only helped Andre’s personal sense making but also benefited the whole class with an engaging learning opportunity. Also the event contributed to the learning of the community in two aspects: with the content of the question and Andre’s sense making strategy. Nurturing responsive and flexible science learning environment. For stu- dents’ sense of place to be successfully leveraged and lead to meaningful learning opportunities, the process must involve teacher’s participation as well. Let’s look at the story of racism discussion from Mr. Nader’s perspec- tive, which shows how the process of activation of sense of place puts him in a conflicted position. While Andre’s question presented an interesting issue to talk about in class, this conversation was not the direction that the class was going nor the direction intended by the teacher. Mr. Nader wanted to talk about a role of graphic organizers, wrap up the unit, and move on to the next unit. When he started to talk about graphic organizers, by saying that “one of the tools we used...”, Andre raised the question of whether pigeons are racists and Mr. Nader’s curricular plan for the class was interrupted. While Mr. Nader welcomed this new learning opportunity presented and was flexible to accommodate students’ interests and enthu- siasm about the discussion, we also can observe how he was constantly negotiating and shifting between sticking with what he initially planned for the class and taking up and utilizing this new learning opportunity that emerged. As we can see from the following transcript, especially at the 130 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON end of this discussion he verbally switched back and forth between two ideas. Mr. Nader: Which brings up an interesting issue. I will just make a quick comment and move on. What’s the difference between animals like pigeons and other animal and animals like humans? [he emphasizes that we need to think about the differences and similarities between pigeons and humans] That was an excellent question. What tool... We are going to leave it open though. I don’t think we can answer it easily. What tool... or what tools.. After several attempts to change focus, he finally was able to move on to the topic of graphic organizer. The examples point out how crucial the role of a teacher is in the process of leveraging sense of place in class. Without Mr. Nader paying attention to Jameer’s suggestion for a differ- ent playground or facilitating the class to discuss Andre’s racism question, the class would have missed out on the opportunities to enrich their sci- ence learning experiences and those sense of place events wouldn’t have been leveraged effectively. These events point out the critical role that Mr. Nader played in nurturing a responsive and flexible science learning environment for the students where students could voice their sense of place, share questions, inquire together, and make sense of their learning together. EXPLORING TENSIONS IN THE CLASS In this section, we explore the meaning of sense of place events in science learning and teaching. We use tensions as a conceptual lens for this meaning making. To understand what students’ sense of place means for science teaching and learning, we look across our findings using the tensions that arose in Mr. Nader’s class. We view tensions as sources of dynamic science teaching and learning, through which both students’ and teacher’s ideas and thoughts can be challenged, evaluated, refined, and expanded. We examined the emergent tensions in Mr. Nader’s class from two lenses: epistemological tensions (related to what the students are learning) and procedural tensions (related to how they are learning). SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 131 TABLE III Comparing different ways of thinking in sense of place and in science class Ways of thinking reflected Scientific ways of thinking in sense of place in science classroom Characteristics Contextualized Abstract Multidimensional Disciplinary Interdisciplinary Objective Subjective & personal Factual Mixed cognition and affect Evidence based Multiple sources Observational Cognitive Validity seeking Epistemological tensions Often science is viewed as a subject that students learn in a school. School science is one thing and the students’ life is another. These two do not nec- essarily meet or connect. Science education does not require students to make the connection, or at least in the ways success in science education is measured (i.e., standardized exams). Epistemological tensions come from the epistemological differences between the characteristics of students’ sense of place and characteristics of scientific ways of thinking that are promoted and valued in science class (Table III). Sometimes when teach- ers try to value and invite students’ everyday knowledge and experiences into science class, it could easily result in tokenism. They make a list of things that students know and talk about what students do outside of school but they do not necessarily go further to utilize and integrate them into con- nected science learning. For example, during the pigeon study, Mr. Nader’s class had the oppor- tunity to learn about diverse pigeon morphs and behavior. Although the class made very interesting lists of what they knew and what they wanted to know about pigeons which revealed rich and contextualized students’ sense of place about pigeons, the class didn’t get to pursue their pre-existing knowledge or questions through in-depth inquiry. The curricular focus was on examining pigeon morphs and behaviors. Connecting or making sense of this new information about pigeons within students’ sense of place was not a curricular concern of the unit, rather it was up to individual stu- dents. Without making understanding the goal of science within their lives and also coming to understand their sense of place within their science learning context, science learning might be limited to compartmentalized understanding in a classroom and fail to become learning of connected science (Bouillion and Gomez, 2001). 132 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON There were other times during the pigeon unit, however, when meaning- ful science learning – or connected science – emerged from these epistemo- logical tensions. For example, risking imposing a simplistic dichotomous analysis, we compared the columns in the KWL chart to characterize stu- dents’ sense of place. Comparing the columns illustrated characteristics of students’ everyday ways of thinking (of sense of place) and scientific ways of thinking and differences between them. On the one hand, the “what we know” and “what we want to know” columns represent a multidisciplinary contextualized everyday understanding of pigeons, which is part of their sense of place. The columns reveal that students’ understandings of pi- geons came from various aspects and sources of their lived experiences thus connected to and contextualized within their lives. On the other hand, the “what we have learned” column represents students’ ways of learning and thinking in science class. Contents in this column reflect the scientific ways of thinking that were valued and promoted in their science class which were the disciplinary (biological), observational, descriptive, and objective understanding of pigeons. When science is narrowly defined and operated, this tension could lead to disconnection or separation between school sci- ence and sense of place. However, when scientific ways of thinking and learning are proposed within the context of sense of place in other words, contextualized within students’ lived experiences, the epistemological ten- sion would lead to learning of connected science. We find an example in Mr. Nader’s class. A similar tension arose in the playground evaluation activity. When students were asked to evaluate whether the playground was a good one or not, the students tended to employ their subjective and personal sense of place e.g., this is not my favorite playground, thus it is not a good playground because it is not good for me. However, Mr. Nader hoped his students would develop a more objective perspective, e.g., although this is not my favorite playground, it could still be a good playground. This epistemological tension became a meaningful connected science learning opportunity when the differences were acknowledged and inte- grated into science class. As we saw from Jameer’s comment on how she evaluated playgrounds (by adding a “little kid’s” perspective), her peers be- gan with their subjective personal sense of place as a basis for their learning. And then students started to think about other perspectives or other subjec- tivities. In this way, this objective perspective that the class was trying to get at became connected to students’ own subjectivities and identities but at the same time it pushed and transformed students’ perspectives to become expanded and inclusive by adding multiple subjectivities. In this way, the epistemological tension provided and became a learning opportunity of connected science leading to epistemological growth of students. SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 133 Procedural tensions Whereas the epistemological tension emerged around ways of thinking and learning, procedural tensions were related to the process of leveraging sense of place. As we explained previously, we looked at the process of sense of place being leveraged from two aspects, identification and activation. By looking at the process of leveraging sense of place in these two steps, we focused on both intentions and actions of the class (teacher and students) with regards to sense of place. We discuss procedural tensions that are related to each process of identification and activation of sense of place. Tensions between students’ sense of place and science curricular design When students attempted to participate in science class, sometimes they found that the content and/or context of the class was not accommodating or acknowledging their sense of place properly or accurately i.e., their sense of place is challenged. Jameer felt that her sense of place (i.e. her knowledge of playgrounds in her neighborhood) conflicted with Mr. Nader’s choice of playground. Luis felt his place identity (what is (in)appropriate behavior for him in a playground) was challenged by the class task. As a result, tensions arose between their sense of place and what the class was asking them to do, which initiated the events of leveraging sense of place. These procedural tensions became triggers that led sense of place to be actively leveraged in class. These events illustrate that sense of place is a significant part of who the students are. Tending their sense of place was important to the students, moreover it was their priority. Students felt compelled to “take care” of their sense of place. For example, for Luis keeping his place identity was more important than participating in a class activity. This observation brings out a significant and useful pedagogical implication. Considering the priority given to tending sense of place, once science learning is aligned with stu- dents’ sense of place, science learning could easily become the students’ priority, that is, something that students feel compelled to “take care” of. Thus, science learning, when connected to the students’ sense of place could become a personally important task to tend to. These procedural ten- sions indicate how sense of place can be used as engaging and motivating pedagogical constructs in science teaching and learning. Tensions in making curricula decisions Leveraging a sense of place could raises tensions for the teacher in the class. As we observed from Andre’s questioning event (“Can pigeons be racists?”), students’ leveraging sense of place brought out unexpected and unplanned learning opportunities for the class, which created tensions for Mr. Nader in terms of making curricular decisions. While he valued and 134 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON wished to accommodate students’ sense of place fully, he also had to carry out science curriculum as it was planned. As we described previously, Mr. Nader switched back and forth between his desire to move on with his plan and a desire to venture out with the learning opportunity brought up by Andre’s questioning. This tension demonstrates how the teacher was trying to negotiate two different learning opportunities for the class. And also this tension points out that to lead to a useful and meaningful leveraging (in a pedagogical sense) event, a flexible and responsive culture of science class needed to be developed and nurtured. All components such as teachers, students and curriculum needed to be involved in nurturing this responsive and dynamic culture of science learning and teaching. DISCUSSION We have examined the sense of place events in the class from a tension per- spective, specifically using two types of tensions: epistemological tensions between ways of thinking, and procedural tensions as they emerged in stu- dents’ place identity and in making curricular decisions. By using tensions as an analytic tool, we were able to illustrate in what ways leveraging sense of place has presented learning opportunities to the class. First of all, the epistemological tensions demonstrate a way to connect two different ways of thinking in class: scientific ways of thinking and learning and everyday ways of thinking and learning. Scientific ways of thinking and learning are what is promoted and valued in science class. While doing so, more often than not, scientific ways of thinking are de- fined narrowly and are practiced narrowly in science class. On the other hand, students’ everyday ways of thinking and learning go unrecognized or neglected thus disconnected from science learning. In other words, students are not given the chance to make sense of and internalize scientific ways of thinking into their everyday sense making system. We are not arguing that students fail to make the connection. We believe that many of them do make connections. The point here is that the opportunities and guidance to do so are not part of curricular design of science education. Thus, the responsibility to do so falls onto students not onto the class or the teacher. In other words, to succeed in science class, students are expected to think like a scientist, yet it doesn’t really matter whether they internalize these ways of thinking or not. The focus is not on the process of “becoming” but on the outcome of “becoming”. However, in Mr. Nader’s class, we witnessed that when the science class is designed with a sense of place approach, bound- aries between these two ways of thinking and learning were blurred. The SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 135 process of becoming a playground designer was organic and fluid. The ex- ample illustrates how science learning can nurture a fluid epistemological learning and growth when informed by a sense of place approach. Secondly, when a class is informed by a sense of place approach, it appears to provide learning opportunities of connected science. Since the topic areas are intentionally chosen to be relevant and related to students’ sense of place, teachers and students would make connections easily be- tween students’ sense of place and science teaching and learning in class such as topical connections and contextual connections. Since students’ sense of place is a critical part of students’ identity, sense of place events could easily become personally significant and meaningful for students, which suggests the introduction of the concept of sense of place as a viable pedagogical approach to engage and motivate students in science learning. However, there is a caveat that we need to be aware of if students’ sense of place were to be introduced into a class and led to connected science learning. Students’ sense of place is not simply about where they live. More critically it is about how they appropriate their lifeworlds and what kind of ecological relationship they have with their lifeworlds. Although the class was studying about the neighborhood where most students live, this did not mean their neighborhood would necessarily motivate or engage the students in science learning. For example, both Luis and Jameer live in the same neighborhood and are familiar with the specific playground, yet their sense of place played out rather differently in class. Luis’s sense of place and specifically his view on the neighborhood playground (which mainly serves younger children) as a teenage boy who enjoys playing sports in playgrounds is different from Jameer’s sense of place and her understanding of the playground, who often visits and uses the playground for babysitting purposes. The class activity was about the shared physical setting, specifically a neighborhood playground with which both of them are familiar, however, students differ in their sense of place, which is shaped by the ways they perceive the physical setting, the kinds of activities that they are engaged in, and the meanings that they construct. As we observed, inattentiveness to Luis’ place identity in the curricular design had deterred him from participating in the class fully. Educators need to be aware of rich and complicated characteristics of students’ sense of place. Providing connected and contextualized science learning opportu- nities has to be based on understanding and consideration on how students’ lived experiences and their sense of place are contextualized in their places, neighborhoods or environment. Once science learning is aligned and con- textualized with their sense of place properly, then learning could become engaging, motivating, and meaningful for the students. 136 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON Lastly, procedural tensions illustrated that sense of place pushes con- ventional boundaries in the science class. It pushes students and teachers to actively participate in the process of fostering flexible, responsive, and dynamic learning environments. When students’ sense of place was lever- aged in science class, it seemed to bring out opportunities for the teacher (and the students) to nurture this dynamic learning environment in science class. For example, Mr. Nader’s class offered opportunities for students to become “knowers” or epistemic authorities in science class. Since the study was about students’ neighborhoods, students knew a lot more about neighborhood playgrounds than Mr. Nader, which gave them opportunities to be knowers as well as learners in the class. As we previously observed in Jameer’s story, she voluntarily participated in the curriculum decision pro- cess by proposing a “nicer and closer” location for the class field trip. Due to its heavy focus on neighborhood matters, students were given chances to become knowers in class sharing epistemic authority with teachers, which is an empowering and engaging learning environment for students. These events can provide opportunities for students to voice their sense of place in class and actively participate in learning. What allows this shift in epistemic authority in this class is not only students’ knowledge and confidence based on their sense of place, but also the teacher’s acknowledgment and willingness to share epistemic author- ity by drawing upon students’ sense of place. As was observed from the discussion around “can pigeons be racists,” students made their sense of place public (what they know and how they know) and they were able to push and build on each other’s ideas and thinking. Also the teacher played a role of a co-inquirer and facilitator as part of this learning community. CONCLUSION It would be remiss for us to conclude our discussion of the role of sense of place in student learning without attending to the role of sense of place in our own learning here, as researchers, as both Kincheloe and McKinley urge us to do in the forum. While the question, “how do we leverage our own sense of place in ascribing meaning to what we have seen in the classrooms?” is beyond the scope of this manuscript, we do feel it is important to at the very least return to the story we used to open the manuscript. Miyoun’s story provides a snapshot into why sense of place matters to us as researchers. It is a construct we believe, from our own experiences, gives voice to the myriad of ways in which students are “shut out” of the dominant discourse of schooling. We sought to understand how students SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 137 actively or re-actively campaigned against this sort of shut out, sometimes with some success, as was the case with Jameer and the playground or to be misunderstood, as was the case with Luis. Just as Miyoun reflected upon how she felt shut out by a system more interested in perpetuating a political agenda than acknowledging her own reality in the classroom, we see, for example, Luis’ exploration of playgrounds framed by his belief that he is simply too old to engage in the child like activities of his science classroom. Neither Miyoun nor Luis were served well by the system that marginalized – either purposefully or not – their sense of place. We do not think that it is possible for teachers to “name” their stu- dents sense of place at every pedagogical turn. As is aptly raised in the forum, we can only ever provide snapshots of our own sense of place because sense of place is too complex, shifting, and slippery. It has unar- ticulated dimensions as well. We do feel, however, that creating moments in the classroom for sense of place to define how one wants to be vis a vis the subject of study is critical to one’s efforts to learn the subject. In other words, characterizing students’ sense of place that is leveraged in the class shows us just how much science learning is situated within a complicated, multidimensional, and interconnected ecological framework of students’ sense of place. It involves not only what they know but it also includes what they do, what they think and what they feel. Often cogni- tive aspects of students’ sense of place get educators’ attention, however, other aspects go unnoticed e.g., how they feel about pigeons; how they might use places and elements such as playgrounds in their neighborhood; and how they feel about appropriateness of class activity according to their identity. To utilize students’ senses of place in its full pedagogical potential, students’ unique and particular sense of place should be under- stood as it exists within a multidimensional and interconnected ecological system. When students’ senses of place are leveraged in a science class, it seems to bring out opportunities to learn “connected science” and also to nurture a dynamic learning environment. Stories from Mr. Nader’s class show how he and the students actively participated in the process of creating a flex- ible, responsive, and dynamic learning environment by shifting, sharing, and negotiating their roles and positions as epistemic authorities in the class. Also the stories show that when informed by sense of place ap- proach, science learning can provide a fluid epistemological learning and growth. This study attempted to bring educators’ attention to how we could pedagogically utilize the “potentially profound continuities” between sci- entific ways of thinking and learning and urban children’s everyday ways of thinking and learning i.e., sense of place (Warren et al., 2001). 138 MIYOUN LIM AND ANGELA CALABRESE BARTON ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foun- dation under Grant No. SBE 0350288 from the Science of Learning Centers Program. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations ex- pressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. APPENDIX : SUMMARY OF QUESTIONS FROM PLAYGROUND EVALUATION WORKSHEET 1. Where is this playground located? 2. What are the directions to the playground from the Union school? 3. Look for a sign that says the name of the playground and who paid to build it. Write the information below or draw the sign below. 4. Look around at the playground. Is it being used today by other people? Why do you think they came to this playground? 5. Fill in the following chart about the different elements found in this playground. To find the ratings, try out the different elements. (An example is done for you) Fun rating Safety rating Name of Materials it is Color of 1–10 1–10 element made out of element (worst – best) (worst – best) Ex. Slide Ex. Metal Ex. Green Ex. 8 Ex. 2 6. Using this information calculate an overall “Fun Rating” for the play- ground by finding the average. 7. Using this information calculate an overall “Safety Rating” for the playground by finding the average. 8. Children of what age would use this playground? What elements in the playground are appropriate for the different ages of children below? 0–4 years old: 5–11 years old: years old: SCIENCE LEARNING AND A SENSE OF PLACE 139 9. What makes this playground unique or different from other play- grounds in the city? 10. What shape is the playground itself? 11. Draw the shape below. 12. Measure each side of the playground by walking around the edge. Write down how many steps it takes for you to go from one edge to the next and note it on your drawing above. 13. Calculate the perimeter of the park. 14. Challenge problem: calculate the area of the park. To find the area, we will have to find the area of each of the different shapes of the park using the following formulas: Rectangle A= L×W Circle A = πr 2 Triangle A = B × H/2 15. Based on all of the information that you have collected, how would you rate this playground in comparison to others in the city on a scale of one to ten? NOTE 1. Activity range or “explorable landscape” (Sobel, 1994) refers to the environment used and experienced by children, often measured by geographic distance. The activity range of children changes/develops over time and varies between children. Miyoun Lim is a Ph.D. candidate in science education at Teachers College Columbia University. Her dissertation explores urban children’s sense of place and its implications for urban science education. She is currently working on developing an on-line teacher environmental education program using urban (New York City) ecosystems. Her research interests include teaching and learning of science in urban schools especially those with immigrant minority students living in high poverty neighborhoods, and urban environmental education – informed by critical pedagogy of place – for students and teachers. Angela Calabrese Barton is an associate professor of science education and director of the Urban Science Education Center at Teachers College Columbia University. Her research interests focus on issues of equity and social justice in science teaching and learning in urban centers urban science education and critical/feminist perspectives on science education. 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