Many studies have revealed that students’ interest and motivation towards science learning decline throughout their years at school, especially during junior high school. One of the reasons for this decline may be the apparent irrelevance of the current curriculum to students. Previous...
research shows that if the relevance of the topic was established with students, they were more likely to take an interest in the topic. Traditional science teaching in Israeli junior high schools is presently structured around the key scientific ideas in each discipline rather than around phenomena that are interesting and of importance to students. Teaching science through topics that students find interesting and relevant could enhance students’ motivation to learn science, their classroom engagement, and perhaps also positively affecting their science self-efficacy.
Grand Challenges (GCs) are examples of large-scale global socio-scientific issues (SSIs). A recent international survey indicated that nearly all students desired to learn about these global SSIs in school, yet only few reported having opportunities to do so. Students often fail to see the relevance of the science they are taught in schools to their lives. SSI-based instruction supports the construction of significant science content learning, while making science relevant and interesting for students. Students can be interested not only in topics that are immediately relevant to their lives, but also in Topics of Wonderment (ToWs), which are issues and ideas that can capture students’ interest and awe, motivating their engagement simply because they are fascinating.
In my study I developed a GC science unit on plastic waste and a ToW unit on extremophiles, both for the 7th grade, corresponding to the expectation that students will desire to be better informed and develop agency with respect to this GC and that students’ will potentially be fascinated with this ToW. To understand the impact of teaching GC/ToW science units in middle schools might have on teachers and students, I followed three teachers who taught the two units and their students. using pre-post knowledge tests, surveys of affect, classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers, I examined
- the students’ engagement, interest, motivation, their awareness of the relevance of the topics to their lives,
- how these characteristics changed between the units,
- their learning of science content knowledge and their ability to apply this knowledge, and
- the teachers’ enthusiasm and the challenges they faced while teaching the units.
Results show that GC units had a positive impact on all classes, but one class stood out more than the others. In general, there was a strong connection between classroom engagement and interest throughout the study. Students found the GC/ToW topics to be relevant to their lives and did not question the importance of the topics. All the classes except for two showed no decrease in mastery orientation throughout the year. The largest improvement between the pre- and post-plastic knowledge test was in the same class that showed highest interest and engagement. Teachers’ enthusiasm to teaching the GC had in impact on the success of the units.
