Solving a socioscientific issue in different social contexts of primary education: a STEM approach to transformative environmental education

Abstract

It is necessary to work on environmental education in the classroom through scientific practices with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and transformative approach in order to understand and address current eco-social issues from a critical and systemic perspective. This study presents the analysis of three questions from a case study conducted by primary school students on water pollution caused by pharmaceuticals. Resolving the issue requires the use of data in different semiotic modalities, such as graphs, maps, texts, and videos, as well as the application of STEM knowledge and skills to provide reasoned answers. The research was carried out with students aged 8 to 12 enrolled in mainstream schools or schools in challenging circumstances. To this end, we analyzed the content of their answers and group discussions, as well as performed different statistical tests to compare the results according to context, educational level, and work modality (individual or group). The results show that students’ use of evidence based on texts and graphs depends on their socioeconomic and academic level. Students aged 10–12 from mainstream schools performed better. However, in general terms, group work does not improve performance levels compared to individual results. Some students achieved medium-high- and high-performance levels; however, they generally had difficulty handling information from maps and graphs because few students used these materials. Instead, they preferred texts or videos. In conclusion, this study exemplifies how socio-scientific issues can be incorporated into primary school classrooms from an early age. It also shows that this practice should be extended to all types of social and educational contexts, since the current way of teaching how to handle these materials does not seem to be effective enough to promote STEM-focused science education.