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- Edstrand, Emma, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Deciphering the anatomy of scientific argumentation : the emergence of science literacy
- 2016
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Ingår i: Learning across contexts in the knowledge society. - Rotterdam : Sense Publishers. - 9789463004121 - 9789463004145 ; , s. 39-60
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The dramatic expansion of knowledge during recent decades, as well as the rapid development of digital technologies providing access to information, poses interesting challenges to established educational activities, including attempts to introduce young people to modern scientific practices and their results © Sense Publishers 2016
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| 4. |
- Edstrand, Emma, 1981
(författare)
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Learning to reason in environmental education: Digital tools, access points to knowledge and science literacy
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Digital technologies and environmental education represent two rather new areas in school curricula. The background of the present research is an interest at the inter-section between how students learn about environmental issues (e.g., climate change) and the role digital technologies may play in such contexts. Thus, the aim is to investigate tool-mediated activities in environmental science education. The digital tools that are used in the instruction in this research are a virtual laboratory and a carbon footprint calculator. The study is guided by the questions of how digital tools co-determine activities and students’ reasoning about scientific knowledge and environmental topics, as well as what implications the use of such tools have for the development of science literacy. Analytically, this is studied within a sociocultural perspective on learning and by relating it to Dewey’s view of learning through inquiry. The empirical material consists of questionnaires and video data. The thesis consists of four studies. Study 1 builds on the analysis of questionnaire data from a corpus of almost 500 students’ written pre- and post-test answers to a problem-solving question in which they are required to design an experiment before and after working with a virtual lab. The second set of data comprises video recordings of upper secondary school students’ work with the two virtual tools. The results are presented in Studies 2 and 3. In addition, and in relation to the interest in science literacy more generally, Study 4 focuses on students’ work with an assignment requiring them to evaluate research reported in two scientific article abstracts on climate change. On a general level, the findings show that digital tools incorporate conceptual distinctions and operations that provide “shortcuts” for the students’ reasoning by providing access points to complex knowledge about the environment. This means that the students are able to engage in sophisticated discussions about environmental issues linked to human-driven climate change without requiring too much specific prior knowledge. However, the results also point to dilemmas connected to the use of such sophisticated tools. That is, for students to make meaning in ways that are relevant to understanding scientific argumentation, some of the processes and conceptual premises need to be unpacked by a competent partner (e.g., a teacher). Through engaging in such tool-mediated activities, students develop new cognitive habits, that is, new ways of reasoning which are made possible through the support of the tools. Thus, in sum, the present empirical studies demonstrate that digital tools have the potential to reconfigure learning activities that support students’ development of science literacy in environmental science education. At the same time, the analyses show that the tools are abstract and far from self-instructive. They index complex forms of knowledge that are not always transparent to the users. Thus, to reach curricular goals, the use of such tools in environmental science instruction presupposes guidance and support by teachers.
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- Edstrand, Emma, 1981
(författare)
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Making the invisible visible: how students make use of carbon footprint calculator in environmental education
- 2016
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Ingår i: Learning Media and Technology. - Abingdon : Informa UK Limited. - 1743-9884 .- 1743-9892. ; 41:2, s. 416-436
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Problems concerning carbon dioxide emissions and other climate change-related issues are on the global political agenda and constantly debated in media. Such issues are important for individuals to enable active participation in society. This study has a particular interest in the use of carbon footprint calculators (tools for calculating carbon dioxide emissions of human activities) in the context of learning about environmental issues and climate change. More specifically, it contributes with insights into how such tools foster different modes of reasoning about the environment. The empirical data consist of video recordings of 15 Swedish upper secondary students' classroom discussions. The study derived from one specific half-day-lesson with activities related to the use of a carbon footprint calculator. In the first part of the lesson, the students worked individually with the tool for calculating their carbon footprint, and in the second part of the lesson, the students discussed their carbon footprints in groups. The focus of the analysis is on the group discussion and on what modes of reasoning and arguing about the environment that are made possible through the students' use of the calculator. The study investigates the students' accounts in relation to how they discuss and compare their carbon footprints. That is, how the students in their discussions explain and justify actions in their everyday lifestyle. The findings indicate that the carbon footprint calculator supports different modes of reasoning and arguing about the environmental impact of actions in students' everyday lifestyle. The carbon footprint calculator offers students a new arena for developing an understanding of climate change and its relationships to human activities. The results shed light on the ways in which students are able to quantify, analyse and compare carbon dioxide emissions both on an individual level but also at a systemic level (across countries) after having used the carbon footprint calculator. The tool thus mediates features of the environment that students otherwise could not perceive; it makes the invisible visible.
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| 7. |
- Lantz-Andersson, Annika, 1961, et al.
(författare)
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Concepts, materiality and emerging cognitive habits: The case of calculating carbon footprints for understanding environmental impact.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Designs for Experimentation and Inquiry: Approaching Learning and Knowing in Digital Transformation. Åsa Mäkitalo, Todd E. Nicewonger, Mark Elam (red.). - New York : Routledge. - 9781138592711 ; , s. 13-30
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The interest behind the present study can be found at two levels. First, our aim is to show how what is commonly conceived of as acts of thinking and reasoning are grounded in materiality, in artefacts, and in what Donald (2010) refers to as symbolic technologies. Thinking (and learning) in this perspective implies engaging with symbolic technologies designed to provide access to human insights and experiences that have been generated over a long time and then built into artefacts. A corollary of this perspective is that human agency is shaped by the use of symbolic technologies, but the opposite is also true; technologies embody and exercise agency in social practices. Second, our aim is to illustrate some of the consequences of this perspective in the specific case of learning about the environment. More precisely, we will report a study of how students learn to understand, calculate and account for the environmental impact of their own daily activities. The symbolic technology they engage with is a so-called Carbon Footprint Calculator (CFC), a tool for estimating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This study investigates how the use of a digital tool such as a CFC co-determines high school students’ ways of reasoning about their carbon footprint in the context of a global online discussion forum. In other words, our analysis concerns how students learn to understand what a carbon footprint is, and how it may be measured and related to how they lead their lives.
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