Engaging Students in Sustainable Science Education

Students who find science to be enjoyable are more likely to engage in their science classes [1], and perform at higher levels on science exams [2]. Such students may also have higher levels of interest in science-related careers [3] and become informed citizens on science-related issues [4]. Rather than simply accepting that some students (in primary, secondary, and tertiary education) are naturally intrigued by science, some science practitioners and educators are now devising approaches to science concepts intended to stimulate such enjoyment and engagement [5]. Teaching support, hands-on activities, nature-of-science frameworks, and self-paced (yet mentored) online instruction are just a few of these approaches. In addition, educators are finding that some students feel excluded from science by virtue of their gender, ethnic or racial background, or socio-economic standing [6]; those educators are actively seeking ways to help such students find their identity in science fields (for example, by addressing science issues especially relevant to such possibly excluded students). Science need not be taught as a set of disjointed facts; instead, compelling science narratives can be invoked, drawing students into the story (and study) of science [7].

Six articles (see list of contributions below) comprise this Special Issue. Four articles focus on sustainable, engaging classrooms, emphasizing teachers’ development of environments conducive to students’ science learning. Meanwhile, the remaining pair of articles present sustainable, engaging classrooms, emphasizing sustainability of materials utilized for teaching and learning—creating a positive feedback loop of both instructional style and practical choices supporting sustainability in the learning context.

Four articles concentrate on teachers’ management of science learning environments: Lin and Chang, Petchamé et al., Ali et al., and Grabau et al. Lin and Chang’s research considered the possibility that Generation Z students may well have distinct learning preferences, and thus respond to re-considered teaching and learning environments. Their work involved the use of a progressive set of instructional approaches, moving first through a traditional lecture, then to flipped classroom methods, then to well-designed teamwork projects. Student participants were supportive of this novel approach to classroom instruction. Petchamé et al. faced a unique difficulty—engineering students, enrolled in a business management course, faced a reasonable lack of initial engagement in a course that would naturally be outside their skill set and perhaps even outside their interest. These authors developed and tested a series of interactive activities (for example, reciprocal interviews) for the first two days of class, with the goal of enhanced early engagement as well as full-semester learning. Ali et al. invoked a STEM learning model to assist secondary students to grasp concepts in materials science. Their unique approach focused on sports applications of materials; their work included an assessment of students’ resultant attitudes toward STEM fields. Grabau et al. considered the relationships between teaching climates in science classroom, finding that disciplinary climate (characterized by a “get-down-to-business” science teaching and learning model) to benefit not only student dispositions toward science but also the students’ performance on standardized exams.

Meanwhile, the remaining pair of articles (Kiwfo et al. and Yeerum et al.) helped students contextualize their learning about sustainability in chemistry classrooms by seeking out “green” materials to use, particularly during the season of the COVID-19 pandemic. While both of these articles’ teaching/research practice took place in Thailand, the approaches were somewhat different. Kiwfo et al. used locally available guava leaves to assay for iron in the classroom context—data quality was good, reagent expense was markedly reduced and students were challenged, by this very experience, to learn to think of “doing science” in more sustainable ways. Yeerum et al., faced with stay-at-home orders for many of their students, devised a mail-out kit to help their confined students to learn skills in analytical chemistry. The at-home work of students was complemented by a subsequent synchronous online learning session.

Taken together, the articles comprising this Special Issue support student learning in science-related fields through enhanced and innovative instructional approaches, along with creative techniques to help students learn difficult subjects even when facing resource constraints.