The purpose of science education has been a topic of discussion for decades. Varying and often conflicting statements of purpose range from social advancement to individual mobility to the transformation of society (Labaree, 1997). While there are compelling arguments for either statement of purpose, consideration of the historical function of science education sways my perspective toward a socially transformative education (Morales-Doyle, 2018; Morales-Doyle, Childress, & Chappell, 2020; Mutegi, 2011). Thus, the functionality of science education, especially for people who have been historically and contemporarily oppressed, must explicitly address social problems.
In some classrooms, this means engaging youth in complex conceptualizations and conversations around social justice science issues specific to their everyday lived experiences (Morales-Doyle, 2017; Morrison et al., 2020). In this way, science classrooms, specifically chemistry classrooms, become spaces where students actualize “academic success…develop and maintain cultural competence…and develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 160).
This workshop focuses on using the Youth Participatory Science Framework (Morales-Doyle & Frausto, 2021) to support science teachers’ development of a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned unit that focuses on a social justice science issue.