Socio-scientific issues (SSI) are controversial social issues with conceptual and procedural links to science. They are open-ended, potentially contentious problems that lack of simple solutions. Solutions are informed by scientific principles, theories, and data, but cannot be fully determined by scientific considerations. The complexities of SSIs create new contexts for student learning, and are vehicles for promoting citizenship. When addressed in the classroom, students' SSI interactions are evaluated through their engagement with socio-scientific reasoning (SSR) and through content knowledge. SSR involves four features: complexity, perspectives, inquiry and skepticism. Content knowledge provides scientific principles, theories and data for understanding the scientific implications of SSI.The following study presents a pre-/post-intervention design for the analysis of both content knowledge and SSR about climate change. Participants were 120 university students, all non-science majors, in a lecture-lab course. The principles of climate change were taught in lecture, and with a lab experiment to enhance understanding of how greenhouse gas absorbs infrared radiation. Content knowledge about climate change was evaluated using a previously published diagnostic test, the atmosphere-related environmental problems diagnostic test (AREPDiT). Online discussions were used to assess SSR. Students' discourse was analyzed and assigned based upon the previously described aspects of SSR.

Socioscientific issues: A proposal for the development of socioscientific inquiry about climate change in a non-science majors chemistry course

247th National Meeting (2014)

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