Planting the Seeds of Social Justice in STEM Learning and Teaching

The Role of Educators in Cultivating Future Question Askers, Problem Solvers, and Ethical Citizens

Your mission is to craft questions that will help you design an investigation to grow students intoquestion askers, problem solvers, and ethical citizens. The investigation should be: (1) gearedtowards mid- to upper-elementary students, (2) related to food insecurity, and (3) connected withselect Pennsylvania State Standards. Remember to focus on the questions. At this point, try not to focuson identifying or designing activities in which to engage students. Instead, capture the questionsthat arise as you think about the design process and that you might want to ask your students touncover understandings based on the provided materials.

Online Materials

All materials, as well as the presentation slides and this handout, are available at:

http://bit.ly/stem-social-justice

Feel free to use the graphic organizer to help you orient your questions between social justice, thePennsylvania State Standards, and the provided materials.

Pennsylvania State Standards in Environmental and Ecological Sciences

The following Pennsylvania State Standards were selected as guideposts for you to draw upon tohelp you craft your questions while planning a STEM investigation that will support the growthand development of your students.

4.4.4.A. Agriculture and Society Describe the journey of local/global agricultural commoditiesfrom production to consumption.

4.5.4.A. Humans and the Environment Identify how people use natural resources in sustainableand non-sustainable ways.

Science Practices Standards Drawn from Standards 4.4.4.E. and 4.5.4.F.

1. Ask questions about objects, organisms and events.

2. Understand that all scientic investigations involve asking and answering questions andcomparing the answer with what is already known.

3. Plan and conduct a simple investigation and understand that dierent questions requiredierent kinds of investigations.

4. Use simple equipment (tools and other technologies) to gather data and understand thatthis allows scientists to collect more information than relying only on their senses togather information.

Graphic Organizer