A Learning Progression Focusing on the Role of Carbon in Environmental Systems

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A Learning Progression Focusing on the Role of
Carbon in Environmental Systems
Lindsey Mohan, Hsin-Yuan Chen, Charles W.
Anderson Michigan State University
Tracing matter levels and exemplar responses
Upper Anchor Carbon cycling in socio-ecological
systems

• Carbon-transforming processes are uniquely
  important in socio-ecological systems and
  understanding those processes is essential for
  citizens participation in environmental
  decision-making.
• Learning Progressions
• Lower Anchor students reasoning of specific
  concepts when they enter school.
• Upper Anchor societal expectations about what
  high school students should understand
• Loop Diagram
• Generation of organic carbon
• Transformation of organic carbon
• Oxidation of organic carbon
• Challenges in achieving upper anchor
• Recognizing the chemical basis of life
• Identifying matter or chemical substances
• Reasoning at multiple scales
• Connecting carbon-transforming processes

Implications
Discussions of Trends
Methods and Learning Progression Validation
Life Younger learners (Level 1 and 2) perceive
a world where plants and animals work by
different rules from inanimate objects. They
explain changes in organisms based on natural
tendencies and vitalistic notions. Level 3
students begin to delve into the hidden
mechanisms (including functions of organs)
underlying visible life processes, and recognize
materials are incorporated into the bodies or
structure of organisms. Level 4 students
recognize cells are the basic unit of life, and
describe cellular life processes. Level 5
students consistently use chemical processes in
cells to explain metabolic processes in
organisms. Materials Level 1 and 2 learn to
distinguish objects from materials in which they
are made. At this level gases are treated as
ephemeral, more like conditions or forms of
energy such as heat and light than like real
mattersolids and liquids. At Level 3, students
recognize hidden structure of materials and
recognize that gases are matter, but can only
conserve visible materials through physical
changes. At Level 4 students attempts to conserve
chemical substances, including gases, through
processes, but still often fail distinguish
matter from energy. By Level 5, students
consistently recognize organic and inorganic
chemical substances, and conserve these materials
through processes. Scale Level 1 and 2 students
perceive a world where events occur at a
macroscopic scale. Level 3 and 4 students
recognize that events at the macroscopic and
large scale result from hidden and
atomic-molecular processes. Level 5 students
consistently make connections between scales and
use atomic-molecular and cellular models to
explain macroscopic and large scale events

• Participants 314 students in grades 4-10 from 12
  classrooms, among which 280 students participated
  written assessments and 34 students participated
  clinical interviews. The majority of students
  were from Michigan public schools, except 40
  students from Math and Science center in
  Michigan, 20 from Korean-based Department of
  Defense school, and 14 from urban and suburban
  schools in California.
• Data source Written responses to 9 items and
  audio-taped interviews
• Unit of Analysis Accounts of processes in
  socio-ecological systems
• Validation Process
• Conceptual coherence tells a comprehensible and
  reasonable story of how initially naïve students
  can develop mastery in a domain.
• Compatibility with current research build on
  findings or frameworks of the best current
  research about student learning.
• Empirical criteria assertions grounded in
  empirical data about real students
• We feel we have met the first two criteria
  reasonably well, and have made some progress
  toward empirical validation. The calibration
  study we are conducting this year and future
  teaching experiments will help us make further
  progress toward empirical validation.

• Implications for research We believe this work
  and other work on learning progressions provides
  an important test of the learning progression
  hypothesisthe idea that it is possible to
  develop large-scale frameworks that meet
  research-based standards for theoretical and
  empirical validation.Our work suggests a
  conceptually coherent learning progression is
  grounded in current research and real student
  data. We have made some progress toward empirical
  validation, and plan to continue the empirical
  validation process through our current
  calibration study.
• Implications for development of standards and
  assessments
• Standards and assessments are currently developed
  through a linear process Standards are developed
  and finalized, then those standards are used as
  the basis for assessments and curricula. In
  contrast, learning progressions are developed
  through an iterative process of design-based
  research, where the results of the assessments
  are used to revise frameworks, and vice versa.
• Implications for curriculum and teaching We have
  realized that the K-12 science curriculum does a
  reasonable job of getting students from Levels 1,
  2, and 3 to Level 4 accounts of tracing matter.
  By Level 4 students give relatively coherent
  accounts of processes in single systems and name
  several materials involved in those processes.
  For passing current standardized science
  assessments, this level of understanding is often
  sufficient. It is our belief, however, that
  students need to develop more sophisticated
  accounts of carbon cycling if they are to
  understand the global issues that our society
  faces. Level 5 understanding is essential for
  students to evaluate evidence-based arguments and
  participate knowledgeably in responsible
  citizenship. They will not achieve this
  understanding without sustained, well-organized
  support from schools and science teachers.

Figure 2 shows the percentage of elementary,
middle and high school students who gave accounts
at each Level. Note that 0 represents no
response
The authors would like to thank several people
for their invaluable contributions to the work
presented in this poster. We would like to
acknowledge contributions made by Jing Chen, Hui
Jin, Kennedy Onyancha, and Hamin Baek, from
Michigan State University and Karen Draney, Mark
Wilson, Yong-Sang Lee, and Jinnie Choi, at the
University of California, Berkeley.