Complexities of social problems in our globalised world pose new educational challenges, including how to empower citizens for active engagement with socioscientific issues. This study describes the analysis and discussion of an activist video as the first phase in an activist education programme. Participants were 104 preservice primary teachers…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are drivers of social change embedded in a society which is experiencing increasingly complex and multifaceted crises. This is partly attributable to the use of conventional and deterministic problem-solving curricula. A combination of a transdisciplinary approach and indigenous knowledge (IK) as transformative…

In a world of burgeoning societal issues, future scientists must be equipped to work interdisciplinarily to address real-world problems. To train undergraduate students toward this end, practitioners must also have quality assessment tools to measure students' ability to think within an interdisciplinary system. There is, however, a dearth of…

This activity provides opportunities for middle school students to design bio-inspired, eco-friendly vehicles. Twenty-four 8th grade students (12 girls, 12 boys) engaged in the activity which was implemented in four class periods, 40 minutes each, in an elective Environmental Education course. During the activity, students engaged in engineering…

This article presents a culturally situated and socially relevant lesson for intentionally teaching secondary students the fundamental engineering concepts related to Problem Framing and Project Management. This lesson includes: (1) class discussions to engage students in a socially relevant problem (food waste and sustainability) within a…

Hull-House was a unique social experiment by which Jane Addams realized her egalitarian vision for a shared civic life. Facing soaring social problems of the early twentieth century, Hull-House's most important mission was to help new immigrants learn the rule of self-government and become successful drivers of it. Hull-House was an unusual group…

Today, individuals need a solid understanding of how earth as a system works in order to understand and develop solutions for science-based issues affecting societies on a global scale such as natural disasters, global warming or COVID-19 pandemic. Humans also deliberate space investigations, such as interplanetary travels and life in space.…

Undergraduate chemistry majors should be encouraged to consider chemistry-based solutions to issues that impact their daily lives as well as the lives of poor and marginalized populations worldwide. Some issues that disproportionately influence historically disadvantaged populations are also directly related to or could be impacted by chemistry.…

This article describes how a class of year 9 (age 13-14) students engaged in a research-informed and negotiated action science project to address socio-scientific issues. The project was informed by the 'STEPWISE' curriculum framework. Evidence suggests that students benefited from collaborative problem-solving, developing confidence, motivation…

Purpose: Since developing science literacy is a primary objective of science education and socio-scientific (SSI) decision-making is an important aspect of science literacy, it is valuable to explore how students structure their decisions related to SSIs, and how they discuss and solve SSIs. The aim of present study was to examine elementary…

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on every facet of life around the world. For many, the world has become a place of doubt and uncertainty as people struggle to cope with the changes coming in the wake of COVID-19 and seek to determine how best to respond. With ecological, economic, and ideological crises occurring alongside COVID-19,…

Video games are starting to be used to support civic learning and engagement. Moreover, games are being used to crowdsource solutions to real-world problems; however, few of these games address civic problems and engage adolescents and young adults. In this paper, I explore designing and using games for real-world civic problem-solving, as well as…

In this article, the authors engage middle-grades students in a series of tasks to develop the mathematical idea of equal versus equivalent, culminating in a gerrymandering task with social, political, economic, and educational implications. The primary mathematical goals of this exploration were to involve students in solving real-world problems…

In the effort to create a multiculturally sensitive citizenry, addressing issues of immigration is critical in today's schools and society. Mathematics and social studies are subjects sensitive to the cultural and population shifts of society. Since STEM subjects and skills are what drive the 21st century classroom today, it is important that…

Having students read news articles or novels, watch television snippets, engage in class discussions, essay-writing, emailing, and drafting letters are excellent ways to broach any number of society's systemic and oppressive social maladies. Engaging in these activities in the English language arts classroom can serve as a catalyst to encourage…