Co-design for Inclusion and Equity in Science Education
Collaborative design or codesign is a generative approach to research and design that intentionally and thoughtfully engages impacted communities and learners in the design process. In codesign, knowledge resources and values are contributed by multiple stakeholders regardless of their backgrounds. Stakeholders share power and voice to generate community-centered and culturally responsive solutions to complex issues. For contemporary science education, these challenges involve engaging learners in interesting socio-scientific phenomena, creating high quality instructional materials, and teaching science that supports both social and environmental justice outcomes.
As solutions are being generated in codesign, the participatory approach can help shift power relations within and across people in research-practice partnerships to improve outcomes and co-constructed designs.
This seminar will feature three invited panelists who will share their participatory design approaches and community-based practices drawing from research in place-based outdoor science education, community ethnography in middle school youth, and curricular design for high school science education.
We will engage in a moderated conversation to explore how opportunities for equitable science participation and learning can be effectively created and sustained across informal science learning and classroom settings when co-design is mobilized.