Wicked Problems in PreK-12 Science Education: Stories and Strategies for Confronting Complex Topics in the Science Classroom

This resource offers science teachers and science teacher educators strategies for tackling "wicked problems" in their classrooms. Contributors from across diverse PreK-12 educational contexts share how they confront and address these complex scientific or social problems. Chapters are organized into four sections: PreK-12 students, teacher candidates, in-service teachers, and teacher educators. Within each, science educators discuss how they have dealt with both systemic and non-straightforward wicked problems, such as climate change, social justice, ecojustice/climate justice, white privilege, political attacks on education, economic disparity, and other socioscientific issues. Chapters also include case studies that demonstrate how teachers broach wicked problems with their students. Ideal for science educators at all levels, this book can be a great supplement to any methods course covering science topics, or useful for professional development for in-service teachers who desire to learn more about how to attend to, maneuver, and grapple with teaching controversial or complex science topics. The Editors and Contributors cultivate and encourage important conversation around complex scientific problems that will inspire educators to address and navigate the complexities of wicked problems in their teaching practices.

Jennifer Kreps Frisch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education at University of Minnesota Duluth, USA.

Daniel Mason Alston is an Associate Professor in the Cato College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA, and the director for the Charlotte Teaching Fellows Program.

Allan Feldman is Emeritus Professor of Science Education in the College of Education at the University of South Florida, USA.

Rita Hagevik is Professor and Director of Graduate Programs in Science Education in the Biology Department at UNC-Pembroke, USA.

Michelle Schpakow is the Science Education Lecturer for Monmouth University’s School of Education, USA.