How can place attachment improve scientific literacy?

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Geography, Ecology & Science.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Ben Haywood and Professor Julia Parrish, from Furman University and University of Washington in US respectively, who are studying how citizen science programmes impact the relationships participants have with the places and ecology they study which might, in turn, increase scientific literacy.
• This resource also contains interviews with Ben and Julia. If you or your students have a question for them, you can submit it online – go to the article using the Futurum link below and scroll to the bottom of the page. Ben and Julia will reply!
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Ben and Julia’s research, and tasks them to think about which places are important to them.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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