Science as Context and Tool: The Role of Place in Science Learning Among Urban Middle School Youth

Abstract

The students in Mr. Nader’s environmental statistics class were involved in the “pigeon project.” The pigeon project, inspired by Cornell University’s Pigeon Watch Project was a 3-week investigation focused on two goals: To support students in learning to recognize the different color morphs of pigeons and pigeon behaviors; and to use this information to learn how to classify animals as well as to produce simple environmental statistics. It was precisely because he wanted his students to connect to the content of environmental statistics that the teacher selected the pigeon unit. Students in large urban centers, like New York City, are frequently around pigeons and thus have a great deal of experiential knowledge about them that can be tapped to support them in connecting with environmental statistics. By standard measures, the pigeon project was a success in Mr. Nader’s classroom. The students demonstrated their learning about pigeon morphs, classification, and graphing through their coursework and at the end of the unit KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learn) activity. For example, in the initial class KWL discussion of what students knew about pigeons and what they wanted to know, students talked about how pigeons were dirty, carriers of disease, and “rats with wings.” At the end of the unit, the “What we have learned” column was populated with comments like they “follow each other, there are many types or morphs, the majority of pigeons [in our neighborhood] are blue bars and checkers, they get along together although they are different types, and pigeons do not attack (are not aggressive).”