An Examination of Whether Engaging in Authentic Science has an Impact on High School Students' Agency to Achieve Ecojustice in their Local Community

An ethnographic case study was completed examining the possible impact of engaging in environmental field research, an authentic science experience, on high school students’ agency to achieve ecojustice in their local community. The researcher worked with fourteen students, as a teacher and participant observer, for four months. The two frameworks that guided the design, implementation and analysis of this inquiry were agency and ecojustice. Data was gathered in the form of observations, interviews, and analysis of documents. Three major themes with subthemes were identified including Understanding of Local Environmental Problems – Causes, Impacts, Solutions; Changing Roles – Gaining Knowledge/Power, Becoming Researchers, Influencing Others; and Impact of Peer Review. The results show that student researchers, developed the following over the course of the study: 1) greater awareness of local environmental problems, their causes and impacts; 2) more sophisticated understanding of potential solutions to the problems and means by which stakeholders could participate in achieving these solutions; and, 3) increased agency to address local environmental problems by way of discourse and other actions including feeling empowered to share information with the local community, with policy makers, and with the scientific community. While student agency increased over the course of the study, students continued to feel limited in their ability to impact their local community. Students whose research focused on environmental field studies of local aquatic ecosystems versus other topics related to aquatic biology exhibited a more pronounced increase in agency. They began to see themselves as someone with knowledge and power who could bring about positive change. Recommendations for practitioners based on the findings of this work include the need to provide opportunities for students to engage in environmental field research in their local communities. This experience should allow students to choose their own research topic, design their study, and engage in peer review. Recommendations for additional research on this topic include the need for an examination of the impact of explicit ecojustice education. In addition, it would be beneficial to determine the impact of student engagement in environmental field research over a more prolonged time frame.