Clark, H. F., Gyles, S. A., Tieu, D., Venkatesh, S., & Sandoval, W. A.
Original article: Exploring science teachers' efforts to frame phenomena in the community.
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 61(9), 2104-2132. href="https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21945

How can science teachers help students see that science is not just labs and textbooks, but can be used to investigate and solve real-world issues in their own communities?

This study introduces the teaching strategy of community-oriented framing—an instructional practice for educators to anchor science lessons in local phenomena, helping students see how science intersects with community concerns, personal experiences, and social justice.

Researchers worked with two teachers at a Title 1 school to implement NGSS-aligned science units using this approach. In one 7th-grade unit on food justice, students examined nutrition, cultural recipes, and barriers to accessing healthy food. In a 10th-grade chemistry unit, students explored environmental justice by modeling the local carbon cycle and analyzing land use and access to green spaces.

Teachers used two key community-oriented framing practices:

• Localizing phenomenon, or investigating how a phenomenon shows up in a specific place. This practice includes teachers supporting students to investigate how science concepts—like carbon cycling or food systems—manifest specifically in their own communities. Teachers had students use local data, maps, and firsthand observations to make sense of the issues.
• Personalizing phenomenon, or centering and “scientizing” personal experiences and interactions with a phenomenon as relevant and important to learning. Using this practice teachers encouraged students to draw from their own lived experiences as evidence to make sense of phenomenon. This practice helped students see how science connects to their lives and values, and to understand themselves as knowledge-makers.

This justice-centered science instructional practice showed that when students are given tools to explore problems that affect themselves and their communities, they become more engaged and begin to view science as a tool for change.

Some of the major takeaways for teachers and science educators from this article are:

• Frame science lessons around local, relevant issues—from food access to environmental health.
• Encourage students to bring in their personal experiences as valid sources of data and insight.
• Use community-based investigations to highlight the social dimensions of scientific phenomena.
• Align NGSS instruction with equity- and justice-oriented goals.
• Foster a classroom culture where diverse ways of knowing are not only accepted—but valued as sources of scientific data.

By using community-oriented framing, teachers can help students connect science learning to everyday life, social and political systems, and students’ diverse knowledge and experiences—making science meaningful and empowering for all learners.