Received: 3 July 2020 Revised: 31 December 2020 Accepted: 23 February 2021

DOI: 10.1002/tea.21685

RESEARCH ARTICLE |

Examining student environmental science

agency across school science contexts

Emily M. Harris1 | Heidi L. Ballard2

1
BSCS Science Learning, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
2
School of Education, University of California, Davis, California, USA

Correspondence
Emily M. Harris, BSCS Science Learning,
5415 Mark Dabling Blvd., Colorado
Springs, Colorado, 80918, USA.
Email: eharris@bscs.org
Abstract
To address the limited time and support for elementary
science, science instruction is sometimes distributed
among classroom teachers, science specialists, and
informal science educators, creating a complex school
science culture. We investigate how student agency may
be enabled and constrained when school science learn-
ing happens simultaneously across multiple school con-
texts. Using a social practice theory lens, we examine
how three third-grade students with a strong interest in
science attempt to pursue their own interest-driven
inquiries across the classroom, school garden, and sci-
ence lab and how the culture and resources of those
contexts may enable or constrain students' understand-
ing and use of environmental science in their lives and
communities, or environmental science agency (ESA).
Drawing on observations, videos, and interview data,
we found that the particular culture of the different sci-
ence learning settings appeared to enable or constrain
students' ESA. The classroom teacher allowed for nar-
row forms of participation in science practice, and both
she and the students reinforced these norms, which
seemed to constrain ESA across all three settings. The
science teacher allowed for broader forms of student
participation, which appeared to support student ESA

© 2021 National Association for Research in Science Teaching.

J Res Sci Teach. 2021;1–29. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tea 1

2
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

in the science lab. Students drew on flexible activity

structures as well as access to scientific tools, living
organisms, and citizen science resources to take actions
to pursue their own inquiries. We found ESA for stu-
dents in the garden was supported by garden resources
but narrow forms of participation reinforced by the
classroom teacher, garden teacher, and students trans-
ferred to the garden context. While this study explored
student agency over 2 months, these findings have
broader application because students receiving con-
flicting messages about who one can be in science can
have implications for possible futures they might ima-
gine for themselves.

KEYWORDS
elementary science education, environmental science, figured
worlds, student agency

1 | INTRODUCTION

As language arts and math are prioritized in recent reform contexts, there is limited time left
for science learning in elementary school (Dorph, Shields, Tiffany-Morales, Hartry, &
McCaffrey, 2011). To increase time for science, some elementary schools distribute science
instruction among multiple educators and contexts. While classroom teachers teach science in
self-contained classrooms (Dorph et al., 2011), educators with science expertise, such as elemen-
tary science specialists, provide support to ~25% of elementary students through delivering
instruction in a separate science lab, co-teaching with classroom teachers, and supporting class-
room teachers (Banilower et al., 2013; Schwartz & Gess-Newsome, 2008, 2008; Weiss, Ban-
ilower, McMahon, & Smith, 2001). Informal science educators also facilitate science learning in
science labs, school gardens, or on field trips (Banilower et al., 2013; Graham, Beall, Lussier,
McLaughlin, & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2005). To support content coherence, when a science special-
ist or informal educator is teaching, classroom teachers are encouraged to be actively involved
so they can connect science ideas learned to the rest of the curriculum (Alon & Tal, 2016;
Ronan, 2014; Tal, Lavie Alon, & Morag, 2014).
Distributing science learning can support classroom teachers with science instruction; how-
ever, it simultaneously creates a complex school learning ecology for students (Barron, 2006)
and presents a challenge for how students integrate their science learning experiences. Students
may receive conflicting messages about how they can act in their lives and communities using
science—dependent on the context and culture of their science learning environment—which
has implications for who they can be in science and possible futures they might imagine for
themselves (Archer et al., 2012; Carlone et al., 2014).
In this study, we are interested in how students develop agency with science, meaning how
young people develop the expertise and a view that their actions count in the world and they
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 3

can use their experiences with science to affect change in their lives and communities
(Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010). Previous scholars have explored student agency with science
within the culture of one setting (Ballard, Dixon, & Harris, 2017; Basu & Calabrese
Barton, 2009; Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010), across multiple settings over several years
(Calabrese Barton, Kang, Tan, O'Neill, Bautista-Guerra & Brecklin, 2013; Carlone et al., 2014),
and across school and everyday settings (Bricker & Bell, 2014). Yet, little research has examined
how students develop agency when science learning is distributed across concurrent contexts in
elementary schools.
The present study contributes to the discussion of student agency with science by examining
how students develop environmental science agency, specifically the capacity to take actions to
address environmental problems in one's life or community (Ballard et al., 2017), as they learn
science across multiple school science contexts. As personally consequential inquiries are one
way through which learners can develop agency with science (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010),
we examine the actions students take to pursue their own persistent and recurrent scientific
inquiries in their self-contained classroom, school garden, and science lab. We draw on data
from one third grade class at an environmental science magnet school that incorporated a citi-
zen science project—where members of the public collaborate with scientists to build new sci-
entific knowledge (Shirk et al., 2012)—into their integrated science and literacy units. We
wondered how students improvised and demonstrated actions to pursue their persistent inter-
ests, and how the culture of the science learning context—classroom, garden, and science lab—
may support or constrain student agency. The following research questions guided this study:

1. What actions do young people take to realize their interest-driven inquiries across classroom,
garden, and science lab contexts?
2. How could aspects of the classroom, garden, and science lab learning environments enable or
constrain students' agency with environmental science?

While we acknowledge that it is rare for students to have the opportunity to learn science in
all three contexts of this study, this study offers implications for elementary science learning
more broadly because the limited science learning that takes place in many elementary schools
is often distributed across more than one educator and school science context.

2 | THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 | Learning, identity and agency in school science

2.1.1 | Science learning as participation in cultural worlds

Learning science is a process of becoming versed in a cultural world (Aikenhead, 1996), distinct
from many learners' family or peer group cultures, particularly for youth from low-income com-
munities or communities of color. It involves learning the language, conventions, norms and
beliefs valued within a community. Western science includes norms and values like empirical,
value-free, masculine, and White. School science may share some of these, and it also has its
own additional norms and values, such as what it means to be a good student
(Aikenhead, 1996). This situated learning takes place within daily social interactions as partici-
pants engage in peripheral, but legitimate activities of that community (Lave & Wenger, 1991;
4
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

Wenger, 1998). Over time, learning and knowledge develop through meaningful engagement
and experience with specific practices of a community; learners develop identities of who they
want to be and who they are in relation to that community and, in this way, identities are
formed in practice.

2.1.2 | Learning as agency

Equity-minded scholars argue that “communities of practice” insufficiently addresses power

dynamics and propose agency as a way to think critically about learning and how one's actions
may be enabled or constrained by the social structures in a community (Calabrese Barton &
Tan, 2010; Carlone et al., 2014; Cobb & Hodge, 2011). Aligned with this orientation, we concep-
tualize learning as agency in moments of improvised action that individuals create in response
to specific situations or environments to change their position in a cultural world (Holland
et al., 1998). We specifically draw on disciplinary perspectives of agency, environmental science
agency (ESA; Ballard et al., 2017), which involves the improvised actions that young people
take toward (1) developing the science content and inquiry associated with environmental sci-
ence, (2) positioning themselves by taking on specific roles and identifying themselves as having
expertise in specific areas of environmental science, and (3) seeing environmental science expe-
riences as a foundation from which to create change in the world. Through participation in
these foundational practices, young people can develop agency with and in environmental sci-
ence and position themselves to take environmental stewardship actions (Ballard et al., 2017).

2.1.3 | Figured worlds and the micro-scale culture of school science

Through the construct of figured worlds, Holland et al. (1998) offer a framework to understand
how agency develops through local contexts. Figured worlds are “socially and culturally con-
structed realm of interpretation in which a particular set of characters and actors are recog-
nized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and particular outcomes are valued over others”
(Holland et al., 1998, p. 52). These “as-if” worlds highlight both real and imagined spaces in
which people have agency to try out new identities and work to figure themselves as individuals
or members of the community. “Through this figuring, individuals come to understand their
ability to craft their future participation, or agency, in and across figured worlds”
(Urrieta, 2007, p. 120).
School science includes multiple overlapping figured worlds with varying scientific and
social norms, practices and values that can support a wide or narrow range of science identities
(Carlone et al., 2014; Cobb et al., 2009). For example, Carlone et al. (2014) found that 4th and
6th grade classroom cultures enabled and constrained the ways the same young people could
figure themselves and possible identities that individuals could develop. Similarly, Tan
et al. (2013) described school science as an overlapping environment of figured worlds by
looking at the normative social and scientific practices in whole group, small group and partner
settings.
We build on the notion of school science as a web of figured worlds and, instead of
looking across time (e.g., Calabrese Barton et al., 2013; Carlone et al., 2014) or group struc-
ture (e.g., Tan et al., 2013), we consider figured worlds across concurrent elementary school
science spaces: the classroom, the school garden, and the science lab. We investigate the
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 5

micro-level structures including the social and cultural norms of each figured world and how
they afford different ways for students to take actions in service of their interests, trying out
the new kind of person they hope to become.

2.2 | Student interest-driven inquiries

Students can take many improvised actions toward becoming. In this study, we narrow the
scope and examine actions students take toward pursuing their own interests and desired learn-
ing. Students' outward pursuits of their interests allow us to select and analyze specific
moments of student agency or performances of identity in practice. To conceptualize student
interest, we draw on the notion of lines of practice, which are distinctive, recurrent patterns of
persistent engagement in a person's practice (Azevedo, 2011). Azevedo (2011) considers how
young people develop persistent interests, arguing that “rather than assuming that interest rela-
tionships are essentially and directly topic-centered, I suggest that persistent engagement
emerges from the totality of one's experiences in the practice” (p. 151). Long-term interests
extend beyond individual cognition alone (Hidi & Renninger, 2006) and include many aspects
of practice, including the sociocultural context (Azevedo, 2011). Lines of practice include a per-
son's preferences for the kinds of practices in which they engage, including “the deep, long-term
goals, values, and beliefs that a person develops in the practice” (Azevedo, 2011, p. 147). This
approach takes into account the conditions of practice, or the constraints and affordances that
impinge on the person's practice (Azevedo, 2011). To identify students' persistent science inter-
ests, we looked at practices that (1) clustered around repeated engagement across contexts,
(2) were prominently reported parts of practice reported by an individual and corroborated by
peers, and (3) were continuous with past and future activities.
Our theoretical framework (Figure 1)—integrating students' interest-driven inquiries, ESA,
and figured worlds—drove both the kind of data we needed to collect as well as the methods
we brought for analysis. To address the gaps in the literature and apply this theoretical

F I G U R E 1 Framework for examining student agency to pursue their student interest-driven inquiries across
contexts. We follow students and their inquiries across three contexts and look for how students demonstrate
ESA to pursue their inquiries as well as the micro-scale culture of each figured world that may enable or
constrain student agency
6
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

framework, we focused on the following three aspects of the research questions in depth. First,
we identified individual students' science interests that persisted in their school science learning
across the classroom, garden, and science lab. While most researchers use lines of practice to
understand people's persistent interests over the course of years, we drew on this theory to
examine student interests at a months-long scale. Next, we looked for how those individual
students demonstrated ESA, taking actions to pursue their scientific interests. Finally, we
characterized the classroom, garden, and science lab as figured worlds. We analyzed how the
micro-level structure of these figured worlds seemed to enable and constrain individual student
actions to pursue their lines of practice. Our presentation of data collection, analysis, and find-
ings mirrors this structure, and while it may appear linear, we acknowledge the complexity of
these nonlinear processes that are messy and emergent.

3 | METHODS

3.1 | Case selection

We used a qualitative case study approach for this research (Merriam, 2009; Yin, 2013), which
was part of a larger study of youth participation in citizen and community science (CCS), which
involves members of the public working with scientists to contribute to the generation of new
scientific knowledge (Shirk et al., 2012).
This study took place at a K-5 dual-immersion magnet elementary school with a focus
on environmental science located in an agricultural city in Northern California. The stu-
dent body represented the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity of California's ele-
mentary students with 84% Hispanic or Latinx students, 72% of students qualifying for
free and reduced lunch, and 45% emergent multilingual learners (California Department
of Education, 2013).
This magnet school had the physical spaces, staff, and the curriculum to support an inte-
grated environmental sciences program. Resources included a culinary teaching garden, a sci-
ence lab, a movable class set of Chromebooks, an elementary science specialist and a garden
teacher. The school developed and implemented 6–8 week thematic units linking language arts
and science through environmental science topics to meet the expectations of Common Core
State Standards (CCSSO, 2010) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead
States, 2013). Science learning took place during classroom language arts instruction, science
lessons in the lab taught by the science specialist (30–45 min per week), and garden lessons tau-
ght by the garden teacher (30–45 min per week).

3.1.1 | Salón 18

We selected Salón 18, the 3rd grade class, because 3rd–5th grade is a time when many students
are still developing strong school science identities (Archer et al., 2012). The first author
(Emily) worked with the 3rd grade teacher, science lab teacher, and garden teacher to integrate
a citizen science project, the Lost Ladybug Project (LLP), as a focus for the third grade unit.
Because the focus on the LLP required students to collect data in the garden that they would
then use in the science lab and classroom, the three teachers collaborated to create a coherent
unit across the settings. For most other units, the classroom teacher would design the unit and
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 7

the science teacher would fit in activities that made sense, such as role-play simulations or
observations. In the garden, students primarily did garden work that was not explicitly con-
nected to science.

3.1.2 | Participants

Salón 18 consisted of 26 students, 24 students with Spanish as their first language. Ms. Fletcher,
Salón 18's classroom teacher, was a second year teacher, and her limited experience was an
important consideration in the study. Ms. Mattu, the elementary science specialist, and
Mr. Kelly, the garden teacher, both had 11 years of teaching experience.

3.1.3 | Student activities during the ladybug unit

Over an 8 week unit, students worked daily in Salón 18 and once a week each in the science lab
and garden to investigate ladybugs (see Table S1). The unit focused broadly on students devel-
oping solutions to address the problem of too many aphids in the garden, doing garden work
and collecting data in the garden. The unit culminated with students presenting their work to
community members at the school's magnet showcase.

3.1.4 | Salón 18 classroom activities

Ms. Fletcher facilitated classroom activities focused on literacy development, student writing,
citizen science, and preparation for the showcase. Students read expository text about lady-
bugs, using anticipation guides and reading literacy strategies, and wrote a three-paragraph
essay over the course of the unit, incorporating their understandings about ladybug life cycle,
ladybug species found in the school garden, and their recommendations for how to control
the aphid population in the garden. Students also participated in activities to support their
citizen science LLP work which included: reading LLP field guides, reviewing data they had
submitted, viewing maps of LLP data, and looking up different ladybug species online.
Finally, students prepared posters to share their work at the magnet showcase in the
classroom.

3.1.5 | Garden activities

Both Ms. Fletcher and Mr. Kelly facilitated garden activities. In addition to garden work such as
preparing garden beds, planting, sifting compost, and sorting seeds, activities also included find-
ing, observing, and collecting ladybugs for students to photograph to send to the LLP.

3.1.6 | Science lab activities

Ms. Mattu facilitated science lab activities and Ms. Fletcher almost always attended and circu-
lated during instruction. Activities included observing ladybugs and aphids from the garden
8
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

under a microscope, sketching ladybugs (both specimens and living organisms) and aphids,
photographing ladybugs to send to the LLP as data, and playing games to simulate ladybug and
aphid predator–prey dynamics.

3.1.7 | Focal student selection survey

We selected 11 focal youth using a survey, adapted from the Emerging STEM Learning Activation
Survey (Cannady & Dorph, 2013), that included Likert scale questions such as “I'm really good at sci-
ence” and “I talk about and learn about science when I'm not at school” as well as a place for students
to record three classmates who they perceived to be “really good at science” (Carlone et al., 2014). We
used the survey results, along with consultation with Ms. Fletcher to purposefully select
(Merriam, 2009) 11 focal youth who had a range of academic achievement and interest in science
and who mirrored the larger classroom community in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity.

3.1.8 | Focal student interviews

We interviewed focal students at the start and end of the ladybug unit in an effort to understand
the meaning they made of their experiences (Seidman, 2013). Semi-structured preinterviews focused
on students' perceptions of science and themselves in science, students' prior experiences in gardens
and the natural environment, students' interests in and expectations for the ladybug unit, and what
made someone a good student in science (Tan et al., 2013; Varelas, Kane, & Wylie, 2011).
In the postproject interviews, we first asked students to tell the story of their participation to
a rising second grade student to elicit the most important narratives to them (Sfard &
Prusak, 2005). We used student work and photographs taken by the first author to elicit addi-
tional student memories (Hurworth, 2004) about the unit overall as well as specific experiences
in the garden, classroom, science lab, and the showcase presentation.

3.1.9 | Teacher interviews

We used a semi-structured interview protocol (Merriam, 2009) with all three teachers focusing
on their experience teaching the ladybug unit, their goals for student learning, the culture they
tried to nurture in their teaching context, and their perspectives on important moments for the
focal students.

3.1.10 | Observations

The first author acted as a participant observer (Merriam, 2009), took field notes, recorded
audio and video, and documented reflective memos over 10 weeks, 8 weeks of the unit as well
as 1 week before and after. We visited the school 2–3 days per week, observing 13 classroom les-
sons, eight garden lessons, and eight science lab lessons. In the garden, focal students wore
lapel microphones to capture conversations outside.
Observations centered on the normative scientific and social norms of each context using an
observation guide from Carlone (2012) to understand regularly occurring investigative, commu-
nicative, and epistemic practices in which students engaged.
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 9

3.2 | Data analysis

3.2.1 | Three case study students

We did a close analysis of three of the 11 focal students: José, Emma, and Hector. In interviews,
these three students self-identified and were identified by their classmates and classroom
teacher as “smart” in science, though they ranged in academic achievement in other subjects
and behavior. Following the experiences of the perceived strongest science students could help
us understand how the cultural contexts might enable or constrain the most outwardly success-
ful students in science; if these students may have been constrained by cultural contexts, this
could raise questions about how their peers who do not see themselves, and are not recognized
by others as strong in science, might fare in this cultural world. We followed these case study
students closely to understand their agency with their science interests across settings.

3.2.2 | Identifying student interest-driven inquiries

We drew on student and teacher interviews as well as observations to identify students'

interest-driven inquiries. We listened to students' self-reported preferences as well as their pref-
erences corroborated by teachers and peers and our own observations. We used the following
principles from Azevedo (2011) to identify student preferences: preferences appear across multi-
ple contexts and realms (school, home, etc.), cluster around repeated engagement with specific
interests, are reported prominently by the individual, are continuous with past activity as well
as future activities, and are corroborated by others (peers, parents, teachers). In the student
interviews, we looked for activities that the case study students discussed frequently and with
enthusiasm as well as instances where students corroborated preferences of their peers. We
used observations to identify individual student preferences that spanned across contexts and
clustered around specific interests. Specifically, we identified and documented moments when
focal students initiated actions, interactions, or conversations to bring their interest-driven
inquiries into the activity, including individual, group, or whole class work, which we consid-
ered moments of agency. For example, when a student raised their hand and directed the class
conversation to their specific line of inquiry or when a student used the internet or a field guide
to look up something related to their scientific inquiry. We tracked these moments of agency
for each student and added every moment to a data accounting log (Miles, Huberman, &
Saldana, 2014). This allowed us to narrow the audio and video to specific short moments for
later analysis. The teacher interviews corroborated students' interest-driven inquiries and hel-
ped us see if a student's preferences were continuous with past activity. (Table 1).

3.2.3 | Analyzing the figured worlds of Salón 18, the science lab, and
the garden

To understand the norms and culture of Salón 18, the science lab, and the garden, we compiled
field notes and reflective memos from observations and looked for patterns in the regularly
occurring epistemic, communicative, and investigative practices in each context (Carlone, 2012;
Kelly & Duschl, 2002). To check inferences and understand participants' meanings of the
group's norms and practices, we analyzed teacher and student interviews about their
10
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

T A B L E 1 Data sources and criteria for identifying student interest-driven inquiries

Data source analyzed Aspect of lines of practice (Azevedo, 2011)

Focal student pre and postinterviews Reported prominently by the individual
Continuous with past activity as well as future activities
Corroborated by others (peers, parents, teachers)
Clusters around repeated engagement with specific interests
Teacher interviews Corroborated by others (peers, parents, teachers)
Continuous with past activity as well as future activities
Observations Appears across multiple contexts and realms
Clusters around repeated engagement with specific interests

perceptions of who is good at school and science in the classroom, garden and science lab. We
then revised and added to our descriptions of the normative social and scientific practices in the
figured world of each context.

3.3 | Analyzing moments of student agency

3.3.1 | Moments selection

For each student, we compiled every moment of agency that we had recorded from our observa-
tions. We added instances that students reported in postinterviews because they were important
enough for the students to tell us about. We then compared across those two sources. We
selected moments that (1) students and/or teachers repeatedly discussed, (2) students acted out-
side of their normal behavior (e.g., interrupting rather than raising their hand), and (3) exempli-
fied repeated behavior (e.g., when there were several similar moments, we selected just one of
them). This resulted in 6–8 moments for analysis for each case study student. We selected a
video for each moment that provided the context before and after, allowing us to contextualize
the moment and record in more detail the actions and discourse.

3.3.2 | Moments analysis

We analyzed each moment using an analytical framework drawn from our theoretical frame-
work (Table 2). Our first research question focused on actions students took across settings to
pursue their interest-driven inquiries. We coded for aspects of ESA for each case study student
in these moments (Ballard et al., 2017; Basu & Calabrese Barton, 2009) and then queried for
patterns in the kinds of actions taken across the three case study students.
Our second research question focused on how the culture of each context could enable or
constrain student actions. We analyzed how student actions were responded to by teachers or
other students, what actions were celebrated and recognized, and the resources and tools stu-
dents accessed (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010; Carlone, 2012; Carlone et al., 2014; Kelly &
Duschl, 2002; Table 2). We attended to the overlap between the actions students took and the
micro-level culture. These moments allowed us to infer what students wanted to be recognized
for, who they were interested in being recognized by, and how they were responded to by their
peers and teachers (Carlone et al., 2014). We then used NVivo (NVivo 10 qualitative
HARRIS AND BALLARD
T A B L E 2 Framework for analysis of student agency and normative culture
Environmental science agency (ESA)
Content and inquiry practice (Ballard et al., 2017;
Basu & Calabrese Barton, 2009)
What kind of knowledge are students drawing on?
What practices are students engaged in?
Positioning (Ballard et al., 2017; Carlone
et al., 2014; Nasir & Hand, 2008)
How do students position themselves in roles,
make bids for attention, and assert their
interests and ideas?
Foundation for change (Ballard et al., 2017; Basu
& Calabrese Barton, 2009)
How do students see or use their experiences with
science in their daily lives in new ways?
Micro-level culture of each context
Resources and tools (Calabrese Barton &
Tan, 2010)
What resources do students have access to? How
do they leverage those resources or not?
Normative practices (Carlone, 2012; Kelly &
Duschl, 2002)
What investigative and communicative practices
are valued? Who legitimized knowledge? How
are students expected to participate?
What actions are celebrated (Carlone & Johnson,
2007; Carlone et al., 2014)
How are student actions recognized or not?
software 2012) to query all the moments that took place in the classroom, garden, or science lab
and identify patterns in the ways that the culture of each context may have supported or
inhibited students in their actions.
| 11
Environmental science content—students
demonstrate knowledge of content through
interviews or actions
Scientific practice—epistemic, investigative, and
communicative practices students engage with
Roles—unique specialties, stances and positions that
youth take up or begin to develop
Bids for attention—instances when students make
bids to get attention from the teacher or another
student
Asserting ideas, questions, explanations—instances
where students assert themselves and their ideas,
questions or explanations in one-on-one, small
group, or whole group interactions.
Appropriate tools and resources—students use a tool
or resource for new purposes to further their
interests
Carry practice or artifact to another setting—students
carry practices or artifacts to new settings, including
Salon 18, garden, science lab, or home.
Technology—resource or tools that are related to
technology, such as iPads or Google
Living resource—a living resource, such as a ladybug
or aphid
Scientific tools—resource or tools are traditionally
seen as scientific tools such as microscopes or hand
lenses
Valued practices—the valued investigative, epistemic,
and communication practices in a given context
Who legitimizes knowledge—who determines
knowledge in a space including the teacher,
students, or media such as books or videos
Activity structure—how a given activity is structured
and how students are expected to participate
Student behavior—what kind of student behavior and
participation is expected
Recognition—how students are received and
responded to by the teacher and peers in positive or
negative ways
12
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

4 | F IN D I NG S

First, we introduce José, Emma, and Hector as the three case study students and their interest-
driven inquiries. We then discuss how these three students demonstrated ESA in pursuit of
their scientific inquiries. Next, we describe Salón 18, the science lab, and the garden as the fig-
ured worlds of school science. For each figured world, we analyze how the culture of each space
may have enabled or constrained student actions. Our goal in this analysis is to examine the
relationship between student agency and the micro-scale structure of figured worlds across con-
texts. We attend to how the different contexts have some overlapping and some distinct cultural
norms and practices about how scientific knowledge is constructed and who can be a science
person. We aim to make apparent how these cultural worlds could enable and constrain student
actions in pursuit of their interests, which is important for young people's long-term trajectories
toward future STEM engagement and environmental stewardship actions.

4.1 | Introducing José, Hector, and Emma

4.1.1 | José

José is an 8-year-old Latino boy who identified strongly with science, saying he loved science in
school and wanted to be a scientist someday. Though Ms. Fletcher said he struggled with writ-
ing and focus during math and language arts, he was curious and engaged around science
topics and nine of his classmates identified him as good at science in the selection survey. He
was the only student in the class that Mr. Kelly, the garden teacher, knew by name because he
was so outwardly enthusiastic about science. He enjoyed being in the spotlight, often making
bids for attention and staging public performances of his science knowledge by telling stories to
his peers and teachers.
José's main interest-driven inquiry focused on searching for different species of ladybugs and
“searching up” information about different species of ladybugs, with an acute focus on ladybug
color. This manifested throughout the ladybug unit, starting in his preinterview. When asked if
he'd ever learned about ladybugs before, he immediately launched into “Yeah. I know that there
could be different color ones … there's only this green one that's only poisonous.” He talked about
how he'd been looking at ladybugs since he was 4 years old and he enjoyed “searching up”
information about them. We use José's language of searching up to describe how he persistently
looked up information online or in books, both at school and home. His words are important
because he frequently used them to make bids to his peers or teachers for recognition, by show-
ing them, “Look what I searched up.” During the first weeks of the unit, he was intensely
focused on green ladybugs. He spent time looking for them in the garden and searching up
information about them online. Once he learned they were not ladybugs, but actually cucumber
beetles, he shifted his focus to finding different ladybug species in the garden to contribute to
the LLP and searching up information about them online.

4.1.2 | Hector

Hector is an 8-year-old Latino boy interested in animals, and he wanted to become a veterinar-
ian. He was not excited about school generally, and his teacher reported he was in the middle
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 13

of the class academically. He reported that he spent free time playing in his grandpa's garden
and sometimes watched “Animal Planet” or sought out books about animals he was interested
in. Hector had not always been kind to animals or other students and Ms. Fletcher and several
peers reported that he had cut a pill bug in half at the start of the school year. Ms. Fletcher
reported in her interview, “I think if I had to put a label on him, I'd say he's probably the worst-
behaved kid in the class. He's kind of this up to no good, a little bit of a bully sometimes.” Though
he had challenges socially, in science, we observed him working well with others.
Hector's interest-driven inquiry centered on finding and observing animals at all life stages.
He frequently took on a role as a “searcher” and reported this as his favorite part of the unit,
recalling in his postprogram interview how good he was at finding not only ladybugs but other
living organisms as well. Hector said, “It was fun finding the ladybug but mostly we found the
same species that we always find … I found tons of aphids, I found a moth … I found lots of soldier
beetles and in the other bed there was a mosquito.” He was particularly interested in finding dif-
ferent life stages of ladybugs, likely because the class had studied snail reproduction in the pre-
vious unit. Unlike José, however, once he'd found and observed living things, he moved on
quickly and did not spend time examining what he had found. For Hector, it was about the sea-
rch, rather than learning and sharing information with others. When asked 2 weeks after the
ladybug unit if he'd continued looking for ladybugs, he said he had a little, but mostly “I'm done
with it. It's getting kind of boring.” He had moved on to finding and observing new animals.

4.1.3 | Emma

Emma is an 8-year-old White girl who was highly invested in school and being a good student.
She described herself as “one of the highest students” in the class because “once we took a reading
test … I got a really high score.” Ms. Fletcher described how she was very “textbook smart” but
“she does not like to be challenged” and tired easily when asked to problem-solve. Emma was
well-liked by her peers, evidenced in observations by her classmates encouraging her when she
was struggling and voting for her ideas.
Emma's interest-driven inquiry involved exploring male and female ladybugs. Emma was
fascinated by animal reproduction and sex as it related to her work in the science classroom.
When asked in her preinterview what was most interesting about ladybugs, she responded,
“That they're not both male and female, because snails and worms are.” She continued describing
her hopes for her learning during the ladybug unit: “I want to know if the male doesn't have spots
and the female do.” This interest likely developed during the previous unit on snail reproduction
and persisted during and after the ladybug unit.

4.2 | Actions students took to realize their interest-driven inquiries

Students took many improvised actions to follow their interest-driven inquiries. We describe
the different kinds of actions students took, through the lens of the three categories of ESA:
knowledge and practice, positioning, and environmental science experiences as a foundation
for change (Table 3). With respect to the first aspects of ESA, students engaged with scientific
practice to develop knowledge by drawing on their knowledge of place, asking questions and
obtaining information about their inquiries, and communicating information to their peers,
teachers, and adults through informal classroom discussions and the final showcase. We noted
14
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

T A B L E 3 Summary of actions students took to pursue their interest-driven inquiries

Environmental
science Actions students took to pursue their
agency (ESA) interest-driven inquiries
Drew on knowledge of place about
ladybug and aphid habitat (J, E, H)
Knowledge and Obtained information about inquiries
inquiry through searching online, observing
practice living organisms and specimens, and
using project-specific tools and
technology (J, E, H)
Communicated information found to
other students, teachers, and
community members (J, E, H)
Positioning Asserted oneself and one's ideas and
questions (E, J)
Took on roles—in service of their own
line of practice and additional roles
such as garden steward, artist, or
rehearsal director (J, E, H)
Made bids for attention—to peers,
teachers, and visitors to share ideas,
discoveries, and knowledge around
their lines of practice (J, E, H)
Foundation for Appropriated tools and resources from
change the task design for personal lines of
practice (J, E)
Carried artifacts or practices across
contexts related to personal lines of
practice—searches for and brings in
ladybugs from recess or home to help
the garden, photographs for LLP (J, H)
Examples
All three students went straight to the
fava bean patch to look for ladybugs
after repeated visits to the garden.
Hector spent extensive time reading about
and observing ladybug eggs and larvae
to understand ladybug life stages.
During the showcase, José shared about
all the different kinds of ladybugs he
had found in the garden.
When observing ladybugs mating, a
student asked which one was a boy or
girl and Emma asserted herself to
answer their question.
Hector took on the role of “finder” in the
garden searching for and finding new
living organisms.
Hector found ladybug eggs and spent
10 min next to the eggs calling for Ms.
Fletcher to come over and see what he
had found.
José and Emma use Google to answer
their own questions rather than fill out
a worksheet.
Hector and José start searching for
ladybugs at home and during recess.

Note: Not all students took every action, so the initials of students to whom the action pertains are in parentheses.
Abbreviations: E, Emma; H, Hector; J, José.

that these students rarely engaged in higher level reasoning practices, such as evidence-based
argument or explanation. When we discuss the figured world of Salón 18, we offer possible rea-
sons for why we did not observe higher level reasoning. Students positioned themselves to pur-
sue their inquiries through asserting their ideas and questions, taking on roles such as ladybug
finder, and making bids for attention to their teachers and peers to get support or be recognized
for the expertise they developed through their inquiry pursuits. Finally, these students used
their environmental science experiences as a foundation for change by appropriating the school
tasks for their inquiries, such as using Google to look up information, and carrying practices
across settings, searching for ladybugs at home and during recess to pursue their inquiries.
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 15

4.3 | Aspects of Salón 18, garden, and science lab that seemed
to enable or constrain student agency

While students took many improvised actions to pursue their inquiries, we now explore the
structural aspects of Salón 18, the garden, and science lab that seemed to enable and con-
strain these actions. We characterize each context as a figured world to understand the nor-
mative culture of each setting. We then analyze students' attempts to pursue their inquiries
and report themes in how the structure appeared to enable or constrain their actions
(Table 4).

4.4 | Salón 18

4.4.1 | Figured world of Salón 18

Salón 18 drew heavily from the figured worlds of traditional school science and writing-focused
science. Class activities centered on reading expository text, learning vocabulary, reviewing
observations, and writing about scientific work. Ms. Fletcher emphasized and positively recog-
nized students' use of specific scientific vocabulary and facts in students discourse and writing
from both text and student observations.
In Salón 18, Ms. Fletcher served as the main knowledge authority. When students had an
idea, or made a new discovery, they immediately called to Ms. Fletcher to both seek her
approval and share their ideas, which she either confirmed or corrected with additional facts.
As this was her first year implementing the ladybug unit, she spent extra time learning the con-
tent so she could answer student questions accurately, with the goal of ultimately supporting
students' writing using accurate scientific facts and details.

T A B L E 4 Summary of factors that seemed to enable and constrain student actions

Factors that may constrain student

Context Factors that may enable student actions actions
Salon 18 • Access to resources—technology and living • Ms. Fletcher as the main knowledge
organisms (J, E, H) authority (J, E, H)
• Activity structure that allows for flexible and
independent group work (J, E, H)
Science • Ms. Mattu's orientation toward questioning • Ms. Fletcher as the main knowledge
lab and hearing student ideas (J, E, H) authority (J, E, H)
• Access to resources—scientific tools and
living organisms (J, E, H)
• Activity structure that includes student choice
within activities (J, H)
Garden • Access to resources—living organisms • Ms. Fletcher and Mr. Kelly as the main
(J, E, H) knowledge authorities (J, E, H)
• Activity structure that supports exploration • Limited time (E, J)
(J, H)

Note: Initials indicate prominence across the three students.

Abbreviations: E, Emma; H, Hector; J, José.
16
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

The two main ways to be scientific in Salón 18 included knowing a lot of information or facts
and making observations. First, students recognized that knowing specific facts and details was
a valued practice. All 11 focal students shared in their interviews that being scientific in Salón
18 involved “knowing a lot of facts about science stuff” or “getting the answer correct.” In their
postinterviews, students reported facts that Ms. Fletcher had emphasized, sharing multiple
times in a recitation fashion that “convergent ladybugs have 0-13 spots” or “we have three species
in our garden … seven-spotted ladybug, the convergent ladybug, and California ladybug.” We
interpreted these as bids for recognition from our team to validate the way of being scientific
that was valued in Salón 18. Ms. Fletcher had targeted content goals for student learning, and
she positively reinforced when student inquiries aligned with the knowledge she wanted stu-
dents to acquire, and shut down or ignored students when they raised questions or ideas that
did not align with her intended content or settled scientific ideas. Second, Ms. Fletcher continu-
ally praised and showed she valued students making observations, primarily as a hands-on way
to confirm facts. Students read expository text before making observations and then had oppor-
tunities to observe the phenomenon they had read about. Seven of the 11 focal students
reported that valued practice involved making observations, such as “observing stuff and notic-
ing small things.”
Salón 18 had a flexible activity structure and Ms. Fletcher recognized and valued children's
needs to engage and socialize with each other and students often worked in small groups of
four students. During independent work time, students frequently got up from their desk to
show their friend or Ms. Fletcher something important. Student curiosity was encouraged and
it was acceptable if students were exploring their own inquiries, as long as they achieved
Ms. Fletcher's intended goals for content understanding and writing.

4.4.2 | Factors that seemed to enable and constrain student agency in

Salón 18

In Salón 18, access to technological resources and the flexible activity structure supported stu-
dents to take actions to pursue their interest-driven inquiries, while Ms. Fletcher as the main
knowledge authority seemed to constrain these student pursuits (Table 4). We highlight these
themes with examples from Emma and José.

4.4.3 | Emma

Emma frequently attempted to pursue her inquiry exploring male and female ladybugs in Salón
18, and she was sometimes but not always successful. In one typical interaction 2 weeks into
the project, Emma attempted to assert her interests during a whole class discussion and
Ms. Fletcher did not recognize Emma's bid for attention. Ms. Fletcher was leading a conversa-
tion comparing the ladybug they had observed in the garden with a photo of a ladybug from
online. The transcript follows:

Ms. Fletcher: I'll take 3 observations … how is [this ladybug] different from the one
we saw from California? [Emma along with 8 students raise their hands.
Elena: It has no spots. [Emma along with 8 students continue raising their hands to
be called on to make another observation.]
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 17

Ms. Fletcher: It has no spots … does that mean it's a boy or a girl?
Choral response: No.
José: It's a young one.
Another student: It's a different species.
Ms. Fletcher: It means it's a different kind of ladybug. It's a different species. It's
not boy or girl. It is female or male but we haven't learned how to tell—
Emma: [interrupting Ms. Fletcher and calling out loudly] How do you tell?
Ms. Fletcher does not recognize the question and continues talking about the differ-
ences in the thoraxes of the two ladybugs.

In this interaction, the class discussion leaned toward the line of inquiry Emma had been inves-
tigating for several weeks. Emma generally raised her hand and waited to be called on in class
discussions. In this episode however, when her area of inquiry arose, she asserted herself more
forcefully by interrupting the teacher. Ms. Fletcher paused, looked at Emma, and then contin-
ued with her planned instruction to prepare students for writing their paragraphs comparing
ladybugs. She did not acknowledge or comment on this bid for attention. Interactions like this
were typical in Salón 18. On multiple occasions, Emma attempted unsuccessfully to bring her
interests in male and female ladybugs into the classroom conversation.
Despite this, Emma took her own actions, often appropriating the available tools and
resources to get answers, during the flexible independent or group work time. For example, dur-
ing an activity where the class used Google to match images of different ladybug species with a
drawing on a worksheet, Emma used access to Google to query how to tell the difference
between male and female ladybugs, gaining information she would later share with the class.
In this moment and others, the open structure of the activity as well as access to technological
tools allowed Emma to take improvised actions.

4.4.4 | José

Like Emma, José took advantage of the flexible activity structure and appropriated tools to pur-
sue his interest of searching up different species of ladybugs. Yet, Ms. Fletcher's role as the
knowledge authority frequently shut down his inquiry. In one episode, José was intent on
searching up information about green ladybugs. He had been told previously they were cucum-
ber beetles, not ladybugs, by both Mr. Kelly and Ms. Fletcher, but remained curious about them
for weeks. At one point, instead of working on a worksheet matching activity, José typed “real
green ladybugs” into Google. The interaction below was typical between José and Ms. Fletcher.

José: [showing his Chromebook screen to another student] Look, real green ladybugs!
… I'm gonna show Ms. Fletcher. [bringing his Chromebook over from his desk to
Ms. Fletcher's] Ms. Fletcher, look what I searched up. [José waits with his
Chromebook at Ms. Fletcher's desk until she stops talking with the other students and
then looks at him.] I searched up the truth.
Ms. Fletcher: Don't walk around with that [Chromebook] okay? Those are cucum-
ber beetles by the way. [Ms. Fletcher turns away from José and goes back to talking
with the other students.]
José: [carrying his Chromebook back to his desk mumbles to himself] … cucumber beetle.
18
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

In this episode, José used available tools to find out information related to his interest. He
immediately wanted to show Ms. Fletcher to share his excitement, and waited patiently to gain
her recognition around this interest he had been pursuing. Yet Ms. Fletcher quickly shut José
down, telling him he was wrong. Ms. Fletcher recognized José's knowledge of green ladybugs as
an idea she wanted to correct, yet this episode represented her typical response to students'
alternative ideas. She would immediately tell students the correct fact rather than engage stu-
dents in a conversation to discuss their ideas. Despite a resource-intense and flexible environ-
ment, Ms. Fletcher did not encourage José to engage with scientific ideas and practices. She
acted as the main knowledge authority.
These two examples were representative of the culture in Salón 18. The flexible activity struc-
ture and access to technology offered supports for students to pursue their inquiries (Table 4). If
students were generally on task, they could work together and use technology to explore their
interests. However, the narrow ways of investigating and reasoning in Salón 18 did not always
encourage student agency. As the main knowledge authority, Ms. Fletcher did not position stu-
dents to engage in deeper reasoning, and asking questions or asserting ideas was not celebrated
(Table 4).

4.5 | Science lab

4.5.1 | Figured world of science lab

Ms. Mattu's science lab involved the figured world of observation-focused school science. Investi-
gation in the science lab involved asking questions and making careful observations, which were
often represented in sketches. Of the 11 focal students, seven reported in their preinterviews
that being smart in the science lab meant “making observations,” “being curious,” and “figuring
stuff out.” Ms. Mattu encouraged curiosity and observation, and students saw these were val-
ued. When students made bids for Ms. Mattu's recognition by offering their observations and
questions, her response was encouraging and she often shared with students that she was learn-
ing alongside them by saying, “That is a really good question. Did anyone else notice that? We
could research that, I don't know. It's a great question!” Ms. Mattu also recognized and praised
sketches that had details and included text and questions, showing students' sketches on the
document camera and leading discussion about what made it a good sketch, emphasizing good
close observations.
Ms. Mattu had limited familiarity with ladybugs at the start of the unit, so the students
and teacher collaboratively learned together and students chose from a selection of activities.
Ms. Mattu described in her postprogram interview how she had to get “really comfortable
learning alongside with the kids and not feeling like I have to frontload anything with them.”
She reported that incorporation of the LLP into the unit meant she did not know what would
happen; this unknown prompted her to learn alongside students' investigations. During the
unit, students were given multiple activity options and chose how to allocate their time
including: observing live ladybugs, ladybug specimens, or live aphids using microscopes or
hand lenses, sketching ladybugs, or photographing ladybugs and uploading photos to the
LLP website.
Ms. Mattu allowed for unexpected moments to happen in the science lab. For example, on
their first day observing live ladybugs, Ms. Mattu froze the ladybugs so they would be still for
observation. However, she did not freeze them for long enough and during the lesson, ladybugs
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 19

flew around the classroom. Ms. Mattu capitalized on this surprising event, asking students to
make observations and generate questions about their flight patterns. In these emergent
moments, Ms. Mattu used the student questions to guide the learning based on what they had
observed. In her postproject interview, she described these as “teachable moments,” something
she had learned to value in her previous job teaching at an outdoor science school.

4.5.2 | Factors that seemed to enable and constrain student agency in

the science lab

In the science lab, Ms. Mattu supported student agency by recognizing and attending to unex-
pected moments, offering multiple choices for activities, and providing access to scientific tools
and living resources. Ms. Fletcher's presence as a knowledge authority likely constrained stu-
dent actions (Table 4). We highlight these themes with examples from Emma and Hector.

4.5.3 | Emma

In science lab, Emma made bids for attention, demonstrated her expertise about male and
female ladybugs, and was recognized in her inquiry by Ms. Mattu. In one typical episode,
Ms. Mattu used the Elmo to project a fava bean plant covered with aphids so students could
observe a ladybug feeding on aphids. Her goal was for students to observe the predator–prey
relationship between the two organisms. As the whole class sat on the carpet and observed, a
second ladybug unexpectedly started mating with the first ladybug. The class erupted in laugh-
ter and rather than continuing the predation discussion, Ms. Mattu quickly made space for
questions and discussion. The following conversation ensued:

Student: Can ladybugs mate with different species?

Another student: Which one is male and which one is female?
Emma: [raising her hand to respond]
Ms. Mattu: Emma
Emma: [sharing information she looked up in Salón 18] I read this online that you
can't tell the difference … you can, but you have to do it under the microscope.
Ms. Mattu: Ahh, what are you looking for under the microscope?
Emma: The girl is a little bigger.
Ms. Mattu: Emma said that she investigated that by looking on the internet and
she found some ideas online … You can get some of these questions that you're ask-
ing … you can investigate it by looking on a computer or looking in a book … that's
called investigating with text.”

In this episode, Emma immediately and confidently raised her hand to answer her peer's ques-
tion. She asserted herself and her knowledge and positioned herself as an expert on ladybug sex
for the class. Ms. Mattu positioned Emma to share her knowledge by encouraging this “off
topic” conversation and calling on her to share her ideas. She also recognized and validated
Emma's inquiry by probing her for more information about her ideas, as well as validating and
lifting up her research as an example of how scientists can investigate with text.
20
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

Emma's experiences in the science lab were impactful; when asked in her postprogram
interview what part of the ladybug unit she was most proud of, Emma responded with, “Shar-
ing the information that I found.” While Emma found the information looking online in Salón
18, it was Ms. Mattu in science lab who encouraged and created opportunities for Emma to be
recognized publicly for her expertise.

4.5.4 | Hector

Hector pursued his inquiry by searching for living things of all life stages in the science lab and
frequently took on the role of “finder,” using the microscopes to look for stages of ladybug life
cycles. On one representative science lab day, students engaged with one of two activities: they
sketched ladybugs or they observed aphids on fava bean leaves under the microscope or with
hand lenses. Hector spent the entire period looking under the microscope.

Hector: [looking under the microscope, tells Jorge excitedly] Dude, this is hecka … Un
huevo (egg)! Un huevo (egg)!
[Hector shows Jorge and Jorge gets excited.]
Let's tell Ms. Fletcher.
[After a few seconds of observing, Hector goes to the table next door to tell Ms. Fletcher
that they found an egg. He waits by Ms. Fletcher while she talks to another group of
students.]
Jorge: [looking under the microscope, tells his group members] Look, there's an egg…
there's an egg.
Hector: [After Ms. Fletcher turns toward him saying, “I'm going to come look,” he
returns to his table without her and tells Jorge] Don't touch, don't touch, Ms.
Fletcher is coming.
Isabel: [to Hector, Jorge and 6 students crowded around] Are you sure that's an egg?
[to Elena] Can you pass me the hand lens?
[Hector is now in the back of the crowd, looking to Ms. Fletcher and back to the
crowd.]
Hector: Hey, let Ms. Fletcher look.
Isabel: [holding up her hand lens] Who else wants to see it closely?
[Hector leaves while the students continue observing the “egg” closely. Eventually all
the students dissipate.]
Ms. Fletcher [comes over to look and Hector follows her] Alright, let me see some
ladybug eggs.
[to Hector] Do you remember the picture of ladybug eggs I showed you?
What color are they? Super yellow and they're shaped like ovals. [What Hector has
found do not look like that.]
[Ms. Fletcher walks away and Hector follows.]

In this episode, Hector took on the role of ladybug egg finder, supported by access to scientific tools
and living organisms as well as a choice in activity. Hector chose not to sketch, but instead to
spend almost the entire class period looking for ladybug life stages, pursuing his own inquiry
within the culture of Ms. Mattu's science lab. However, as was the case for most students, when he
made a discovery, he made brief observations and then immediately called for Ms. Fletcher (even
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 21

though this was science lab) to confirm the find. He spent most of his time at the table next door
trying to get Ms. Fletcher to come look and did not engage with the other students who were
attempting to engage in discussion. He only returned to his table when the teacher arrived, in an
effort to gain her recognition. When Ms. Fletcher did come over, she quickly looked at the “eggs,”
told Hector what the eggs were supposed to look like, and shut down his investigation. She did not
encourage discussion about what Hector observed and why he thought they were eggs.
These two examples were common in the science lab. When students were engaged in
whole group discussion with Ms. Mattu, they were encouraged to question, share their ideas,
and make observations, which created many opportunities for students to share their knowl-
edge and be recognized as experts in their areas of inquiry. In contrast, during small group
observation, students consistently made bids to Ms. Fletcher for recognition. The culture that
Ms. Mattu fostered was often undermined by the culture of Salón 18 that Ms. Fletcher and the
students brought to the science lab.

4.6 | Garden

4.6.1 | Figured world of the garden

The garden involved the figured world of a working garden space. Students regularly partici-
pated in garden work, such as planting or weeding, directed by the garden teacher, Mr. Kelly,
with Ms. Fletcher present. Nine of 11 focal students reported in preinterviews that being a good
student in the garden involved following the rules, working hard, and helping out. Some stu-
dents saw the garden as a space for science learning while others did not. For example, Hector
perceived the garden as a space for science learning, reporting how he made observations and
looked for animals in the garden. Emma, however, saw the garden as a space for doing garden-
ing work like planting, which she saw as unrelated to science learning.
Activities in the garden supported student exploration. During the ladybug unit, in addition
to the regular garden work activities, Ms. Fletcher had students observe and collect the differ-
ent kinds of ladybugs to photograph them to send to the LLP. During these citizen science
activities students freely explored the garden, with access to a diversity of living things. They
often worked with friends, moving freely around the space and excitedly calling each other
over to share discoveries. If students were safe and following the rules, they were free to
explore.
In the garden, Ms. Fletcher also invoked the figured world of writing focused school science.
Ms. Fletcher encouraged students to use their observations of live organisms to confirm content
information that she had told them or they had read about in Salón 18. When students observed
something new, Ms. Fletcher would tell students what they were observing and then remind
them of those facts as they attempted their writing in Salón 18.
Despite abundant opportunities for exploration, Mr. Kelly and Ms. Fletcher were still the
main knowledge authorities in the garden. As students participated in garden work or observa-
tion activities, they often found living creatures and would show their discoveries to their
teachers. Both Ms. Fletcher and Mr. Kelly encouraged exploration and, when students shared
their discoveries, they both were quick to explain the names of the living organisms and the role
they played in the garden ecosystem. They rarely questioned students or pushed them to
describe or engage more deeply in their observations or reasoning.
22
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

4.6.2 | Factors that seemed to enable and constrain student agency in

the garden

In the garden, student actions were supported by access to living resources (insects, plants), an
activity structure that encouraged exploration, and some positive recognition from
Ms. Fletcher. Student actions seemed to be constrained by Ms. Fletcher and Mr. Kelly's presence
as the primary knowledge authorities, such as when they told students what they found without
inviting students to contribute their own observations and thoughts, or when they received neg-
ative recognition from Ms. Fletcher likely due to limited time (Table 4). We highlight these
themes with examples from Hector and José.

4.6.3 | Hector

In the garden as in the science lab, Hector took many actions to position himself as an expert
finder of living things at all life stages. On the last garden day of the unit, while students were
documenting ladybug observations, Hector finally found ladybug eggs. He called out to José, “I
found the huevos right here!” José came running with two other students. José immediately
suggested, “Show Ms. Fletcher!” Four more students heard the excitement and came to look at
the eggs. Ms. Fletcher announced to the class, “You have 2 minutes … you need to have at least
2 observations written down.” One student ran over to tell Ms. Fletcher about Hector's discovery
and Hector started calling out, saying,“Ms. Fletcher, huevos … Ms. Fletcher, Ms. Fletcher,”
actively seeking her attention and recognition. Over 5 min, Hector stayed with the eggs as
groups of different students came over, observed the eggs, recorded the observation in their
notes and continued looking for ladybugs in the garden. Hector did not record any observations,
rather he continued loudly shouting for Ms. Fletcher. After 10 min, Ms. Fletcher came over,
bent down next to Hector, and confirmed, “Those are the ladybug eggs.” She then asked him,
“Did you write that down and say where you found it? Why do you think they would lay their eggs
in here?” Hector's peers briefly discussed reasons why eggs might be there and after about 15 s,
Ms. Fletcher left without waiting for a response and Hector followed.
In this moment, the open exploration time offered Hector opportunities to find and docu-
ment ladybugs for the LLP, and to spend the entire time pursuing his inquiry looking for
ladybug eggs. He also received some recognition from Ms. Fletcher in his role as egg finder
after making bids for her attention for 10 min. Yet, the knowledge culture that he, his peers,
and Ms. Fletcher brought to the garden did not encourage Hector to make sense of his find-
ings. When he found the ladybug eggs, he and José immediately looked to Ms. Fletcher for
recognition. Hector paid little attention to his classmates' interest, calling for Ms. Fletcher
despite many of his classmates attempting to observe and discuss. When Ms. Fletcher
arrived, she did ask a question to push his thinking, however, she did not wait for his
response. When she quickly left, Hector followed and stopped engaging in discussion about
his discovery.

4.6.4 | José

José, like Hector, was intensely focused on finding ladybugs, though he was interested in find-
ing different kinds of species. José spent every day in the garden taking advantage of the flexible
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 23

activity structure and searching for different species. He was so intent on this that he carried
this practice home, finding ladybugs in his yard, taking photographs for the LLP, and then
releasing the ladybugs in the school garden. In his searching, José discovered two new ladybug
species at home and brought them to school to put in the school garden, showing them to
Ms. Fletcher, Mr. Kelly and his peers. Ms. Fletcher worked with him to photograph the lady-
bugs and submit them to the LLP. In his postinterview, he reported his motivation for bringing
them in was “cause I didn't wanted them to stay in the street … so, I wanted to help out our garden
out with the problem of aphids … and because I wanted to show Ms. Fletcher.” Being a garden
steward and gaining recognition from his teacher were important to him.
When José brought in the two new species of ladybug, Ms. Fletcher was particularly excited
because it aligned with her goals for students to discover ladybug species in the school garden
and city; José and Ms. Fletcher approached the first author (Emily), to eagerly describe the
discovery.

José: I found two more [ladybugs]… I found a black and orange Asian ladybug … It
was more black than orange.
Emily: Where did you find it?
Ms. Fletcher: Well, but you didn't know it was [an Asian ladybug] … Are you
talking about the one that we thought was a twice-stabbed [ladybug]? We don't
know what kind it was … It was pretty cool though it was black and how many red
spots did it have? José: It wasn't red, it was orange. It had two orange spots. And I
found a white ladybug too.
Emily: Where did you find them?
José: I found them in trees.
Emily: In trees here at school?
José: In house.
Ms. Fletcher: We cataloged them … we're awaiting [the LLP scientists'] response.

Ms. Fletcher in this moment included herself as part of José's inquiry, using language about
what “we” did and sharing her excitement about his discovery being “pretty cool.” She reported
later, “I was absolutely amazed by these two ladybugs he found … I had to take back my ‘don't
bring to school’ rule because they were so cool.” Because his pursuit aligned with her aims, she
changed her rules and allowed him to bring the ladybugs to school and provided positive feed-
back and recognition of his discovery. She emphasized finding out the correct identification
and, because she did not have this knowledge, she deferred to the LLP scientists as a knowledge
authority to confirm the species.
However, after several weeks, Ms. Fletcher shut down José's line of inquiry by putting a
moratorium on bringing ladybugs from home to school, telling José that they were not learning
about ladybugs anymore and needed to spend their time on the next weather unit. Ms. Fletcher
described how she needed to move on, explaining, “[The] conversation is totally cut short … it
would have been this engaging learning moment and experience that doesn't fit now into this
week.” Faced with limited instructional time, she could no longer support this line of inquiry.
These two examples were representative of the dynamics in the garden. Students were able
to take actions toward their inquiries through free exploration of the living resources in the
school garden and were sometimes recognized as local experts in their inquiries, particularly
when their interests aligned with Ms. Fletcher's classroom goals. However, the students,
Ms. Fletcher, and Mr. Kelly collectively perpetuated an orientation toward learning facts about
24
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

what students had found. When students made novel discoveries, they looked to Ms. Fletcher
to confirm their findings and there was inconsistency in which actions were celebrated. When
Ms. Fletcher did not know, she deferred to scientists or other authorities for confirmation.

5 | DISCUSSION

5.1 | Environmental science agency to pursue student interest-driven

inquiries

We found evidence that Hector, Emma, and José acted in many ways to follow their inquiries
and through these actions students demonstrated the three components of ESA: development
of scientific content knowledge and practice; taking on specific roles and self-identifying areas
of expertise with their inquiries; and carrying their practices to new settings (Ballard
et al., 2017; Basu & Calabrese Barton, 2009). Students took actions to shape their learning of sci-
ence content and practice through drawing on their knowledge of place and obtaining and com-
municating information they wanted to learn about their inquiries. Students took on specific
roles and began to see themselves and be recognized as experts, as they brought their interest-
driven inquiries into the classroom, positioning themselves as classroom experts, asserting their
ideas, and making bids for attention. Students began to use environmental science experiences
as a foundation from which to create change in their lives and communities, acting on their
inquiries by appropriating tools and resources of each setting and carrying practices to new con-
texts. Students took action to explore their inquiries across settings.
Prior research on student agency highlights the importance of students being able to have a
say in what they learn and shape activities to be personally relevant (Reeve & Tseng, 2011).
Investigating persistent interests was an important process by which students attempted, some-
times successfully, to influence the direction of their learning. Exploring their inquiries made
school science learning personally consequential, as evidenced by students like Emma
expressing her pride in finding information about her inquiry and sharing it with others.

5.2 | Comparing student agency across contexts

We found that the culture of each setting—Salón 18, garden, and science lab—seemed to enable
and constrain student agency in different ways. In Salón 18, the flexible activity structure and
access to technological resources, such as Chromebooks and LLP resources, allowed students to
appropriate tasks in service of their inquiries. While one might argue that students were not fol-
lowing instructions, we argue that these are important moments of student agency within the
normative structure of the classroom. Students worked within the classroom norms to crea-
tively improvise (Holland et al., 1998) and use available resources in new ways to support their
developing science interests. Yet, the pervasive content-centered way of doing and being in sci-
ence as well as Ms. Fletcher, as primary knowledge authority, who at times presented a discrete
right or wrong version of science and at times was very task-oriented, often limited students'
ability to engage in broader investigative practices in Salón 18.
In contrast, the openness to unexpected events and Ms. Mattu's willingness to learn along-
side students supported student actions in her science lab context. Ms. Mattu's responsiveness
to student questions and teachable moments created opportunities for students to assert their
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 25

ideas. They were recognized as classroom experts and encouraged to deepen their thinking
around their inquiries. However, in the science lab, figured worlds overlapped and while
Ms. Mattu encouraged questioning, Ms. Fletcher emphasized content knowledge. When
Ms. Fletcher was present, students looked to her, which undermined the practices Ms. Mattu
attempted to foster.
Learning in the garden encouraged students to explore fluidly, during garden work as well
as LLP data collection activities. This helped students to draw on their knowledge of place,
make use of the living resources for their inquiries, and carry practices from the garden to their
homes and back. Students positioned themselves as experts with their interest-driven inquiries
in the garden and received some positive recognition from Ms. Fletcher for their expertise. Yet,
like the science lab, Salón 18's more traditional content-oriented culture may not have
supported student agency. As the primary knowledge holders, both Mr. Kelly and Ms. Fletcher
often unintentionally limited or shut down student opportunities to engage with or reason
about their inquiries.
Prior research has shown how students receive conflicting messages about what ways of
being scientific are valued in a given context and who, in turn can be scientific. These messages
can be dissonant over years of school where celebrated ways of being scientific narrow from ele-
mentary to middle school (Carlone et al., 2014) or across whole class and small group discus-
sion (Tan et al., 2013). Like these studies, this study revealed that multiple concurrent school
science settings have distinct norms and ways of being, which may support or limit students'
agency. In the science lab, students were praised and encouraged to assert themselves and their
ideas, however, these same actions were often not acknowledged or negatively recognized in
Salón 18 and the garden. This is concerning for students like José, Emma, and Hector, who
perceive themselves as strong science students, because several other studies have shown that
students with strong narrative identities can be constrained in their identity work by
content-focused classrooms that only celebrate and recognize narrow ways of being in science
(Carlone et al., 2014; Cobb et al., 2009; Tan et al., 2013).
The culture of Ms. Mattu's science lab seemed to show some promise to promote student
agency with science. When students have opportunities to engage in a broader range of practices
in different contexts, they are sometimes able to transfer these practices into more traditional
school science settings (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010). Though students had fewer opportunities
in Salón 18 and the garden to engage in investigative practices, the science lab offered multiple
forms of participation and recognition. Traditional content-focused science dominates in many
classrooms (Rudolph, 2003, 2005), so distributing science learning to additional science instruc-
tors may at least offer students a window into broader ways of being scientific.
Finally, we acknowledge that students are not only positioned by their science identities,
but also their classroom identities (Wortham, 2004, 2006). Though Ms. Fletcher perceived Hec-
tor as a strong science student, she also saw him as a bully with behavior problems, which may
have influenced her responses to his actions. Students and teachers together co-construct class-
room identities, which can play important roles in how students are positioned and possible
future actions they might take or identities they might access (Carlone et al., 2014).

5.3 | Educator collaboration

In viewing Salón 18, the garden, and science lab as multiple interweaving figured worlds of
school science, it became apparent that the normative social and scientific practices from Salón
26
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

18 extended into the garden and science lab contexts. This was perpetuated by Ms. Fletcher in
how she recognized and valued student work as well as in the ways students viewed her as the
primary knowledge authority across contexts. Both students and teacher collectively validated
these norms, which corroborates prior research (Ford, 2008; Hand et al., 2012; Lemke, 1990).
We consider this issue in light of the research on, and encouragement of, collaboration
between classroom teachers and other science educators, such as elementary science specialists,
garden educators, and other informal science learning facilitators. Prior research has empha-
sized the importance of classroom teachers being present during additional science instruction
and playing an active role, rather than attending only to student discipline or emotional needs
(Alon & Tal, 2016; Ronan, 2014; Tal et al., 2014). In this study, however, our findings suggested
that both Ms. Fletcher and students carried the normative scientific and social practices from
Salón 18 into the science and garden settings, potentially undermining opportunities for student
agency. Though students were encouraged in the science lab context to participate in broader
investigative practices, the classroom teacher's presence limited some student actions that the
culture of Ms. Mattu's science lab might have otherwise supported. Students received contradic-
tory messages about how they could be and who they could be in the different settings (Carlone
et al., 2014).
When multiple educators at a school teach science, it becomes important for teachers across
the school to align the culture of science learning. The classroom teachers' active role becomes
not only about content coherence across contexts, but also about cultural coherence so students
receive consistent and reinforcing messages about what kinds of actions they can take and how
they can be scientific in school. This has the potential to support student agency and identity
work not only across school science contexts, as argued in this study, but also across grades
(Carlone et al., 2014). Similarly, when teachers collaborate with informal science institutions or
other community groups, they can work to align the culture of science learning.

5.4 | Flexible activity structure

All three settings afforded different open activity structures, which supported student agency.
These flexible activity structures created spaces for student autonomy within the normative
structure and students capitalized on these spaces to advance their interest-driven inquiries. All-
owing for student autonomy of investigation is important for students to develop agency with
and in science (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010). Though the normative culture of Salón 18 was
present across all three contexts, marginal spaces allowed students to act in service of their
interests on the sideline.
Yet, there were very few instances where Ms. Fletcher worked in collaboration with students
to explore their inquiries. José bringing two new species of ladybugs from home and docu-
menting them with Ms. Fletcher was the exception, not the norm. Research has shown the
importance of educators recognizing and supporting student autonomy by providing appropriate
resources, support, and guidance (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010). When teachers and students
work together to co-develop scientific work in the classroom, students can be better positioned as
agents with science (Stroupe, 2014). To further enable student agency, teachers can work as part-
ners in investigation to elevate student inquiries into the center of classroom work.
We consider these findings in light of several limitations. First, we drew from a small sam-
ple size, focusing on three students in depth. Second, our observations were limited to the time
when students were supposed to be learning science. How students are positioned in school
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 27

science is likely constructed not solely during science time, but also across other subjects, which
can influence student positions with respect to science, behavior, and discipline. Future
research could incorporate observations across all subject areas. Finally, this study took place
within one school where science was taught across the classroom, garden, and science lab,
which is unique for elementary science learning. Additional research could be conducted in
schools that represent more typical science learning settings, in which students learn science in
their classroom and with a science specialist or a setting where students learn science in the
classroom and in the garden or on a classroom field trip.
While this study explored student agency over 2 months, findings have broader application
because receiving conflicting messages about who one can be in science has implications for
possible futures students might imagine for themselves (Archer et al., 2012). While a distributed
model of instruction may help to address some of the barriers to elementary science teaching,
this distribution has the potential to send contradictory messages to students about the ways
they can or cannot be scientific. We suggest that teachers collaborate to develop and bring
aligned visions about science learning that support student agency, such that students can
develop coherent narratives about who they can be in science and enact these narratives in
practice through environmental action in their lives and communities.

A C K N O WL E D G M E N T S
This study was supported by the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclu-
sions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessar-
ily reflect the views of the granting agencies. We gratefully acknowledge the young people and
educators who partnered with us and gave their time as participants in this study. Additionally, we
thank our colleagues Cynthia Carter Ching, Colin Dixon, Candice Guy-Gaytán, the anonymous
reviewers, and JRST editors whose feedback greatly improved this manuscript.

ORCID
Emily M. Harris https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9872-7675

R EF E RE N C E S
Aikenhead, G. S. (1996). Science education: Border crossing into the subculture of science. Studies in Science
Education, 27(1), 1–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057269608560077
Alon, N. L., & Tal, T. (2016). Teachers as secondary players: Involvement in field trips to natural environments.
Research in Science Education, 47, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-016-9531-0
Archer, L., DeWitt, J., Osborne, J., Dillon, J., Willis, B., & Wong, B. (2012). “Balancing acts”: Elementary school
girls' negotiations of femininity, achievement, and science. Science Education, 96(6), 967–989. https://doi.
org/10.1002/sce.21031
Azevedo, F. S. (2011). Lines of practice: A practice-centered theory of interest relationships. Cognition and
Instruction, 29(2), 147–184.
Ballard, H. L., Dixon, C., & Harris, E. M. (2017). Youth-focused citizen science: Examining the role of environ-
mental science learning and agency for conservation. Biological Conservation, 208, 65–75. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.biocon.2016.05.024
Banilower, E. R., Smith, P. S., Weiss, I. R., Malzahn, K. A., Campbell, K. M., & Weis, A. M. (2013). Report of the
2012 national survey of science and mathematics education. Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research, Inc.
Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecology perspec-
tive. Human Development, 49(4), 193–224.
Basu, S. J., & Calabrese Barton, A. (2009). Critical physics agency: Further unraveling the intersections of subject
matter knowledge, learning, and taking action. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4(2), 387–392. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s11422-008-9155-4
28
| HARRIS AND BALLARD

Bricker, L. A., & Bell, P. (2014). “What comes to mind when you think of science? The perfumery!”: Docu-
menting science-related cultural learning pathways across contexts and timescales. Journal of Research in
Science Teaching, 51(3), 260–285. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21134
Carlone, H.B., & Johnson, A. (2007). Understanding the science experiences of successful women of color: Sci-
ence identity as an analytical lens. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44, 1187–1218.
Calabrese Barton, A., & Tan, E. (2010). We be burnin'! Agency, identity, and science learning. Journal of the
Learning Sciences, 19(2), 187–229. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508400903530044
Calabrese Barton, A., Kang, H., Tan, E., O'Neill, T. B., Bautista-Guerra, J., & Brecklin, C. (2013). Crafting a future
in science tracing middle school girls' identity work over time and space. American Educational Research
Journal. 50(1), 37–75. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831212458142
California Department of Education. (2013). Growth API School Report.
Carlone, H. B. (2012). Methodological considerations for studying identities in school science. In M. Varelas
(Ed.), Identity construction and science education research (Vol. 35, pp. 9–25). Sense Publishers.
Carlone, H. B., Scott, C. M., & Lowder, C. (2014). Becoming (less) scientific: A longitudinal study of students'
identity work from elementary to middle school science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51(7),
836–869. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21150
Cobb, P., & Hodge, L. L. (2011). Culture, identity, and equity in the mathematics classroom. In A. Sfard, K.
Gravemeijer, & E. Yackel (Eds.), A journey in mathematics education research (Vol. 48, pp. 179–195). The
Netherlands: Springer.
Cobb, P., Gresalfi, M., & Hodge, L. L. (2009). An interpretive scheme for analyzing the identities that students
develop in mathematics classrooms. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 40(1), 40–68.
Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) & the National Governors Association (NGA). (2010). The com-
mon core state standards for English language arts & literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical
subjects. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/english-language-arts-standards.pdf
Dorph, R., Shields, P., Tiffany-Morales, J., Hartry, A., & McCaffrey, T. (2011). High hopes: Few opportunities—
The status of elementary science education in California. Sacramento, CA: The Center for the Future of
Teaching and Learning at WestEd.
Ford, M. (2008). Disciplinary authority and accountability in scientific practice and learning. Science Education,
92(3), 404–423.
Graham, H., Beall, D. L., Lussier, M., McLaughlin, P., & Zidenberg-Cherr, S. (2005). Use of school gardens in
academic instruction. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 37(3), 147–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/
S1499-4046(06)60269-8
Hand, V., Penuel, W. R., & Gutiérrez, K. D. (2012). (re) framing educational possibility: Attending to power and
equity in shaping access to and within learning opportunities. Human Development, 55(5–6), 250–268.
Hidi, S., & Renninger, K. A. (2006). The four-phase model of interest development. Educational Psychologist,
41(2), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_4
Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Hurworth, R. (2004). Photo-interviewing. Qualitative Research Journal, 4(1), 73.
Kelly, G. J., & Duschl, R. A. (2002). Toward a research agenda for epistemological studies in science education.
Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, New
Orleans, LA.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press.
NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next generation science standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press.
Lemke, J. L. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning, and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing
Corporation.
Merriam, S. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass.
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldana, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (3rd ed.).
Sage Publications, Inc.
NVivo qualitative data analysis software. QSR International Pty Ltd. Version 10, 2012.
HARRIS AND BALLARD
| 29

Reeve, J., & Tseng, C.-M. (2011). Agency as a fourth aspect of students' engagement during learning activities.
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36(4), 257–267.
Ronan, D. M. (2014). Science specialists in urban elementary schools: An ethnography examining science teach-
ing identity, motivation, and hierarchy in a high-stakes testing climate. (Doctor of Philosophy), Columbia
University.
Rudolph, J. L. (2003). Portraying epistemology: School science in historical context. Science Education, 87(1),
64–79.
Rudolph, J. L. (2005). Epistemology for the masses: The origins of “the scientific method” in American schools.
History of Education Quarterly, 45(3), 341–376.
Schwartz, R., & Gess-Newsome, J. (2008). Elementary science specialists: A pilot study of current models and a
call for participation in the research. Science Educator, 17(2), 19.
Seidman, I. (2013). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education & the social sciences
(4th ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Sfard, A., & Prusak, A. (2005). Telling identities: In search of an analytic tool for investigating learning as a cul-
turally shaped activity. Educational Researcher, 34(4), 14–22.
Shirk, J. L., Ballard, H. L., Wilderman, C. C., Phillips, T., Wiggins, A., Jordan, R. C., … Bonney, R. (2012). Public
participation in scientific research: A framework for deliberate design. Ecology and Society, 17(2). 29. https://
doi.org/10.5751/es-04705-170229
Stroupe, D. (2014). Examining classroom science practice communities: How teachers and students negotiate
epistemic agency and learn science-as-practice. Science Education, 98(3), 487–516. https://doi.org/10.1002/
sce.21112
Tal, T., Lavie Alon, N., & Morag, O. (2014). Exemplary practices in field trips to natural environments. Journal of
Research in Science Teaching, 51(4), 430–461. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21137
Tan, E., Calabrese Barton, A., Kang, H., & O'Neill, T. (2013). Desiring a career in STEM-related fields: How mid-
dle school girls articulate and negotiate identities-in-practice in science. Journal of Research in Science Teach-
ing, 50(10), 1143–1179.
Urrieta, L. (2007). Figured worlds and education: An introduction to the special issue. The Urban Review, 39(2),
107–116.
Varelas, M., Kane, J. M., & Wylie, C. D. (2011). Young African American children's representations of self, sci-
ence, and school: Making sense of difference. Science Education, 95(5), 824–851. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.
20447
Weiss, I. R., Banilower, E. R., McMahon, K. C., & Smith, P. S. (2001). Report of the 2000 national survey of science
and mathematics education. Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research, Inc.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Wortham, S. (2004). From good student to outcast: The emergence of a classroom identity. Ethos, 32(2), 164–187.
https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.2004.32.2.164
Wortham, S. (2006). Learning identity: The joint emergence of social identification and academic learning. Cam-
bridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Yin, R. K. (2013). Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). Sage Publications.

S UP PO RT ING IN FOR MAT ION

Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section
at the end of this article.

How to cite this article: Harris EM, Ballard HL. Examining student environmental
science agency across school science contexts. J Res Sci Teach. 2021;1–29. https://doi.org/
10.1002/tea.21685