ILLINOIS EARTH SCIENCE TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCE, BELONGING, KNOWLEDGE, WORLDVIEW, AND PLACE-BASED PRACTICES

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) place a strong emphasis on anthropogenic environmental change by addressing human sustainability, human impacts on climate, natural resources, and natural disasters in the Earth and Space disciplinary core ideas. We surveyed 245 self-identified Earth science teachers in Illinois, an NGSS-adopting state, to investigate the relationship between their training and experience, sense of belonging in science, content knowledge, ecological worldview, and self-reported place-based teaching practices. Using path analysis, we found that having a degree in STEM did not predict teachers' understanding of anthropogenic change, ecological worldview, or place-based practices. However, teachers with STEM degrees had a stronger sense of belonging in science, which had both direct and indirect effects on teachers’ understanding of anthropogenic environmental change, ecological worldview, and use of place-based instructional strategies. Teachers’ ecological worldview predicted their knowledge of anthropogenic environmental change and their use of place-based practices. The use of place-based practices decreased in higher grades and when teachers had more Earth science credits. These results suggest that when teaching NGSS-aligned content, teachers’ degrees and the number of credits may be less important than other factors, such as sense of belonging and ecological worldview. Further research is needed to understand the relationships between teachers’ expertise and their place-based practices. More research is needed to understand why the path model associations are present to identify specific levers for increased readiness to teach NGSS Earth and Space Disciplinary Core Ideas.