Abstract

An understanding of how water and substances in water move through socio-ecological systems is critical for environmentally-literate citizens capable of participating in evidence-based decision-making about environmental issues. This study used a learning progressions framework to assess elementary through high school teachers’ understandings about water. 61 teachers participating in a summer professional development program were assessed using items previously developed and validated to assess student understanding of the same domain. Teacher responses were coded using previously developed indicators of levels of achievement. Teacher results were compared to results from high school students. Results show that more teachers performed at Levels 3 and 4 than high school students. However, more teachers performed at Level 3 (school science narratives) than Level 4 (model-based reasoning). Like students, teachers who performed at Level 3 encountered difficulties applying principles such as gravity and permeability, when tracing water and substances in water through socio-ecological systems. Also like students, teachers had difficulty reasoning about substances in water at the atomic-molecular scale. These results suggest that a Discourse of school science narratives predominates in schools. These results have implications for the changes to school communities that may be necessary to support the development of model-based reasoning in schools.