‘What do you know about fat?’ Drawing on Diverse Funds of Knowledge in Inquiry Based Science Education

Abstract

Connecting students’ worlds, knowledge and experiences with school science has been a central issue in science education research. Here, we conceptualize processes of drawing on students’ personal experiences and knowledge in terms of ‘funds of knowledge’. We scrutinize two sixth grade classroom practices where the inquiry curriculum reform effort, Naturvetenskap och teknik för alla (NTA), is used. This curriculum material explicitly incorporates ideas of ‘learning science from experience’. Our aim is to contribute to a discussion on what conditions of inquiry based science education (IBSE) practices may open up opportunities for science to become personally relevant to students. The research question investigated is: What do students do when they draw on funds of knowledge that are related to students’ memberships and experiences out-of-school in IBSE pratices? We then use Cultural-Historical Activity Theory framework to analyze how students’ actions of drawing on different funds of knowledge gain meaning in relation to different cultural-historical motives. Our findings indicate that students, when positioning themselves as part of different communities in relation to different goals and overall motives, make use of quite different funds of knowledge. Finally, we discuss possibilities for expanding and acknowledging students’ funds of knowledge when working with investigations in the science classroom.