The Affordance of Place in Developing Place-Responsive Science Teaching Pedagogy: Reflections from Pre-Service Teachers.

Despite being increasingly popular within broader educational discourse, place-responsive pedagogy is less apparent in science teacher education. This paper investigates the perspectives of pre-service teachers in a science education course informed by place-responsive pedagogy in a Bachelor of Education (primary) program at an Australian regional university. The place-based study belongs to longitudinal research that examined the impact of the modified science course hallmarked by university–school partnerships and science lessons conducted by pre-service teachers with children from rural and regional schools in Gippsland, Victoria in a wetland and school ground setting. The study and science course were framed by a place pedagogy framework. Using this framework, we examine how pre-service teachers view and understand the affordance of places for teaching science. The study employed a document analysis of coursework essays as well as follow-up semi-structured interviews with two pre-service teacher cohorts (wetland and school ground). Findings indicate that pre-service teacher's exposure to place-responsive frameworks helped build their awareness about the affordance of place for science teaching. Challenges associated with taking science beyond the conventional classroom are also identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]