Just worlding design principles: childrens' multispecies and radical care priorities in science and engineering education.

Due to the influence of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the National Research Council's (NRC) Framework for K-12 Science Education, and a socio-workforce push to increase diverse representation in STEM fields, engineering education has become more prevalent in K-12 classrooms over the past decade. Although this shift is seemingly optimistic, critical consideration must be given to the ways engineering education tends to be reductive and positivistic, mimicking engineering practices decontextualized from high-stakes socio-political and socio-ecological realities through the adherence of a closed, systematic design process. Teaching and learning that is situated within the confines of normative engineering learning fail to nurture and cultivate students' intellectual health and ontological security, and further promotes destructive settler ecologics. This study took up efforts to disrupt and desettle engineering education, which opened space for children to critically speculate about real-world engineering entanglements deeply connected to their futurities. The aims of this paper are to (1) establish the need for anticolonial engineering, and engineering education, (2) promote approaches for doing so (3) and elevate the just worlding engineering design principles put forward by radically caring children committed to socio-ecological and multispecies justice. The learning shared in this paper suggests not only why science and engineering fields and education should be reformed, but also provides guidance for evolving the designing of shared worlds, for kincentric flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]