Research School Network: Making the Most of ​‘Science Capital’

Enterprising Science is a five-year partnership between King’s College London and the Science Museum, using the concept of ​‘science capital’ to improve engagement in school science and hopefully lead to more of our learners pursuing STEM related careers. I attended an initial one-day meeting with the Enterprising Science Team, and the rest, as they say is history.

What is Science Capital?

King’s College describe ​‘science capital’ as incorporating an individual’s science-related resources and their habitus, or attitudes and way of thinking. It can be useful to think of science capital as a bag you carry throughout life that contains all your science related knowledge (what you know), attitudes (what you think), experiences (what you do) and contacts (who you know).

A students’ Science Capital can be grouped into eight dimensions:

My experiences of using the Science Capital Teaching Approach

Whilst tweaking my lessons to use this new teaching style I aimed to include some of the key dimensions of science capital. Here is an example of some extended learning which I set my Y8 mixed attainment group:

Here pupils needed to watch some YouTube videos with an adult at home and then interview them to gauge their opinions of the videos. This covers two of the science capital dimensions: science media consumption and talking about science in everyday life.

In a similar piece of extended learning, my Y8s needed to watch a video with someone else to determine their hearing range. The results of this were brilliant. A photograph of a pupil’s work gives a taste of the level of engagement in the topic and the willingness to discuss science out of the classroom.

After a month or so of using the science capital approach, it became apparent that my questioning strategy during lessons had changed quite significantly. I have chosen to call this new questioning strategy ​‘Elicit and Value Questioning’. Elicit and Value Questioning places pupils at the centre of learning, as demonstrated by this example from a lower set year 10 chemistry class on the topic of ​‘Metallic Structures and Properties.’

Eliciting what the pupils knew about metals in the context of their hobbies and interests sparked real enthusiasm amongst my year 10 low-level learners. I valued their contributions by asking them further questions such as ​‘why a particular metal is good to use for hair straighteners? And ​‘what properties do metals have which enable them to be used in football studs?’

So, I’ve now got my pupils thinking about science outside of the classroom. But what about the content of the lesson? Content, which is so rich and deep in our new more challenging GCSE specifications.

Well, after eliciting what the students know about a certain topic, I teach a normal lesson, but the key aspect comes after teaching the content, when I go back to the pupils experiences outside the classroom and encourage them to explain their own experiences using the key ideas of the lesson.

Thus, a cycle of eliciting what the students know, valuing their contributions, teaching the key content and linking the key content with the students’ experiences is created.

So, what about pupil outcomes?

Here is a paragraph written by Charlie during a lesson on ​‘Echoes’. I started the lesson by asking the pupils to share their experiences of hearing an echo and I valued their experiences in a class discussion. I taught the theory behind echoes using a slinky as a model for visualising the sound waves and then encouraged learners to explain why they heard their own echo using the lesson content.

Here you can see how Charlie linked the lesson content with his own experiences whilst still producing an exam level answer.

It has been wonderful to be a part of a project that aims to increase student engagement in science. I will certainly continue to use a science capital teaching approach with my classes and extend the approach to other year groups. To have my learners engaged in debate, willing to contribute wholeheartedly to discussions and showing a flair and a spark for learning is what I, as a teacher and educator, value most in my classroom.

Alister Talbot, Assistant Subject Leader of Science in charge of Key Stage 3 and Teacher of Chemistry and Physics, Huntington School