You asked and we listened! Rethinking Schools needs more articles that focus on science. We are looking for submissions from you that show what engaging students’ sense of equity and justice looks, sounds, and feels like through the teaching of science. We seek justice-centered, equity-oriented, story-rich, and critical articles that describe science teaching and curriculum in PK-12 classrooms, community spaces, or PK-12 teacher preparation.
What we need and what to write
Science is more than worksheets, textbooks, and memorization. Science touches everyday lives of all people. We encourage stories from a diverse range of science fields such as natural, physical, earth, and life.We invite you to submit a story that shows science teaching that is sensitive to cultural, historical, environmental, and socioeconomic contexts. We want stories that show how learning science helps students better understand the forces that shape their world. We want educators of all types to share how they use science to enhance learning, promote critique, and address real-world social, cultural, political, and ecological problems. We are especially looking for articles that discuss:
- teaching science in classrooms from a social justice/equity perspective
- students and teachers working together to use science as a tool to enact social justice
- science in everyday practices of various cultures, families, and communities
- culturally relevant/culturally revitalizing/culturally sustaining science teaching
How to write
Students’ voices are important; make sure we can hear them! Rethinking Schools is purposefully not an academic journal. We want the writing to be lively, conversational, and to avoid needless jargon. Please approach your story as a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, filled with anecdotes and the voices of students, teachers, parents or guardians, caregivers, family, and/or community members.
Before you begin writing, check out the writers’ guidelines. The best way to understand what works forRethinking Schools is to read through several issues of the magazine noticing how the authors show what they do and how they integrate information about the academic topic into the article. Specific models you might want to refer to include:
- Carbon matters: Middle school students get carbon cycle literate by Jana Dean (Vol. 28, No. 4)
- Facing Cancer: Social justice in biology class by Amy Lindahl (Vol. 26, No. 4, 2012)
- Got coal? Teaching about the most dangerous rock in America by Bill Bigelow (Spring 2011)
- Science for the people: High school students investigate community air quality by Tony Marks-Block (Vol. 25 No. 3, Spring 2011)
For additional details, review our call for submissions:
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/about/guidelines.shtml
When and where to send
Cycle 1 submissions due August 1, 2015. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis until August 1.
To submit your submission: http://tiny.cc/RSscience
For inquiries, email: science@rethinkingschools.org
We look forward to receiving your submission!
RS Science Submissions Committee:
Amy Lindahl, Bejanae Kareem, Jana Dean, Jean Aguilar-Valdez, and Vera Stenhouse,