II. Demystifying and Questioning Technoscience in Action

Chapter 4 - Studying STEM in the Wild: Demystifying Knowledge Production

Chapter 4 locates science as one approach to knowledge production among many and as an umbrella term for a diverse set of fields and methods of inquiry with distinctive customs and conventions. This chapter will provide activities that foreground science-in-the-making and cultures of science and engineering, and explore the social and institutional nature of science in which questions of evidence, data, and reproducibility are negotiated. Activities may range from classroom-based models of scientific inquiry, such as black box activities, to studying scientific work in the wild through mini ethnographic lab studies.

Chapter 5 - Representation: Questioning Objectivity and Situating Knowledge

This chapter employs critical perspectives such as feminist standpoint theory and situated knowledges to unseat universalizing truth claims and promote strong objectivity. The activities will use STS tools to analyze and question the scientific method and quantitative analysis as authoritative tools for producing truth claims. Learning activities in this section may include engaging with epistemic power and ontological claims of categorization, recognizing diverse disciplinary methodologies, surfacing historically marginalized knowledges, such as indigenous, disability, and queer perspectives, and fostering students’ capacities to situate their own knowledge from lived experience.