Using students' lived experiences in an urban science classroom: An elementary school teacher's thinking

This paper examines the use of students' lived experiences in an urban elementary science classroom. Students bring different funds of knowledge that are accumulated through their lived experiences into the classroom, and I examine what those funds of knowledge mean to an elementary science teacher working in an urban school. I describe how a female elementary teacher integrates her life experiences with that of her students, and utilizes those experiences to teach meaningful science. This paper also discusses what it means to students when their lived experiences are the part of science learning. I also include a description of how the Linking Food and the Environment (LiFE) curriculum can provide a framework to teach science using students' lived experiences. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 90:94–110, 2006