Designing Ethnoscience Learning for Sustainability and Creative Thinking in Elementary Science
This study utilized Educational Design Research to develop and validate a Galendo-based Ethno-Education for Sustainable Development module for Grade V elementary science, demonstrating that integrating local culture with scientific reconstruction and project-based learning effectively enhances students' sustainability reasoning and creative thinking while yielding seven key design principles.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
In schools around the world, science is often taught as a collection of facts that exist separately from the daily lives of students. Textbooks describe the properties of matter or the flow of energy, but these concepts can feel distant from the food on a child's plate or the work their neighbors do. A growing movement in education suggests that this separation is a missed opportunity. Instead of treating local culture merely as a colorful backdrop for standard lessons, researchers argue that the knowledge held by communities—how they make things, how they use resources, and how they solve problems—can serve as the very foundation for scientific learning. This approach, known as education for sustainable development, aims to help young people understand that environmental, social, and economic challenges are deeply connected. The goal is not just to memorize definitions, but to learn how to think creatively about real-world problems, generating new ideas and solutions that respect both tradition and the future.
A team of researchers in Indonesia set out to test whether this idea could work in a fifth-grade classroom. They focused on a traditional food called Galendo, a coconut-based delicacy made in the Ciamis region of West Java. The production of Galendo is a complex process involving the selection of coconuts, grating, extracting milk, heating it for a long time, separating the oil, and finally molding and pressing the mixture. The researchers saw in this process a rich source of scientific phenomena, such as changes in matter, the transfer of heat, and the separation of mixtures. They also saw a story of sustainability, where every part of the coconut is used, yet where the community faces modern challenges like fluctuating prices and a lack of interest from younger generations. The team wanted to know if they could turn the making of Galendo into a science lesson that taught children not only about physics and chemistry, but also about how to think creatively and sustainably.
To answer this, the researchers did not simply write a textbook chapter. They engaged in a careful, step-by-step process of designing and testing a learning module. They began by talking to teachers, students, and the women who actually make Galendo to understand what was already happening in schools and what was missing. They found that while local culture was sometimes mentioned, it was rarely connected to scientific ideas or sustainability reasoning. The team then built a learning package that guided students through the Galendo production process, asking them to observe the science behind the cooking, consider the environmental and economic impacts, and propose their own solutions to the problems the producers faced. This package was tested and refined multiple times with experts and small groups of students before being used in a real classroom with twenty fifth-grade students at a school outside the immediate Galendo-producing area.
The results showed that the main obstacle was not a lack of resources, but a lack of connection. Before the intervention, local culture, science, and sustainability were often taught as separate things. The new module successfully wove them together. When experts reviewed the final learning materials, they gave them very high marks, with scores ranging from 95 to 96 percent for quality and relevance. The students who used the module also responded positively, with an average approval rating of over 82 percent. More importantly, the researchers observed a clear shift in how the students thought. Before the lessons, the students had limited ways of explaining the Galendo process or suggesting improvements. After the lessons, they demonstrated significant growth in four key areas of creative thinking. They became more fluent, generating many different ideas for how to use coconut by-products, such as turning shells into charcoal or residue into animal feed. They showed flexibility by looking at production problems from different angles, considering temperature, equipment, and raw materials simultaneously.
The students also displayed originality, coming up with novel ideas like making Galendo ice cream or creating packaging from coconut fiber. They showed elaboration by providing detailed explanations for why certain steps in the process were necessary, such as how continuous stirring prevents the food from burning. The researchers measured these changes using a specific method that tracks how much a student's ability to answer questions improved from the beginning to the end of the study. Every single student showed a positive improvement in their scores. Perhaps most surprisingly, this success happened even though the students did not come from the Galendo-producing community. They had little prior familiarity with the food or its production. The study suggests that a specific cultural context can become accessible to any learner, provided it is presented with the right tools, such as clear diagrams, videos, and explicit explanations that link the local practice to scientific concepts.
The researchers concluded that the key to this success was not just using a local example, but reconstructing that example as a scientific problem. They found that treating the community's knowledge as a starting point for inquiry, rather than just a story to tell, allowed students to engage deeply with the material. The study identified seven guiding principles for how to do this, emphasizing the need to connect culture directly to science, to examine sustainability from multiple perspectives, and to give students specific opportunities to practice creative thinking. While the study involved a small number of students and cannot prove that this method works everywhere without further testing, the findings offer a strong suggestion that culturally grounded science learning can be both meaningful and transferable. It shows that when local knowledge is treated as a serious resource for learning, it can help children develop the skills they need to understand and improve their world.
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