ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that preparing teachers to teach science in a culturally relevant context by developing their understanding of how sociocultural factors shape both their own and their students’ learning is a powerful place to begin. Latinx preservice teachers (LPST) come into education programs as learners with existing cultural understandings and experiences. The chapter presents the results of LPSTs’ autobiographical descriptions of their experience with science from early childhood into adulthood, paying specific attention to how their cultures shaped those experiences. The Nature of Science (NOS) is “a rich description of what science is, how it works, how scientists operate as a social group, and how society itself both directs and reacts to scientific endeavors”. When teaching about NOS, several important aspects should be included: scientific knowledge is tentative, empirically based, and subjectively shaped. Gathering learners’ autobiographies can help educators take learners’ culture and experience into account when designing curriculum or methods of instruction.
