“ <i>How Do These Data Make You Feel</i> ?” The Emergence of Emotional Pathways in Community Science Data Talks About Climate Justice Issues

ABSTRACT As part of the special issue Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Education , we examined how placing emotion at the heart of climate change discussions can deepen and transform STEM learning environments. Using Community Science Data Talks (CSDTs)—a small‐scale, justice‐centered, flexible discourse routine—we supported teachers in engaging students with locally sourced data on climate justice issues. CSDTs consist of approximately 15–20 min classroom conversations prompted by local data visualizations and informed by guided emotion participation, critical place‐based education, transformative experiences, justice‐centered STEM, and dominant, critical, and affective pedagogical goals. Employing interaction analysis of 58 classroom videos from 15 classrooms across three iterations of the study, two countries, and 2 years of data collection, we documented how emotional pathways emerged when teachers explicitly invited students to share their emotions about local data during CDSTs (e.g., “How do these data make you feel?”). These invitations facilitated guided emotion participation through two distinct pathways, student‐led or teacher‐led, depending on context. Additionally, affective pedagogical goals enabled students' funds of knowledge and funds of feeling to publicly interact, fostering the development of constructive hope and critical civic empathy at the intersection of emotion, place, and climate justice. These findings underscore the importance of attending to emotion during STEM education to empathetically engage students in addressing local challenges and creating more just and sustainable communities.