From not working to knotworking: The role of cultural-historical activity theory in supporting the development of STEM learning ecosystems

Reform movements generally urge schools and informal science institutions to create productive partnerships and a variety of learning experiences that result in a more coherent and robust foundation to support the development of scientific and environmental literacy for youth. In this paper we use STEM learning ecosystems and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as theoretical lenses to understand how informal/formal partnerships succeed or fail. One feature of CHAT salient for such understanding how partnerships among different systems come to be (or not be) is that of knotworking, and we use this idea and its components and processes in our work as key in the development and maintenance of successful partnerships between formal and informal science education entities. We share two formal/informal partnership stories to illustrate knotworking components which are present or absent and from which we can draw principles about those elements which are critical for successful partnerships to be established and maintained in the service of supporting meaningful scientific and environmental literacy.