Rural communities possess rich, historically accumulated knowledge about their environment, practices, and socio-cultural dynamics, often referred to as LRK. This knowledge, built upon lived experiences and intergenerational transmission, offers a vital resource for science education. Avery (2013) highlights LRK as a valid and valuable form of understanding that encompasses a community’s relationship with the land, its resources, and the challenges it faces. In this study, LRK is understood as knowledge historically accumulated around phenomena that provide communities with their life experiences, are sensitive to diverse forms of knowing, and are crucial for authentically connecting school knowledge with the place through concrete experiences.

The incorporation of LRK is central to PBE, an approach that connects learning to the local environment, culture, heritage, and community issues (Gruenewald, 2003; Smith, 2013). PBE posits that schools can serve as catalysts for environmental awareness and community development by embedding learning in local contexts. This fosters a deeper understanding of socio-environmental problems and empowers students to become active citizens committed to their territory. By integrating local knowledge systems, PBE makes learning more relevant and significant for students in rural areas (Gruenewald and Smith, 2008). This aligns with the concept of ‘funds of knowledge’, which recognizes the rich intellectual and cultural resources that students bring from their homes and communities into the classroom (Moll et al., 1992; Cruz et al., 2018).

Design-Based Research serves as the core methodological and theoretical approach in this study, as an iterative and practical methodology aimed at developing educational innovations and theory within real-world settings (The Design Based Research Collective, 2003; Guisasola, 2024). It is characterized by deep collaboration between researchers and educators, a focus on designing and implementing interventions to address complex and authentic problems, and a commitment to generating shareable knowledge that informs both educational theory and practice (Barab and Squire, 2004). A primary outcome of DBR processes in educational contexts is often the development of such interventions, frequently taking the form of theoretically grounded and empirically refined TLS.

Teaching and learning sequence are purposefully designed, coherent sets of teaching and learning activities, developed to help students achieve specific learning goals by addressing curricular issues (Méheut and Psillos, 2004). The design of effective TLS is itself a significant focus of educational research, aiming to create sequences that are both learnable for students and usable by teachers. Within a DBR framework, the development of TLS is not a linear process but an iterative one, where sequences are systematically designed, enacted in classrooms, and then revised based on empirical findings regarding student learning and practical implementation challenges (Guisasola et al., 2021).

The epistemic principles of DBR, such as the development of iterative teaching experiments, the explicit articulation of theoretical assumptions underpinning the design, and the generation of design principles as ‘humble theories’ (Guisasola, 2024), are directly applicable to the creation and refinement of TLS. These design principles for TLS often emerge from the DBR process and can inform future educational designs in similar contexts. In this study, DBR facilitates the collaborative co-design of TLS among diverse actors—researchers, teachers, students, parents, and community agents—to generate solutions for pressing socio-environmental issues, such as water quality for rural schools. This collaborative approach ensures that the resulting TLS articulates various forms of knowledge (scientific, pedagogical, and local) and is theoretically robust, contextually relevant, and practically implementable in addressing the unique challenges of rural education (McKenney and Reeves, 2018).

This phase was designed to characterize LRK and identify educational needs concerning water issues within the selected Chilean rural communities (Aim 1). This involved an in-depth exploration where the invaluable knowledge of local inhabitants was central to enriching the problem analysis.

This phase was carried out from a participatory lens, considering co-design as a collaborative practice aimed at educational innovation, where the participants, regardless of their origin and experience, are equally working for a common goal (Iturbe-Sarunic and Silva-Hormazábal, 2023).

In line with the second aim of this study—to collaboratively design and develop a contextually relevant TLS for water education—this second phase of the DBR was dedicated to the co-design of this educational innovation. The primary output of this collaborative design effort was a practical TLS tailored to address the identified needs and local water issues. To structure this development, the co-design process drew systematically upon the framework by Muñoz-Campos et al. (2020), which encompasses the formulation of design principles, detailed instructional design, and the creation of specific learning activities. This intensive co-design work occurred through a series of five 1-h online sessions conducted between late 2023 and early 2024.

In Phase 1 of this research, data from interviews, transcripts, videos, pictures, and fieldnotes were analyzed. In Phase 2, co-design sessions were analyzed from sources such as videos, support material, interactive blackboards and resources provided by teachers, and kept available in a shared folder with the co-design group. It is important to mention that all transcripts and materials are in Spanish, and the translation of them is done by the first author, who is a native Spanish speaker and fluent in English.

Reflective thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998; Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2019) was used to introduce reflexivity in the analyses. The first level of analysis allows topics to be grouped, and the second level of analysis allows researchers’ reflexivity to be related to the themes. Thematic analysis requires a strong immersion in data to search and identify themes, also connecting themes and subthemes that emerge. It is important to go back to the data to support reflections and provide citations from transcripts or other data sources, such as photographs and field notes, trying to reduce biases by offering context and triangulation (Creswell and Poth, 2018).

This section presents findings from Phase I of the DBR, focusing on the ethnographic exploration conducted in the four selected rural Chilean communities. The first author’s prior engagement with the participating teachers facilitated access and rapport; however, we remained mindful of potential biases by triangulating interview data with field observations, photography and videos. We also sought diverse perspectives within each community by addressing the same themes in all interviews through similar questions.

This section details the outcomes of Phase II of the DBR, focusing on the co-design process and the features of the developed TLS.

Our ethnographic exploration revealed the profound and nuanced LRK communities possess regarding their specific water sources, challenges (such as quality, scarcity, and infrastructure issues), and traditional management practices. Simultaneously, significant educational needs were identified, particularly concerning a deeper understanding of water quality, RDW system functionality, and the desire for practical, empowering solutions.

These findings strongly affirm Avery (2013) assertion of the value of LRK, demonstrating that community members, including students, parents, teachers, and local leaders, are active knowers and possess a rich understanding of their hydro-social systems. The specific LRK documented—from detailed knowledge of local water sources and their behavior to intergenerational wisdom about water conservation, cultural significance, and awareness of environmental changes—provides a critical and authentic foundation for PBE (Gruenewald, 2003; Smith, 2013). Our study underscores that PBE in these Chilean rural contexts must move beyond general environmental awareness to directly address pressing, community-identified concerns like water quality and infrastructure challenges. This approach makes science education immediately relevant to students’ lived experiences and equips them with knowledge and skills pertinent to their potential future roles in managing local resources (Gruenewald and Smith, 2008).

The clearly articulated educational needs, especially the desire to understand water chemistry, purification processes, and RDW system operations, alongside the notable absence of a specific focus on water quality in existing national curricular standards for the targeted grades, highlight a significant gap. This gap suggests that current instructional materials for rural settings may not adequately address such deeply contextual and critical local issues (Carrete-Marín and Domingo-Peñafiel, 2022; Iturbe-Sarunic, 2022). Place-based, LRK-informed approaches, as developed in this study, offer a viable pathway to bridge this divide, making science learning more meaningful and empowering for rural students (Moll et al., 1992; Cruz et al., 2018).

The desire for more technical knowledge and practical, technology-enhanced solutions, as voiced by community members and teachers during the ethnographic phase, directly informed the co-design phase and the strategic decision to integrate sensor technology into the TLS.

The integration of sensors to measure water quality parameters (such as turbidity, chlorine, pH, and total dissolved solids, Figure 5) was not a predetermined intervention but rather a solution that emerged as appropriate and valuable during the DBR process. In the co-design sessions, teachers recognized the potential of these tools to make abstract concepts like water quality tangible for students and to empower them to investigate the very issues (e.g., RDW quality concerns, variability in local water sources) that affect their daily lives and communities. This approach aligns with the pedagogical goal of using technology not merely as a substitute for traditional tools but as a mediating artifact that facilitates model construction, data-driven inquiry, and engagement with real-world problems (Soto et al., 2023). The use of sensors, therefore, directly addresses the identified curriculum gaps concerning water quality education by providing means for students to conduct authentic scientific investigations.

While sensor technology offers significant potential for fostering authentic scientific inquiry and enhancing student engagement (Clark et al., 2015), as envisioned in the co-designed TLS, its effective and sustainable implementation in rural schools necessitates careful consideration of contextual factors. These include ensuring adequate teacher training on the use of the technology and the pedagogical approaches it supports, the availability and maintenance of resources, and ongoing technical and pedagogical support (Oliver and Hodges, 2014; Fundación 99, 2021). The DBR framework, with its iterative cycles, allows for these factors to be addressed and refined through ongoing collaboration.

The developed TLS, structured around the PBIM cycle, represents a concrete framework designed to address the complexities of water education within the unique multigrade classrooms of these rural Chilean schools. The PBIM cycle, by its design (Figure 4), guides students to engage with local phenomena (e.g., investigating the quality of their school’s tap water or nearby streams), articulate and test their initial conceptual models, and critically use evidence—including data collected with sensors—to refine their understanding and scientific explanations. This process directly aligns with core tenets of scientific inquiry (Jiménez-Liso, 2020; Muñoz-Campos et al., 2020) and model-based learning (Izquierdo-Aymerich and Adúriz-Bravo, 2003), fostering both scientific literacy and critical thinking skills.

The collaborative co-design process was instrumental in ensuring the TLS’s relevance, cultural sensitivity, and practical applicability. Teachers’ active involvement in shaping the design principles, selecting and adapting learning activities, developing multigrade differentiation strategies, and designing assessment tools resulted in a sequence that is not only theoretically robust but also deeply rooted in the pedagogical realities of their classrooms and responsive to the LRK identified in Phase I. This participatory approach to curriculum development (Iturbe-Sarunic and Silva-Hormazábal, 2023) is crucial for fostering teacher ownership, enhancing the ecological validity of the educational innovation, and increasing the likelihood of its successful and sustainable implementation (Bauch, 2001; González et al., 2005).

The iterative nature inherent in DBR (The Design Based Research Collective, 2003; Guisasola, 2024) implies that the current TLS is a well-developed prototype, poised for implementation and further refinement based on empirical evidence from classroom practice. The researchers’ role in this DBR process extended beyond mere data collection to active facilitation and co-construction of knowledge with participants. This involved a continuous reflexive process of interpreting community needs, mediating between diverse perspectives, and adapting theoretical frameworks to the practical constraints and opportunities within each distinct rural context (Barab and Squire, 2004; McKenney and Reeves, 2018). This engagement aimed to ensure that the co-designed TLS genuinely empowers both students and teachers in addressing locally significant water issues.