I investigated linguistic patterns in middle school students' writing to understand their relevant embodied experiences for learning science. Embodied experiences are those limited by the perceptual and motor constraints of the human body. Recent research indicates student understanding of science needs embodied experiences. Recent emphases of science education researchers in the practices of science suggest that students' understanding of systems and their structure, scale, size, representations, and causality are crosscutting concepts that unify all scientific disciplinary areas. To discern the relationship between linguistic patterns and embodied experiences, I relied on Cognitive Linguistics, a field within cognitive sciences that pays attention to language organization and use assuming that language reflects the human cognitive system. Particularly, I investigated the embodied experiences that 268 middle school students learning about water brought to understanding: i) systems and system structure; ii) scale, size and representations; and iii) causality. Using content analysis, I explored students' language in search of patterns regarding linguistic phenomena described within cognitive linguistics: image schemas, conceptual metaphors, event schemas, semantical roles, and force-dynamics. I found several common embodied experiences organizing students' understanding of crosscutting concepts. Perception of boundaries and change in location and perception of spatial organization in the vertical axis are relevant embodied experiences for students' understanding of systems and system structure. Direct object manipulation and perception of size with and without locomotion are relevant for understanding scale, size and representations. Direct applications of force and consequential perception of movement or change in form are relevant for understanding of causality. I discuss implications of these findings for research and science teaching.

The Countried experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of (Australia), ground a resilience and strength in sovereign thinking through the Stories we share laterally with family and inter-ancestrally through our connections to the Dreaming. The stories we share develop a sense of inalienability we have that is connected to the Countries of origin we share and identify with across the continental scape of Land, Water and Sky Country. As a formative philosophical assumption, the Countried existence that this dissertation develops, illuminates the significance of this research thinking to contribute to the continued development of Indigenous education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students attending secondary high schools across (Australia). By attending to the ways Elders as significant Indigenous leaders describe and develop their storied lives through lived experience, this Countried philosophy emerges through the Storied knowing of Country. By examining the approaches to learning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students adopt, further evidence can be contributed to the research surrounding Indigenous thinking and cognitive approaches to thinking through education learning tasks. By examining the perceptions and beliefs of non-indigenous teachers, this dissertation aims to contribute evidence to Indigenous pedagogies that teachers can deploy in the delivery of meaningful Indigenous Knowledge curricula content. Summatively, this thesis found that when deep engagements are made into the notion of inalienability of Countried experience, salient avenues of thinking and learning and teaching emerge surrounding the ways education can continue to elaborate and relate meaningfully to the First Peoples of Australia.