DRK-12 Research and Products

Publication | This article describes opportunities for primary and secondary ecology education in formal and informal settings.
Product for Educators | In this collection of materials, four geometric topics are covered in animated, digital materials. There are also paper-based materials for the four geometric topics: Angles, Transformations, Pythagorean Theorem, and Volume. These…
Publication | Authors discuss student dimensions of expertise when engaged in modeling and simulation practices and describe how students used their cognitive and metacognitive knowledge to approach a computational challenge.
Publication | Drawing on a situated perspective on learning, authors analyzed written, open-ended journals of 52 pre-service teachers (PSTs) concurrently enrolled in mathematics and pedagogy with field experience courses for elementary education majors.
Product for Educators | Disruptions in Ecosystems is a middle school curriculum unit with supporting teacher materials. The unit includes five chapters, each focused on a specific phenomenon related to ecosystem disruption, including questions around the…
Publication | The goal for this proceeding is to foster the conversation about validation using examples and to communicate information about validation in ways that are broadly accessible.
Presentation | NSF program directors provides information on the DRK-12 program and solicitation in this webinar series.
Product for Educators | EarSketch helps you learn core topics in computer science, music, and music technology in a fun, engaging environment. You learn to code in Python or JavaScript, two of the most popular programming languages in the world, while…
Publication | Using structural equation modeling, the researchers test a path model of various physics identity constructs, extending an earlier, established model. In this paper, they also compare a preliminary structural analysis of students' physics…
Publication | The purpose of our quasi‐experimental study was to examine the effectiveness of Quality Talk Science, a professional development model and intervention, in fostering changes in teachers’ and students’ discourse practices as well as their…
Publication | In this article, we draw upon the Conceptual Profile Theory to discuss the negotiation of meanings related to the energy concept in an 11th grade physics classroom.
Product for Educators | Instructional modules that bring sustainability topics into classrooms in a way that emphasizes the methods and tools of mathematics and computing and illustrates their role in planning for sustainability. Through the modules, students…
Publication | This resource provides access to a classroom video of a lesson from the project's middle school ecosystems unit, and the related student scaffold and scoring rubric.
Tool | Dr. Jessica Hunt studies how these children think and learn and is developing novel teaching methods that facilitate mathematics learning for students with learning disabilities.
Publication | This paper seeks to provide a resource for prospective DRK-12 awardees by identifying some of the theories that current and recent DRK-12 awardees are using in their research on broadening participation.
Publication | The goal of this paper is to examine whether having female robotics teachers positively impacts girls’ performance on programming and robotics tasks.
Product for Educators | Nine units for high school-level Marine Science classes: (1) Ocean Exploration, (2) Marine Geology, (3) Marine Chemistry, (4) Estuaries, (5) Marine Physics, (6) Populations: Producers, (7) Populations: Invertebrates, (8) Populations:…
Publication | In this article, authors describe how we engaged grade 3–5 students in an engineering design activity supported with relevant reading, writing, and talking tasks embedded within the engineering design activity.
Publication | Using existing literature, authors create a hypothetical framework of cognitive processes associated with studying informal best fit lines and refine the framework using data from a cycle of design-based research about building students’…
Product for Educators | The MEL project has developed a set of teaching resources to support the teaching of controversial and/or complex Earth and space science topics.
Publication | The imperative that all students, including English learners (ELs), achieve high academic standards and have opportunities to participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning has become even more urgent and…
Publication | The purpose of this paper is to report results of a systematic cross-case analysis exploring the extent of engineering learning opportunities in five exemplar Inclusive STEM High Schools (ISHSs).
Product for Educators | Connected Biology provides a sequence of lessons for high school biology that fosters integrated learning of genetics and evolution. This novel curriculum is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) performance…
Publication | This conference paper explains how EarSketch affects student persistence.
Publication | The purpose of this study is to characterize teachers’ orientations toward using student mathematical thinking as a resource during whole-class instruction.