Science

The project builds upon prior successful work using the Cultural Connections Process Model (CCPM) to co-produce engaging place-based STEM education resources working with rural Indigenous communities. The CCPM is now applied to develop 10 educational videos and corresponding hands-on high-school lessons with participants from four Alaska Native Tribes (Iñupiat, Gwich'in Athabascan, Tlingit/Tsimshian, and Alutiiq) to determine if the model is adaptable and if the resources are transferrable and sustainable to a variety of contexts.

This collaboration between Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Bowdoin College, and Vanderbilt University engages middle-school students in building and revising models of variability and change in ecosystems and studies the learning and instruction in these classroom contexts. Students construct and critique models that they and peers invent and develop foundational knowledge about the roles of variability and change in ecosystem functioning, as well as the roles of models and argumentation in scientific practice.

Developing, critiquing, and revising models is part of the core work of science, but this process is usually invisible to students who more often encounter “final” models of systems or phenomena rather than modeling for sensemaking. The DMOS project endeavors to understand how and to what extent development of teachers’ comfort and proficiency with the modeling practice in the context of community science changes students’ opportunities to participate in modeling within and beyond those investigations.

Our project is a four-year research-practice partnership which examines elementary students’ understanding of and agency with science content knowledge and practices during a community-engaged, place-based environmental science research and monitoring program. We investigate how research informed design features influence these learning outcomes. Our findings will inform replicable models for science standards-aligned school-based community and citizen science (CCS) for youth agency in and with science.

Our project is a four-year research-practice partnership which examines elementary students’ understanding of and agency with science content knowledge and practices during a community-engaged, place-based environmental science research and monitoring program. We investigate how research informed design features influence these learning outcomes. Our findings will inform replicable models for science standards-aligned school-based community and citizen science (CCS) for youth agency in and with science.

This project is a Research and Practice Partnership between two universities and the DC school district to address two problems of practice at the high school level. First, students will engage in computational modeling in science classes to provide all students opportunities to learn computational thinking. Second, teachers will have the opportunity to learn more about the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and develop curriculum to support the standards. The project will create units for four science subjects and investigate the design and implementation of those units.

This project uses over 2000 integrated STEM classroom videos to design and validate the STEM Observation Protocol (STEM-OP) for use in classrooms where integrated STEM is taking place. The STEM-OP is a valid and reliable instrument for use in a variety of educational contexts and research. The STEM-OP and associated training materials are available for use by stakeholders such as K-12 teachers, district administrators, teacher educators, and educational researchers through an online platform.

The DataX project aims to develop an integrated, justice-oriented curriculum and a digital platform for teaching secondary students about data science. This project includes science and social studies teachers in the design of the resources and in testing them in classrooms. The DataX platform supports students to investigate authentic problems using real-world datasets. The project team will present a justice-oriented data science education framework, lesson plans co-designed with teachers, and preliminary findings from classroom pilots.

Broadening participation in STEM requires a change in how K-12 teachers engage and educate students who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The CRAFT project provides a field-based science and mathematics teacher education program that supports teaching focused on students’ affective development through culturally responsive practices.

MindHive is an open science, citizen science initiative that supports authentic human brain and behavioral science inquiry experiences for high school learners, educators, and their communities. The online platform features a suite of tools that enable learners’ research activities, paired with teaching materials. The program s co-designed by a team of educational researchers, teachers, scientists, UX researchers, and developers; and supports collaboration between students from schools across the country, professional scientists, and community organizers.