When evaluators plan site-randomized experiments, they must conduct the appropriate statistical power analyses. These analyses are most likely to be valid when they are based on data from the jurisdictions in which the studies are to be conducted. In this method note, we provide software code, in the form of a SAS macro, for producing statistical…

Background: Cluster-randomized experiments that assign intact groups such as schools or school districts to treatment conditions are increasingly common in educational research. Such experiments are inherently multilevel designs whose sensitivity (statistical power and precision of estimates) depends on the variance decomposition across levels.…

The ocean provides humanity with many services and goods, including clean air, minerals, and food. Sustainable use and management of our marine resources are important to ensure that these resources are available for future generations. The turn-based activity presented in this article teaches students the challenges of managing a sustainable…

A wind energy focused curriculum for grades 4-8 was designed and implemented to promote the understanding of wind energy concepts with American Indian students. 57 students who participated in the 2009 summer program of the "Reach for the Sky" (RFTS) Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) received the curriculum. The…

Science education is not just about learning facts in a classroom--it's about doing activities where students put their understanding of science principles into action. That's why two unique types of activity-based tasks were administered as part of the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science assessment. In addition to the…

Imagine recreating a tsunami's force in a bathtub or exploring the potential of geothermal energy by using steam from a kettle to illuminate a light bulb. These types of activities and more are offered in Matthew Levy and Mario Salvadori's collection of experiments and demonstrations in Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tsunamis. More than 30 easy and…

Hands-on science typically uses physical materials to give students first-hand experience in scientific methodologies, but the recent availability of virtual laboratories raises an important question about whether what students' hands are on matters to their learning. The overall findings of two articles that employed simple comparisons of…

The Technology Enhanced Elementary and Middle School Science II project (TEEMSS), funded by the National Science Foundation, produced 15 inquiry-based instructional science units for teaching in grades 3-8. Each unit uses computers and probeware to support students' investigations of real-world phenomena using probes (e.g., for temperature or…