Youth development programs often provide young people with science learning experiences. We argue for reframing youth science learning from a focus on individual scientific literacy to an emphasis on collective scientific literacy--"community science"--to support young people in using science to address issues in their lives and…

There is wide consensus among educators that participation in authentic research is valuable for undergraduate science students, and incorporating research into large-enrollment courses is one way to provide that opportunity to many students. There is substantial variation in the documented impacts, however, particularly between males and females.…

There are 1.1 million English learner (EL) students in California, representing 18 percent of the statewide student population (California Department of Education [CDE], 2021b). Following some background on California's standards-aligned instructional materials and on the state's EL student population, this brief summarizes California findings…

Block-based programming languages (BBLs) have been proposed as a way to prepare students for learning to program in more sophisticated, text-based languages, such as Java. Hybrid BBLs add the ability to view and edit the block commands in auto-generated, text-based code. We compared the use of a non-hybrid BBL (Scratch), a hybrid BBL (Pencil…

To build educational capacity for the rapidly evolving science and profession of geocomputation, the American Association of Geographers piloted an Encoding Geography research-practice partnership (RPP) composed of geography and computer science educators and researchers. This commentary describes the process, known as Collective Impact, that was…

Enzyme kinetics is an essential part of a chemistry curriculum, especially for students interested in biomedical research or in health care fields. Though the concept is routinely performed in undergraduate chemistry/biochemistry classrooms using other spectroscopic methods, we provide an optimized approach that uses a real-time monitoring of the…

One of the most difficult challenges of incorporating literacy in the classroom--as called for by the "Common Core State Standards" (NGAC and CCSSO 2010)--is inspiring reluctant writers. Students are often unmotivated by essay assignments or having to write answers to open-ended questions. Some students may even view these as obstacles…

This article presents the author's response to the article "Taking Stock: Existing Resources for Assessing a New Vision of Science Learning" by Alonzo and Ke (this issue), which identifies numerous challenges that the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) pose for large-scale assessment. Jill Werthem comments that among those…

Over the course of six years, a diverse group of school districts and charter management organizations in California ran a substantial experiment in implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in elementary and middle grades. WestEd led an extensive evaluation of that effort, the California K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative,…

This study finds that, breaking with decades of slow improvement, U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago. This descriptive analysis is designed to…

This article addresses some of the challenges faced when attempting to evaluate the long-term impact of informal science learning interventions. To contribute to the methodological development of informal science learning research, we critically examine (Falk and Needham (2011) "Journal of Research in Science Teaching," 48: 1-12.) study…

Metabolomics applies multivariate statistical analysis to sets of high-resolution spectra taken over a population of biologically derived samples. The objective is to distinguish subpopulations within the overall sample population, and possibly also to identify biomarkers. While metabolomics has become part of the standard analytical toolbox in…

Providing opportunities for youth who have been 'pushed out' of traditional schools to re-engage is an issue of social justice. The lack of equitable learning opportunities in the traditional science classroom is a contributing factor to youth being pushed out. Alternative education programs have the potential to support youth who have been…

There is a national need to recruit more science teachers. Enhancing pathways to teaching for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors could help to address this need. The Learn By Doing Lab is a course in which STEM undergraduates teach hands-on life science and physical science to local third- through eighth-grade…

Purpose: We aim to better understand the curricular, staffing, and achievement trade-offs entailed by expansions of high-school computer science (CS) for students, schools, and school leaders. Methods: We use descriptive, correlational, and quasi-experimental methods to analyze statewide longitudinal course-, school-, and staff-level data from…