This article reports on a case study from a larger project exploring ways in which online citizen science projects can enhance students' learning in science and in digital technology. In this case, two teachers integrated the digital technology curriculum with the science capability "interpreting representations" using the engaging…

The field of science education has put effort into providing opportunities for students to position themselves as epistemic agents pursuing the goal of making sense of natural phenomena. However, students often struggle in adapting scientific practices to achieve the sense-making goal. In this position paper, we conceptualise students'…

Science and engineering practices (SEPs) and crosscutting concepts (CCs) constitute a significant part of "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012). As teachers, the role of the authors is to highlight the pivotal role that both scientific knowledge and the practices used to generate knowledge play in learning. This article…

Hydrogel is an interesting topic in polymer chemistry, which is closely related to daily life and advanced technology. In this paper, we report an activity to deliver hydrogel chemistry into middle school classrooms by undergraduates as a bridge between professors and students. During the activity, undergraduates act as a bridge to receive…

This paper reports on a transdisciplinary approach to science with a Year 4/5 class incorporating citizen science through the Birds in Backyards project. This transdisciplinary approach created opportunities for student engagement through science, mathematics, design and technology, humanities and social sciences (HASS), arts and English, while…

Started in north-east England in 2015, MammalWeb aims to improve our knowledge of British mammals through the use of motion-sensing camera traps. Fundamental to the project is the involvement of local communities and individuals who act as citizen scientists. They contribute to the collection and analysis of the camera trap photographic data.…

Human-made pollution is a large and complex problem that has harmful effects on communities and ecosystems. Understanding these impacts is essential, but it can be daunting when many types of chemical pollution are difficult to conceptualize, especially for elementary school students. Something every student can understand, however, is trash.…

There has never been a more pressing need for students to learn how to evaluate scientific information online than during the COVID-19 outbreak. Information, misinformation, and disinformation spread quickly across online news and social media platforms. This misleading or incorrect scientific information about infectious diseases could lead to…

The objective of our program is to foster and facilitate authentic research experiences in middle and high school science courses. We do so by providing students with a complete experience in scientific experimentation and communication. The centerpiece is a set of experiment modules in which students investigate the effects of toxic chemicals on…

In his book "Letters to a Young Scientist," renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson recounted his own coming-of-age story as a scientist, and distilled the motivating qualities of science down to curiosity and creativity. Individuals become scientists when they are curious about a phenomenon in the world around them and ask about the real…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for students to exhibit an in-depth understanding of scientific inquiry practices, including direct observation, creative design thinking, and argumentation based on evidential learning. To support academic equity for multilingual learners, these new expectations require reconceptualization of…

1This article describes how, by incorporating NASA's Students' Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) project into a problem-based learning (PBL) activity, middle school students are engaged in authentic scientific research where they observe and record information about clouds and contribute ground truth data to NASA's Clouds and the Earth's…

We designed a physics course for prospective elementary and middle school teachers to foster aspects of scientific thinking recommended in reform documents. Because the elementary school curriculum focuses heavily on literacy, we also explicitly integrated physics and literacy learning in this course. By integrating physics and literacy learning,…

Globally, science curricula have been described as outdated, and students perceive school science as lacking in relevance. Declines in senior secondary and tertiary student participation in science indicate an urgent need for change if we are to sustain future scientific research and development, and perhaps more importantly, to equip students…

This article discusses how, as part of a National Science Foundation-funded internship program, the authors translated smart papers into an exciting and informative activity for the middle school classroom. This activity opens students' eyes to an everyday technology and inspires them to ask questions about other hidden technologies that they…