School-based citizen science offers a way for students and teachers to collaborate with scientists and take part in multiple facets of research such as data collection and analysis, and sometimes research initiation, co-design, and reporting of findings. However, most citizen science projects offered to schools are of the contributory type, often…

Science education that fosters scientific competency and engagement prepares students to become informed civic participants in modern society. Teaching strategies that encourage scientific engagement are especially important in rural settings, as these students are less likely to pursue scientific careers or use science in their everyday lives. To…

The rise of social media platforms and the subsequent lack of traditional gatekeeping mechanisms contribute to the multiplied spread of scientific misinformation. Particularly in these new media spaces, there is a rising need for science education in fostering a science media literacy that enables students to evaluate the credibility of scientific…

Uncertainty is endemic to scientific research practices; therefore, it is also an important element in learning about science. Studies have shown that experiences and management of uncertainty regarding the epistemic practices of science can support learning. Whereas the common strategies of supporting students in handling uncertainty rely on the…

A critical component to disciplinary engagement in science is that of epistemic affect--learning how to "feel" as scientists do when engaged in their work. The emotional responses, feelings, and dispositions that emerge as one participates in the construction of knowledge are part and parcel to the experiences of scientists and, we…

To date, most studies of citizen science engagement focus on quantifiable measures related to the contribution of data or other output measures. Few studies have attempted to qualitatively characterize citizen science engagement across multiple projects and from the perspective of the participants. Building on pertinent literature and…

All scientists depend on both reading and writing to do their scientific work. It is of paramount importance to ensure that students have a relevant repertoire of practices they can employ when facing scientific content inside and outside the school context. The present study reports on students in seventh grade acting as researchers. Over an…

This study addresses the issue of curiosity-driven inquiry learning by examining the interplay among students' inquiry-related curiosity, laboratory engagement, and inquiry abilities and investigates how their learning experiences would associate with such interplay. We employed structural equation modeling to analyze data collected from 920…

Scientists use judgment in deciding what and how much data to present in publications but science degrees rarely address this issue. Instead, scientific knowledge is presented as certain and students have limited opportunities to use their own judgment in the laboratory. A consequence of this may be that students approach science with a moral…

Visitors to modern science museums are likely to encounter exhibitions presenting conflicting information, such as risks and benefits of new scientific developments. Such exhibitions encourage visitors to reflect upon different sides of a story and to form or adjust their attitudes toward the topic on display. However, there is very little…

This study sought to understand how graduate and undergraduate students learn to do science by participating in research groups. A phenomenological approach was used to illuminate the experiences of the students. The results provide evidence that the students were in the role of apprentices, although this was not made explicit. As apprentices they…

The present article scrutinizes the manner with which a group of three postsecondary students (in Quebec, Canada) describe the social actors concerned by the controversy surrounding cellular telephones. The study was conducted on the basis of an ethnographic approach. Participant observation was performed by the researcher for 3 hours during each…

This study investigated the ways in which beliefs about the nature of the science vary as a function of an individual's chemistry expertise and chemistry research experience across the range from high-schools students, whose exposure to chemistry occurs in the classroom, to practicing research chemists. Interviews conducted with a total of 91…

Examines the types of requests for information made by university students (N=60) as they evaluate scientific news briefs. Student requests most often focus on how research is conducted and why results might occur. Contains 47 references. (DDR)

The concepts of sky and visibility distance, as perceived by different learners, are investigated for the first time as a subject of a science education research. Mental models of students with regard to the subject were elicited. They were interpreted in terms of two-level hierarchy: schemes and facets-of-knowledge (defined in the paper). Our…