Research has shown that spending time in nature is beneficial for children's mental wellbeing, but how long must they spend to gain some benefit? Here we present the results from two studies: the Schools' Biodiversity Project, which took place over a year, with children spending an hour a week exploring biodiversity in their school grounds; and a…

The need to develop interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills in young pupils has driven many educational systems to include STEM as a subject in primary schools. In this work, a science kit aimed at children from 8 to 14 years old is presented as a support platform for an innovative and stimulating approach to…

In this article, the author describes her early fascination with the natural world, and how this directed her through school and university into a scientific career. She talks about how she combined her previous experiences into one fabulous job, running the educational outreach for a pharmaceutical company, before the teaching itch led her to…

Conventional wisdom suggests that Latin American countries reformed public education in the 1990s in response to a crisis of coverage and quality. Yet, in terms of access, Latin American countries had achieved relatively high enrollment and completion rates by 1990. With regard to quality, there was simply no high-quality evidence showing weak or…

Bandura's influential theory has been used to argue that teachers with high self-efficacy will be more effective at increasing pupil achievement--and a voluminous empirical literature has repeatedly documented associations consistent with this claim. However, few studies have considered whether these correlations reflect an underlying causal…

This article outlines the results from the research on primary and secondary school pupils' conceptualisation of microorganisms. It has been observed from the past few decades that one conceptual model is dominant, in which microorganisms are considered harmful, disease-causing and living in dirty environments. These misconceptions are only likely…

The "Forty Electronic Challenges" is a "discovery learning" and socio-constructivist science activity that has become rather popular in Canada. The article recalls its emergence and development. It discusses its theoretical underpinnings and how it fits into the existing literature. It then gives educators all the guidelines…

The 2021-2040 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Education Strategic Plan is a reflection of the knowledge and dedication of the NOAA education community. Strategic planning provides guidance for NOAA Education and a framework for tracking and reporting progress. This plan builds on the foundation of the 2015-2035 NOAA…

For scholars and policy-makers alike, deeper learning has been a promising paradigm for fostering students' interest in and mastery of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Deeper learning is assumed to result in a more thorough understanding of a subject that endures the test of time. To reach this level, a fascination with…

Students living in poverty tend to perform worse in school than their peers from better-off families. This paper examines whether computer availability helps narrow down educational inequalities in Slovakia, using TIMSS and PIRLS data. The results show that computer availability in reading lessons improves reading scores and that the effect is…

Using IEA's Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 data, this brief explores the relationship between students' gender, their confidence and achievement in mathematics and science, and their aspirations to pursue careers in these fields. We find that more boys than girls at grade 8 want to have a mathematics- or…

If students are to acquire deep learning in science, they need to know about the nature of science (NOS), particularly not only the cognitive-epistemic but also the social-institutional aspects of NOS. In this paper, we investigate the content of the Norwegian science curriculum in order to establish how NOS is represented, in particular to the…

This Statistics in Brief (SiB) uses data from the 2011 and 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and explores how achievement gaps between high- and low-performing 4th- and 8th-grade students in the U.S. and other education systems have changed over time. Achievement gaps are defined as the differences in scores…

There is widespread agreement that an adequate understanding of the nature of science (NOS) is a critical component of scientific literacy and a major goal in science education. However, we still do not know many specific details regarding how students and teachers learn particular aspects of NOS and what are the most important feature traits of…

The unexamined power and prejudice embedded within technologies and societies has led to direct harm to individuals of color, minoritized groups, and the US ideal of a multi-racial democracy. Rather than an accident of AI or a "glitch" of the system, these inequities highlight the invisible and oppressive architecture -- a "New Jim…