Preparing students for their future is a clear and concise goal of education. STEM education is no different and is often considered a key way to increase students' 21st century skills or prepare students for a future career (Bybee 2010). We also believe that education should engage students as empathetic problem solvers (as described in Bush and…

Engaging students in conversations around science and engineering design can be challenging. Sparking such conversations during field trips at an interactive science center has additional challenges. First, students vary considerably in age from day to day: science center employees might work with first graders one day and sixth graders the next.…

Inquiry, central in science education reforms for decades, is a critical element required in many teacher education programs. However, the instruction of inquiry-oriented pedagogies in those programs has limited impacts on science preservice teachers (PSTs) who arefvn the agent of transforming classroom instruction. The challenges include the…

Science inquiry has been found to be effective with students from diverse backgrounds and varied academic abilities. This study compared student learning, enjoyment, motivation, perceived understanding, and creativity during a science unit on Models and Designs for 38 sixth grade students (20 male, 18 female; 1 Black, 1 Hispanic and 36 White). The…

This article describes beginner habits and misconceptions related to design practices. Once teachers are aware of these habits and misconceptions, they can more easily recognize them and work to remedy them through instruction. Presented herein are eight practice habits. Each item begins with the practice, describes a related design habit or…

The purpose of this design research is to improve the quality of environmental literacy and sustainability education in chemistry teaching through combining a socio-scientific issue, life-cycle analysis (LCA), with inquiry-based learning (IBL). This first phase of the cyclic design research involved 20 inservice trained chemistry teachers from…

This article describes the steps incorporated to teach an engineering design process in a fifth-grade science classroom. The engineering design-based activity was an existing scientific inquiry activity using UV light--detecting beads and purposefully creating a series of engineering design-based challenges around the investigation. The…

Science simulations are popular among educators as such simulations afford for multiple visual representation and interactivity. Despite the popularity and abundance on the internet, our literature review suggested little research has been conducted on the use of simulation in elementary school. Thus, an exploratory pilot case study was conducted…

Research has shown that technology-enhanced visualizations can improve inquiry learning in science when they are designed to support knowledge integration. Visualizations play an especially important role in supporting science learning at elementary and middle school levels because they can make unseen and complex processes visible. We identify 4…

This report presents a literature review of elementary science and design technology education research. The review is intended to provide direction to the elementary science working groups charged with the responsibility to revise the "Alberta Elementary Science Program" (1996) by reflecting current ideas reported in research…