This longitudinal study examines the relationship between students' knowledge-in-use performance and their performance on third-party designed summative tests within a coherent and equitable learning environment. Focusing on third-grade students across three consecutive project-based learning (PBL) units aligned with the Next Generation Science…

There is a significant amount of research literature on the importance of identifying and building on students' experiences and ideas for making sense of the natural world, especially when engaging in science practices. Simultaneously, approaches to creating justice-oriented science education promote the need to focus on the diverse sense-making…

To address the limited time and support for elementary science, science instruction is sometimes distributed among classroom teachers, science specialists, and informal science educators, creating a complex school science culture. We investigate how student agency may be enabled and constrained when school science learning happens simultaneously…

Incorporating engineering instruction into the elementary curriculum is not without challenges. Traditionally, researchers investigated using engineering design to promote students learning science concepts. More recently, researchers have conducted qualitative investigations to measure students' learning of engineering concepts after engaging in…

Developing scientific literacy about water systems is critical for K-12 students. However, even with opportunities to build knowledge about the hydrosphere in elementary classrooms, early learners may struggle to understand the water cycle (Forbes et al., [Forbes, C. T., 2015]; Gunckel et al., [Gunckel, K. L., 2012]; Zangori et al., [Forbes, C.…

This article examines how emergent bilingual students used gestures in science class, and the consequences of students' gestures when their language repertoire limited their possibilities to express themselves. The study derived from observations in two science classes in Sweden. In the first class, 3rd grade students (9-10 years old) were…

Recent consensus documents in science education (e.g., the Next Generation Science Standards) emphasize helping students develop facility with constructing and critiquing both claims and the evidence that supports them. While students typically view evidence as necessary for supporting scientific claims, they tend to "objectify"…

Engaging in systemic reasoning about ecological issues is critical for early elementary students to develop future understanding of critical environmental issues such as global warming and loss of biodiversity. However, ecological issues are rarely taught in ways to highlight systemic reasoning in elementary schools. In this study, we conducted…

Water is a crucial topic that spans the K-12 science curriculum, including the elementary grades. Students should engage in the articulation, negotiation, and revision of model-based explanations about hydrologic phenomena. However, past research has shown that students, particularly early learners, often struggle to understand hydrologic…

The goal of this study is to bring the voices of African American boys front and center in science education research in an effort to strengthen our understandings of their experiences of school and science. Using an interpretivist perspective within a narrative inquiry approach, I focus on the student and science-student identities two African…

This longitudinal study explored the ways parents' and teachers' expectancy for success influences 3rd-5th children's expectancy for success and achievement in science. Guided by an open-systems perspective and functional (Ballantine & Roberts, 2007) and expectancy-value (Eccles, 2005, 2007) theories, we focused on school related socialization…

This study investigates the effect of a Framework-aligned professional development program at the PreK-3 level. The NSF funded program integrated science with literacy and mathematics learning and provided teacher professional development, along with materials and programming for parents to encourage science investigations and discourse around…

Guided by sociological perspectives that view (young) children as agents who are shaped by and shape the structures of social systems in which they live, we studied forms that agency of young children from historically marginalized groups may take in science class when offered opportunities to engage in science in a variety of ways, how curricular…

Focusing on a group of African American third graders who attend a high-poverty urban school, I explore the structure-agency dialectic within contested spaces situated in a dialogically oriented science classroom. Contested spaces entail the moments in which the students challenge each other's and their teacher's science ideas and, in the process,…

This study examined the nature of science (NOS) views of lower elementary grade level students, including their views of scientists. Participants were 23 third-grade African American students from two Midwest urban settings. A multiple instrument approach using an open-ended questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, a modified version of the…