Effective undergraduate statistical education requires training using real-world data. Textbook datasets seldom match the complexities and messiness of real-world data and finding these datasets can be challenging for educators. Consulting and industrial datasets often have nondisclosure agreements. Academic datasets often require subject area…

This paper, presented in three parts, overviews the current understandings of the Earth System and the relatively recent interdisciplinary field of Earth System Science (ESS) from a school education perspective. The representation of ESS in the Australian Curriculum is explored through the Cross Curriculum Priority area of Sustainability and the…

How do scientists generate and weight candidate queries for hypothesis testing, and how does learning from observations or experimental data impact query selection? Field sciences offer a compelling context to ask these questions because query selection and adaptation involves consideration of the spatiotemporal arrangement of data, and therefore…

Integrated river science provides decision-making life-skills for individuals and communities facing environmental change; it is a variant of critical physical geography through its socio-political dimensions. As an example, the frequency and magnitude of river flooding are amplified by climate change: society needs to understand how to cope…

Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that is gaining traction in K12 education. Whereas well-designed and engaging VR experiences may be considered educational, teacher educators with content-area expertise are uniquely positioned to analyze the actual content provided by those experiences when determining VR's educational value.…

This article explores the influential role of planning on recognition-primed decision-making. Considerable prior thinking occurs and there is a need to trace and account for the cognitive processes that precede and guide decisions in dynamic outdoor environments. Seven expert leaders from four countries were interviewed about memorable decisions…

Growing human populations place increasing demands on our planet, resulting in an array of challenges with both scientific and non-scientific dimensions. These challenges are collectively known as socio-scientific issues (SSIs). It is essential to understand how students learn to use values to reason about SSIs, particularly when dealing with…

This column includes activities inspired by children's literature. Elementary students are beginning to understand the Earth's natural processes and humans' impact on the Earth. Humans need the natural resources that the Earth produces, use these resources to develop civilizations, and make decisions to offset the damage they cause, as well as…

The Advanced Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory (AIRLab) is a team-based multidisciplinary research course that focuses on the development of advanced skills including critical thinking, limits of knowledge awareness, metacognition, autonomy, professional capacity, and decision making in complex environments. For many students, AIRLab…

One understudied barrier to science education reform concerns teachers' cognitive processes and how they relate to instructional decision-making. Epistemic cognition--teachers' beliefs about knowledge and knowledge acquisition and goals for their students' knowledge acquisition--could provide important insights into the choices science teachers…