Our epistemic cognition informs what scientific claims we choose to endorse over others, how we come to know in science, and our assumptions about the construction of scientific knowledge. The topic of climate change provides context for how we come to know about our surrounding environment. The development of climate literacy in young learners…

In recent years, science education has placed increasing importance on learners' mastery of scientific reasoning. This growing emphasis presents a challenge for both developers and users of assessments. We report on our effort around the conceptualization, development, and testing the validity of an assessment of students' ability to reason around…

This study reports on our steps toward achieving a conceptually coherent and empirically validated learning progression for carbon cycling in socio-ecological systems. It describes an iterative process of designing and analyzing assessment and interview data from students in upper elementary through high school. The product of our development…

In the literature, learners' cognitive development is mainly discussed with respect to changes in learners' content-dependent knowledge (conceptual change or growth). Additional dimensions of time and complexity may also be taken into account to describe cognitive processes in at least three dimensions. We discuss these three dimensions of…