We developed the Alcohol Pharmacology Education Partnership (APEP), a set of modules designed to integrate a topic of interest (alcohol) with concepts in chemistry and biology for high school students. Chemistry and biology teachers (n = 156) were recruited nationally to field-test APEP in a controlled study. Teachers obtained professional…

Physics First--a movement to invert the traditional science course sequence to teach physics at the ninth-grade level--is gaining interest. However, there is limited literature exploring how to support teachers in successfully implementing Physics First. To address this, a professional development (PD) program supporting a cadre of teacher-leaders…

This study contextualized the use of the engineering design process by providing descriptions of how each element in a design process was integrated in an eleventh grade industry and engineering systems course. The guiding research question for this inquiry was: How do students engage in the engineering design process in a course where technology…

"Potemkin schools" is used as the phrase to capture what a US science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) public speciality high school becomes as a result of its institutional branding. By way of an examination of the efforts of one teacher drawn into school branding through his "inquiry-based reform" of an Advanced Chemistry course,…

This study was conducted to describe a high school engineering curriculum, identify teaching strategies used to increase math and science literacy, and discover challenges and constraints that occur during its development and delivery, as well as what strategies are used to overcome these obstacles. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with…

Back in 1992, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded grants to five curriculum development teams and charged them with the task of starting over. Five years later, each of the development teams had produced an innovative and "integrated" curriculum. All represented notable departures from the commonly encountered, calculus-driven high…

The main areas of difficulty experienced by those teaching and learning organic chemistry at high school and introductory university level in Ireland have been identified, and the findings support previous studies in Ireland and globally. Using these findings and insights from chemistry education research (CER), the Organic Chemistry in Action!…

Although many states in the United States are adopting policies that require all students to complete college-preparatory science classes to graduate from high school, such policies have not always led to improved student outcomes. There is much speculation about the cause of the dismal results, but there is scant research on the processes by…

What does it mean for ethnic minority girls, who have historically been marginalized by schools, to "see themselves" in science? Schools fail to create spaces for students to engage their identity resources in the learning of science or to negotiate and enact new science-related identities. This study investigates relationships among…

Electrospinning has been used to create nanofibers for filtration devices, tissue engineering, and protective clothing. Although electrospinning is now widely studied, because of the expensive equipment required and the advanced nature of this topic, it is not commonly found in high school science labs. Through grants from the Ohio State…

To what extent does the use of computational tools offer teachers the possibility of constructing dynamic models to identify and explore diverse mathematical relations? What ways of reasoning or thinking about the problems emerge during the model construction process that involves the use of the tools? These research questions guided the…

Despite being criticised for placing little emphasis on thinking, the majority of laboratory work at school level is taught "via" expository "recipe-style" labs. This has been seen to result in students struggling to be able to apply the practical techniques they have learnt in the classroom outside the narrow environment in which they were…

Formal mathematical methods remain, for most high school students, mysterious, artificial and not a part of their regular intuitive thinking. The authors develop some themes that could lead to a radically new approach. According to this thesis, the teaching of programming languages as a regular part of academic progress can contribute effectively…

On September 22, 2012, NSF announced its decision to fund a three-year project, "Models for Information Assurance Education and Outreach" (MIAEO). In the first year of grant operation, MIAEO has invited 18 high school students, two K-12 teachers, and two CSUB student assistants to conduct research explorations in the fields of…

The Algebra Project DR K-12, funded by the National Science Foundation as a Research and Development Project, addressed the challenge of offering significant STEM content for students to ensure public literacy and workforce readiness. The project's primary purpose was to test the feasibility and effectiveness of a model for establishing four-year…