Despite its proven added value, modeling-based learning (MbL) in science is not commonly incorporated into the early grades. Our purpose in this descriptive case study was to enrich our understanding of how kindergarten children enact MbL by examining these children's constructed models and their accompanying oral descriptions of their models. For…

Recent reforms in K-12 science education call for curricular materials that are designed to be "coherent for students." This form of coherence arises when the classroom community sees their science work as addressing their questions and problems. In enactment, the teacher sometimes has to improvise from the planned trajectory of the…

The pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted an urgent need for infectious disease education for K-12 students. To gather a better understanding of what educational interventions have been conducted and to what effect, we performed a scoping review. We identified and examined 23 empirical researcher- and teacher-designed studies conducted in…

This research explored kindergarten students' learning of simple particle models to explain the properties and behavior of matter in the solid, liquid, and gas states and during phase transitions (evaporation, melting, freezing, and condensation). Science instruction for young learners tends to focus on the concrete and directly observable. This…

Recently, there has been a surge of literature on the implementation of translanguaging pedagogy and practices in science education settings. By activating and validating learners' full communicative repertoire, translanguaging holds promise to build an inclusive science learning community where multilingual learners' ways of knowing are not only…

Research on translanguaging in science and engineering education has grown rapidly. Studies carried out across diverse contexts converge in their commitment to fostering equity in science and engineering learning for linguistically marginalized learners. However, the rapid growth of this research area has exposed different approaches to…

Design-based learning (DBL) offers opportunities to support students' content understanding. Previous DBL studies reported different effect sizes by using the data from one participant group. The goal of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis that would give a comprehensive picture of how DBL is connected to student achievement in different…

This article examines kindergarten children's (5-6 years old) engagement in scientific practices, with a focus on generating and using evidence to support claims, during a 5-month project about snails. The research questions are as follows: (1) what meanings do kindergarteners construct for what constitutes evidence? How are those meanings…

This study explores the impacts of selected early science experiences in kindergarten (frequency and duration of teachers' teaching of science, availability of sand/water table and science areas, and children's participation in cooking and science equipment activities) on children's science achievement in kindergarten and third grade using data…

We explored 30 Black Kindergarten-2nd grade students' spoken narratives around pages of their science journals that the children selected as best for showing them as scientists. Because in all narratives, space-time relationships play an important role not only in situating but also in constituting them, we focused on such relationships using…