How anthropomorphic reasoning functions in scientific thinking has been a controversial topic. There is evidence it is problematic as well as evidence it can play productive roles, for scientists and for students. In science education, however, the prevailing view remains that it is an impediment. For this study, we have chosen examples of what we…

When learning about scientific phenomena, students are expected to "mechanistically" explain how underlying interactions produce the observable phenomenon and "conceptually" connect the observed phenomenon to canonical scientific knowledge. This paper investigates how the integration of the complementary processes of designing…

The greenhouse effect is a complex scientific phenomenon that plays a crucial role in understanding climate change. Grasping students' understanding of this phenomenon on the content-specific level but also how students' conceptions are organized is vital for effective climate change education. This study addresses both levels and delves into the…

Science education researchers have highlighted how uncertainty can foster meaningful scientific sense-making, supporting students to re-evaluate their understandings of scientific phenomena and pursue deeper causal accounts. However, facilitating whole-class conversations motivated by uncertainty is complex and challenging, calling for further…

We previously proposed a hypothetical learning progression around the disciplinary core idea of the Solar System and its formation as a first step in a research program to begin to fill this gap and address questions of student learning in this domain. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of two dimensions within the learning progression,…

Since visual representations play a particularly important role in the teaching and learning of chemistry, the exploration described in this article focuses on them. This is an explorative study of the qualitatively different ways that visual representations can be unpacked by Swedish upper secondary school chemistry teachers dealing with…

We describe the development, design, implementation, and preliminary classroom results of an innovative curriculum, "Focus on Energy," that supports learning about energy in Grades 4-5. The curriculum is grounded in the concepts of science as practice, model-based reasoning, and learning progressions, and builds on students' pre-existing…

Embodied learning tools (ELTs), such as building and manipulating models, bolster students' learning of spatially demanding science content, such as stereochemistry. However, studies comparing the effectiveness of virtual to physical ELTs on student learning are limited. This study compares online instruction using a virtual ELT, virtual models,…

This article presents an empirical analysis of conceptual difficulties encountered and ways students made progress in learning at both individual and group levels in a classroom environment in which the students used an embodied modeling activity to make sense of a specific scientific scenario. The theoretical framework, coordination class theory,…

Many standards documents and learning progressions recommend evolution learning in elementary grades. Given young children's interest in dinosaurs and other fossils, fossil investigations can provide a rich entry into evolutionary biology for young learners. Educational psychology literature has addressed children's reasoning about foundational…

Have the Next Generation Science Standards fulfilled a goal of specifying the objectives of precollege science education in clear and exact enough terms to make them readily implementable? Using students' understanding of the concept of a variable as a case in point, the author suggests that the standards, despite their seeming precision and…

The use of scientific modeling has been shown to be highly effective in the learning of science content in multiple disciplines for non-English Learners (EL). However, the benefits of using this pedagogy with ELs have not been heavily explored. This article discusses the use of modeling-based evolution and population ecology pedagogical units in a…

Flourishing in today's global society requires citizens that are both intelligent consumers and producers of scientific understanding. Indeed, the modern world is facing ever-more complex problems that require innovative ways of thinking about, around, and with science. As numerous educational stakeholders have suggested, such skills and abilities…

Science education has long seen an emphasis on supporting students' epistemological understandings of how scientific knowledge is constructed and evaluated with the expectation that these understandings will support the students' own construction and evaluation of scientific knowledge. However, research has shown that this connection does not…

Longitudinal studies can provide significant insights into how students develop competence in a topic or subject area over time. However, there are many barriers, such as retention of students in the study and the complexity of data analysis, that make these studies rare. Here, we present how a statistical framework, discrete-time survival…