The COVID-19 pandemic has created numerous disruptions for educators and researchers, especially in 2020 and 2021. Critical in-person activities, including research, have been postponed or canceled throughout the academic and professional communities of the world. The Project SEED (Summer Experiences for the Economically Disadvantaged) program for…

Field research offers students true scientific practice opportunities and experiences that cannot always be achieved in the classroom. Though research suggests the importance of incorporating field-based research into science curriculum, classroom constraints make it difficult to incorporate true research opportunities into general science…

High school physics students are often capable of, and commonly interested in, understanding natural phenomena beyond those described in their textbooks. In order to supplement the shortage of topics covered in their physics courses, many students turn to popular scientific books, journals, and other media. There, they discover a plethora of…

An epidemic of disengagement in American high schools is faced as institutions fail to offer meaningful and relevant ways to connect curriculum with students' emerging life stories. These students do not see how schooling, as it is presently constituted, is important to their own developing identities. One solution to this problem is to organize…

An innovative interdisciplinary project at California State University, Long Beach, was designed to increase the attractiveness of the geosciences (physical geography, geology, and archaeology) to underrepresented groups. The goal was to raise awareness of the geosciences by providing summer research opportunities for underrepresented high school…