The "Next Generation Science Standards" place an emphasis on the practices of science and engineering, where ensuring that students understand and experience how science works is as important as, or maybe more important than, memorizing facts. The idea is that, while some facts may change, the practices will always be applicable, and it…

At High Tech Elementary Chula Vista in California, teachers are using improvement science, a method for solving a problem of practice with disciplined inquiry, to help students make their thinking visible. The teachers wanted to increase students' use of how and why language to articulate their thinking; to that end, they have been using short…

Bristol ChemLabS, the UK's Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in practical chemistry, delivers numerous outreach activity days per year for thousands of primary school pupils annually. These mainly comprise demonstration assemblies and hands on workshops for pupils in the main. The activities support the UK's Key Stage 2 science…

There is considerable evidence that traditional approaches are ineffective in teaching physics concepts, including light and optics concepts. A major focus of the work of the Activity Based Physics Group has been on the development of active learning curricula like RealTime Physics (RTP) labs and Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs). Among…

The Royal Masonic School for Girls made history in February 2016 when it became the first school to establish a video link with the International Space Station via amateur radio--the result of a competition run by ARISS. Six girls from year 9 (age 13-14 years) qualified for Foundation Amateur Radio Licences, and students across the school took…

Ciênsação, an open online repository for hands-on experiments, has been developed to convince teachers in Latin America that science is best experienced first hand. Permitting students to experiment autonomously in small groups can be a challenging endeavour for educators in these countries. We analyse the reasons that cause hesitation of teachers…

Members of the Joint Working Group on Improving Underrepresented Minorities (URMs) Persistence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)--convened by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute--review current data and propose deliberation about why the academic "pathways"…

In this paper we present the "Sky on Earth" project funded in 2008 by the Italian Ministry of Instruction, Research and University, inside its annual public outreach education program. The project's goal was to realise a stable and open-access astronomical garden, where children, teachers and citizens could be engaged in investigations…

Angela Chapman and Allan Feldman (2016) conducted a study that aimed to exam how a group of diverse urban high school students were affected by the participation in a contextually based authentic science experience. The analysis of all data led the authors to conclude that the experience of authentic science positively influenced the science…

Student learning in science is improved by authentic personal experience of research projects and the publication of findings. Graduate students do this, but it is uncommon to find student research and publishing in high school science programs. We describe here the Student Research and Publishing Program (SRPP) established at International School…

Creative and Tactile Astronomy is an educational project developed by English and Portuguese teachers. Isabel Borges and Lina Canas from Portugal and Alison Alexander and Ruth Wiltsher from the United Kingdom met for the first time at the 2013 Science on Stage Festival in Slubice-Oder, on the border between Germany and Poland. As a consequence of…

There is growing interest in the ability of improvement science--the systematic study of improvement strategies to identify promising practices for addressing issues in complex systems (Improvement Science Research Network, 2016)--to spur innovation and address complex problems. In education this methodology is often implemented through…

Learning celebrations are increasingly common in schools looking to put more emphasis on community and efficacy in place formulaic science fair projects. The celebration aspect is in the community's participation and interaction with the learners. Students are the main event, performing as they would in a school play or applying acquired knowledge…

This paper reports on the use of the RAMR framework within a curriculum project. Description of the RAMR framework's theoretical bases is followed by two descriptions of students' learning in the classroom. Implications include the need for the teacher to connect student activities in a structured sequence, although this may be predicated on the…

The paper deals with research focused on the opinions and attitudes of biology teachers on the application of digital technologies in the process of learning and teaching. The respondents were teachers, who participated in the national project called "Modernization of the Educational Process in Elementary and Secondary Schools" realized…