Stable isotopes in natural materials provide a powerful way to study energy flow in many systems and are widely used in fields such as archaeology, ecology, forensics, geochemistry, geology, oceanography, palaeoecology and palaeoclimatology. Based on the manner in which stable isotopes fractionate in natural systems, they allow scientists to…

Active learning classrooms (ALCs) are designed to support collaborative learning in large class sections that are often taught with a lecture format. Studies on ALCs indicate that they have positive influences on student learning, but the same studies fail to look at learning differences between subgroups of students. In the current study,…

The 2019 "Minnesota Academic Standards in Science (Standards)" set the expectations for achievement in science for grades K-12 students in Minnesota. The standards are grounded in the belief that all students can and should be scientifically literate. Graduates should be prepared for career and college opportunities. The…

The 2019 "Minnesota Academic Standards in Science" (Standards) set the expectations for achievement in science for grades K-12 students in Minnesota. The standards are grounded in the belief that all students can and should be scientifically literate. The "Standards" describe a connected body of science and engineering…

This paper pilots a method of testing the learning effects of a role-playing simulation of negotiations over the Nile basin. Players negotiate how to apply general principles from international law, such as sharing water equitably and avoiding significant harm, to specific circumstances of the river basin. Students are presented with a set of…

Traditional Knowledge (TK) is a qualitative and quantitative living body of knowledge developed locally and regionally across generations over thousands of years. This study aims to show through authentic voice the importance of centering TK systems and cultural needs to provide equitable geoscience education programs. TK can be communicated…

The geoscience community has begun to grapple with the whiteness of the community and the harm and erasure of Indigenous communities done by earth and environmental scientists. We have come to understand that to recruit and retain Indigenous students, geoscience education needs to be culturally responsive by explicitly centering Indigenous…

A large body of work has shown that science teacher knowledge is one of the most fundamental components of effective teaching and learning. Our study analyzes the Praxis® Earth and Space Science Content Knowledge Test (ESS CKT) from May 2006 to June 2016. We present one of the largest datasets comprising 11,273 ESS teacher candidates in order to…

Sociocultural language learning theory and situated learning theory stress the importance of social interactions and context in both science and language learning. In addition, researchers have highlighted the important role that multimodal language plays in meaning-making and communication in science. The purpose of this study was to examine the…

The lives of Kala people are deeply intertwined with marine and riparian environments on which their livelihoods depend. To document linguistic and environmental knowledge in these communities, as part of our community-based, collaborative language documentation project, we utilized three main interdisciplinary documentation methods: (1) River…

Water sciences education is paramount to sustainable groundwater resource management, especially of drinking water, but misunderstandings about groundwater among non-experts remain widespread. Groundwater residence is an especially challenging concept to learn because it is not directly visible in typical circumstances. The present study uses a…

This paper, the third in a series on Earth System Science Education, describes various pedagogical ways forward when science teachers are addressing the curriculum implications of the recent interdisciplinary field of Earth System Science (ESS). Parts I and II introduced the key ideas of ESS and the implications for the Australian Curriculum:…

The Geo-Launchpad Program is a pre-Research Experience for Undergraduates (pre-REU) providing a summer internship and professional development for two-year college (2YC) students from Colorado. The program goal was to build students' interest and capacity to engage in geoscience-focused STEM career pathways. The pre-REU helped students develop…

Background: The goal of this research was to determine students' perceived self-efficacy in science classes through involving students in expanding disciplinary core idea (DCI) and interdisciplinary core idea (ICI) maps, as a method to visualize knowledge (utilizing mind mapping and concept mapping) to support students to integrate…

Students with blindness or visual impairments (BVI) need to participate in scientific laboratory experiences at the K12 level to be successful in college-level science courses. These K12 level students need instruction to actively conduct science experiments and not only allow sighted students to conduct them. While it may be a challenge, with…