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The awareness that many problems in our society are interdisciplinary in nature and require the integration of multiple STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) concepts to solve them has given rise to a new instructional approach, called “integrated STEM education”. Integrated STEM education aims to remove the barriers from the STEM fields and has the potential to increase students’ interest and motivation for learning, as well as to lead to improved achievement. It is important to assess the effectiveness of educational STEM initiatives in terms of students’ integrating ability, but to date, no such instruments are available. This study provides a definition of “integrating ability” and establishes a framework for understanding its components. Based on this definition and framework, a multiple-choice instrument for testing integrated physics and mathematics in the ninth grade (IPM9) was developed and validated. The definition and framework for integrating ability and the construction guidelines for an integrated test, can be used by researchers to assess students’ ability to integrate STEM subjects.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is the knowledge teachers use to teach a specific subject to a specific audience. The importance of PCK to quality teaching is widely recognized. However, an overview of research about geography teachers’ PCK is missing. To fill this gap, we conducted a systematic review. We analyzed 43 empirical studies, but only 9 used PCK as a framework. Most studies addressed instructional strategies or teaching orientations. The studies were too diverse to draw conclusions on geography teachers’ PCK in general. But portraits of 16 geography teachers emphasized the necessity of geographical knowledge and teaching experience for PCK-quality.

Catch and distribution of tuna in the ocean are typically investigated with ocean basin-scale models. Due to their large scale, such models must greatly simplify tuna behaviour occurring at a scale below ∼100 km, despite interactions at this level potentially being important to both catch and distribution of tuna. For example, the associative behaviour of tuna with man-made floating objects, that are deployed by fishers to improve their catch rates (Fish Aggregating Devices; FADs), are usually ignored or simplified. Here we present a model that can be used to investigate the influence of tuna dynamics below the ∼100 km scale on larger scales. It is an Agent-Based Model (ABM) of a hypothetical, tuna-like species, that includes their interactions with each other, free-floating FADs and prey. In this ABM, both tuna and FADs are represented by Lagrangian particles that are advected by an ocean flow field, with tuna also exhibiting active swimming based on internal states such as stomach fullness. We apply the ABM in multiple configurations of idealised flow and prey fields, alongside differing interaction strengths between agents. When tuna swimming behaviour is influenced equally by prey and FADs, we find that the model simulations compare well with observations at the ≲ 100 km scale. For instance, compared to observations, tuna particles have a similar stomach fullness when associated or non-associated to a FAD, tuna colonize at similar timescales at FADs after their deployment and tuna particles exhibit similar variations in continuous residence times. However, we find large differences in emergent dynamics such as residence and catch among different flow configurations, because the flow determines the time scale at which tuna encounter FADs. These findings are discussed in the context of directing future research, and an improved interpretation of tuna catch and other data for the sustainable management of these economically important species.

There are increasing calls to introduce coding in K-12 in creative ways that provide opportunities for personal expression. Computational design projects include computational concepts fundamental to computer science to generate 2D and 3D models that can potentially be personally meaningful. We developed and implemented making-based coding activities for youth that combine computational design and 3D printing tools and allow the participants to design and fabricate free-choice projects. To investigate how young persons engaged in computational design and which aspects demotivated them, we used a mixed-methods approach that included semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. We took field notes and collected students’ artifacts to triangulate the data wherever possible. The results show that 3D printing, creating unique aesthetics, enhanced personalization, and ownership of design models are crucial elements for engaging youth in computational design. We discuss the implications of our exploratory study and suggest directions for future work in developing computationally rich making-based activities.

Plastic pollution is now pervasive in the Arctic, even in areas with no apparent human activity, such as the deep seafloor. In this Review, we describe the sources and impacts of Arctic plastic pollution, including plastic debris and microplastics, which have infiltrated terrestrial and aquatic systems, the cryosphere and the atmosphere. Although some pollution is from local sources — fisheries, landfills, wastewater and offshore industrial activity — distant regions are a substantial source, as plastic is carried from lower latitudes to the Arctic by ocean currents, atmospheric transport and rivers. Once in the Arctic, plastic pollution accumulates in certain areas and affects local ecosystems. Population-level information is sparse, but interactions such as entanglements and ingestion of marine debris have been recorded for mammals, seabirds, fish and invertebrates. Early evidence also suggests interactions between climate change and plastic pollution. Even if plastic emissions are halted today, fragmentation of legacy plastic will lead to an increasing microplastic burden in Arctic ecosystems, which are already under pressure from anthropogenic warming. Mitigation is urgently needed at both regional and international levels to decrease plastic production and utilization, achieve circularity and optimize solid waste management and wastewater treatment.

Throughout the world, Computer Science Education (CSE) has ex- panded exponentially over the past decade, focused on teaching primary and secondary students computing ideas and tools. To teach all these students computer science (CS), models for teacher preparation range from one and done professional learning work- shops to full certificate and licensure programs. This report provides a landscape of how CS teachers are prepared academically in var- ious countries and makes evidence-based recommendations for how teachers should be educated to develop knowledge and skill to teach computer science. It also discusses how to develop these knowledge systems while promoting instruction that is equitable and centers students in the classroom. We brought together a group of international computer science education scholars who have been engaged in teacher preparation. In addition to what knowl- edge teachers need to teach CS, we also focused on how the field is preparing teachers and the role of computer science in the design of technology tools to achieve goals while mitigating potential societal harms.

How is public engagement perceived to contribute to open science? This commentary highlights common reflections on this question from interviews with 12 public engagement fellows in Utrecht University’s Open Science Programme in the Netherlands. We identify four reasons why public engagement is an essential enabler of open science. Interaction between academics and society can: (1) better align science with the needs of society; (2) secure a relationship of trust between science and society; (3) increase the quality and impact of science; and (4) support the impact of open access and FAIR data practices (data which meet principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability). To be successful and sustainable, such public engagement requires support in skills training and a form of institutionalisation in a university-wide system, but, most of all, the fellows express the importance of a formal and informal recognition and rewards system. Our findings suggest that in order to make public engagement an integral part of open science, universities should invest in institutional support, create awareness, and stimulate dialogue among staff members on how to ‘do’ good public engagement.

Model simulations of past climates are increasingly found to compare well with proxy data at a global scale, but regional discrepancies remain. A persistent issue in modeling past greenhouse climates has been the temperature difference between equatorial and (sub-)polar regions, which is typically much larger in simulations than proxy data suggest. Particularly in the Eocene, multiple temperature proxies suggest extreme warmth in the southwest Pacific Ocean, where model simulations consistently suggest temperate conditions. Here, we present new global ocean model simulations at 0.1° horizontal resolution for the middle-late Eocene. The eddies in the high-resolution model affect poleward heat transport and local time-mean flow in critical regions compared to the noneddying flow in the standard low-resolution simulations. As a result, the high-resolution simulations produce higher surface temperatures near Antarctica and lower surface temperatures near the equator compared to the low-resolution simulations, leading to better correspondence with proxy reconstructions. Crucially, the high-resolution simulations are also much more consistent with biogeographic patterns in endemic-Antarctic and low-latitude-derived plankton, and thus resolve the long-standing discrepancy of warm subpolar ocean temperatures and isolating polar gyre circulation. The results imply that strongly eddying model simulations are required to reconcile discrepancies between regional proxy data and models, and demonstrate the importance of accurate regional paleobathymetry for proxy-model comparisons.

This longitudinal quantitative study investigated teachers’ development of self-efficacy and teaching practices relating to education for sustainable development (ESD) in four compulsory schools in a Swedish municipality. The teachers participated in a professional development program over three school years designed to support them in implementing ESD. The program was based on five seminars that supported teachers to discuss and experiment with the principles, complexities and challenges of ESD. Data was collected at five different time points strategically planned at key moments in the program, using a questionnaire including scales measuring teachers’ self-efficacy for ESD and their self-reported ESD practices. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to follow the teachers evolution across a time span of about three years. Results show that the teachers’ self-efficacy was boosted early in the program, but fell back to initial levels after confrontation with practice. Through further experimentation in practice, the teachers’ self-efficacy increased back to the initial level toward the end of the program. Furthermore, teachers started self-reporting ESD practices as the program progressed, and the correlation between self-efficacy for ESD and ESD practices grew. These results highlight the importance of providing teachers with long-term opportunities for bringing ESD into their own educational practice. The results also caution against using self-efficacy as an outcome measure in short-term professionalization initiatives.

This study revisits the seminal question of the effectiveness of education for sustainable development (ESD) by using a novel longitudinal approach. Scholarly attention in the past decade has been increasingly directed towards the concept of action competence for sustainability. However, little is still known about the effects of ESD as a teaching approach to help develop students’ action competence for sustainability. This study therefore adopts a three-wave longitudinal design, tapping into the development of 760 Swedish upper secondary students’ self-perceived action competence for sustainability as related to their experience of ESD teaching at their school. We can conclude that ESD has effect on students’ action competence for sustainability. Our longitudinal growth models show that it is possible to develop students’ action competence, which is affected by their experience of ESD teaching at their school. However, the students did not significantly develop the action competence component confidence under their own influence. Our findings reveal that developing students’ action competence by implementing ESD in formal education takes time, and they shed light on the need for longitudinal research studies in the field of ESD.

This paper draws on the meta-theory of Critical Realism providing a theoretical basis for the pedagogical approach of Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) in supporting Education for Environmental Citizenship (EEC). We argue that while there are different configurations of EEC, inducting citizens in decision-making needs satisfies the following criteria: (a) relevant transdisciplinary knowledge, (b) a values orientation toward both the complexity of, and the necessity for, a sustainable world and (c) a confidence for, and commitment to, socio-political action at individual and collective levels. In order to provide a rich perspective about how SSIBL has been operationalized in various national contexts through specific teacher professional development, we present four cases purposefully selected as exemplars from different European countries (the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and Cyprus). The four cases provide powerful scenarios to discuss different ways in which the SSIBL approach can be implemented in teacher education to meet the criteria identified and, thus, promote informed and responsible action in relation to socio-environmental issues. The whole picture shows a consistent theoretical foundation and interesting opportunities for teacher education, as a relevant strategy to prepare teachers in taking risks and integrating SSIBL within school curricula to foster environmental citizenship.

This study investigates the influence of the educational game design elements immersion, collaboration and debriefing, on fostering learning with educational escape rooms. We based the design of the escape room on an educational game design framework that aligns the learning goal and the game goal, that is, escaping from the room. One-hundred-and-twenty-six students, aged between 16 and 20 played the escape room. Measures for learning were pre-and post-tests. The game experience was measured through questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers. The results show a knowledge gain between pre-and post-test. Correlational analysis showed that all three design elements contributed to students' appreciation of the escape room, whereas only immersion had a direct contribution to knowledge gain. Based on the qualitative data it appeared that the used escape boxes contributed most to perceived immersion. Immersion helps students focus on each other and the tasks. Also, a narrative with distinct roles for each student helped to evoke immersion. Unexpectedly, these roles also scaffolded collaboration except for students in the school that engaged in a collaborative learning pedagogy. The study confirms the usability of the framework for game designs, based on theories for the design of physical and hybrid educational games. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic The escape room as a learning environment appeals to teachers of different disciplines, ages, gender and teaching experiences. Teachers implement escape rooms to create active (hybrid) learning spaces, where learners need a combination of knowledge and skills to solve the subject-based activities. Students and teachers perceive that while participating in escape rooms, students are more engaged, active and learn more compared to regular classes. The assumption is that escape rooms support collaboration and automatically collaborative learning. Review studies on educational escape rooms show that a systematic evaluation is usually absent, disputable or indicates no knowledge gain. Teachers design their educational escape rooms based on digital escape games and/or their experience as players of escape rooms. For digital educational games, important game design aspects are researched. Three main challenges in designing educational games are (1) the participants' transition from the real world to the game world, (2) the alignment of game design aspects and educational aspects and (3) the transfer from attained experiences and knowledge back into the real world. What this paper adds This paper evaluates an educational game design framework for escape rooms, focussing on the above-mentioned main challenges in designing educational games. It investigates the influence of the educational game design elements immersion, collaboration and debriefing, on fostering learning with a hybrid educational escape room. It informs that all three design elements contributed to students' appreciation of the escape room, whereas only immersion had a direct contribution to knowledge gain. The used hybrid escape boxes contributed most to the immersion; scaffolding students to focus on each other and the tasks. Students' collaboration was successfully fostered. However, it scarcely led to collaborative learning during gameplay, due to lack of discussion and reflection needed for deeper understanding. Implications for practice and/or policy The educational escape game framework would help educators creating immersive games, which not only confront learners with meaningful contexts but also give learning gains. The educational escape game framework would help researchers focussing on important and difficult aspects of designing and implementing educational escape rooms to develop and research more effective escape rooms. In guidelines on creating immersion in educational escape games, the notion of physical objects is lacking. In this hybrid escape room, the physical objects such as escape boxes were the most powerful in creating immersion. In addition, the use of sound design in escape games in classrooms seems overrated. Debriefing after the gameplay is perceived necessary to discuss common misunderstandings, to make connections between the topics in various puzzles and to add more content to interest high-achieving students.

The aim of this study is to develop more understanding about strategies to support teachers' professional development in curriculum innovations, in which pedagogy and content change simultaneously compared to the conventional curriculum. A pre-existing framework, including strategies for professional development, was adapted, implemented, and evaluated from the perspective of teachers' sense-making in teaching context-based science curricula. This framework guides the design of activities that support teachers' development in three new aspects of teaching context-based science units: setting a context in class, performing a new teaching role, and teaching new content. In a case study, six teachers in secondary education participated in a professional development program based on the adapted framework. A qualitative inner-case analysis was conducted to describe teachers' sense-making during the program, in terms of the categories “assimilation,” “accommodation,” “toleration,” and “distantiation.” Results showed that teachers participating in the professional development program successfully assimilated and accommodated all three aspects; however, the process of teachers' sense-making of the new content followed a different path compared to the processes of the other aspects. The relation between these results and the adapted framework are discussed to retrieve strategies for planning professional development programs to support teachers in curriculum innovations.

Environmental Citizenship (EC) is a promising aim for science education. EC enables people not only to responsibly make decisions on sustainability issues—such as use of renewable energy sources—but also to take action individually and collectively. However, studies show that education for EC is challenging. Because our understanding of EC practice remains limited, an in-depth, qualitative view would help us better understand how to support science teachers during EC education. This study aims to describe current EC education practices. What do secondary science teachers think sustainability and citizenship entail? What are their experiences (both positive and negative) with education for EC? A total of 41 Dutch science teachers were interviewed in an individual, face-to-face setting. Analysis of the coded transcripts shows that most teachers see the added value of EC but struggle to fully implement it in their teaching. They think the curriculum is unsuitable to reach EC, and they see activities such as guiding discussions and opinion forming as challenging. Furthermore, science teachers’ interpretation of citizenship education remains narrow, thus making it unlikely that their lessons are successful in fostering EC. Improving EC education therefore may be supported by explicit representation in the curriculum and teacher professional development directed at its implementation.

This review presents an overview and analysis of the body of research on special relativity theory (SRT) education at the secondary and lower undergraduate level. There is currently a growing international interest in implementing SRT in pre-university education as an introduction to modern physics. For this reason, insights into learning opportunities and challenges in SRT education are needed. The field of research in SRT education is still at an early stage, especially at the level of secondary education, and there is a shortage of empirical evaluation of learning outcomes. In order to guide future research directions, there is a need for an overview and synthesis of the results reported so far. We have selected 40 articles and categorized them according to reported learning difficulties, teaching approaches, and research tools. Analysis shows that students at all educational levels experience learning difficulties with the use of frames of reference, the postulates of SRT, and relativistic effects. In the reported teaching sequences, instructional materials, and learning activities, these difficulties are approached from different angles. Some teaching approaches focus on thought experiments to express conceptual features of SRT, while others use virtual environments to provide realistic visualization of relativistic effects. From the reported teaching approaches, three learning objectives can be identified: to foster conceptual understanding, to foster understanding of the history and philosophy of science, and to gain motivation and confidence toward SRT and physics in general. In order to quantitatively compare learning outcomes of different teaching strategies, a more thorough evaluation of assessment tools is required.

This study investigates the way students experience synchronous online and offline meetings in university education, using a qualitative approach. The context is a course in teacher training that was forced to go fully online during the Covid-19 pandemic while the course was almost halfway to completion. After completion of the course, a semi-structured interview on the experiences during the online and offline synchronous meetings was conducted with six randomly selected students out of a total of 24. The interview was transcribed, coded, and second coding was performed. The results reveal that students generally prefer offline meetings because of higher levels of all types of student interactions (student-student, student-content, and student-teacher), and the higher level of relatedness. However, students do appreciate the possibility to perform small group work outside of class in an online environment. The results support the application of blended learning. Implications are discussed., Education; Blended Learning; Student interaction; Online interaction; COVID-19; Teacher Training

The global increase in recreational escape rooms has inspired teachers around the world to implement escape rooms in educational settings. As escape rooms are increasingly popular in education, there is a need to evaluate their use, and a need for guidelines to develop and implement escape rooms in the classroom. This systematic review synthesizes current practices and experiences, focussing on important educational and game design aspects. Subsequently, relations between the game design aspects and the educational aspects are studied. Finally, student outcomes are related to the intended goals. Educators in different disciplines appear to have different motives for using the game’s time constraints and teamwork. These educators make different choices for related game aspects such as the structuring of the puzzles. Unlike recreational escape rooms, in educational escape rooms players need to reach the game goal by achieving the educational goals. More alignment in game mechanics and pedagogical approaches is recommended. There is a discrepancy in perceived and actual learning of content knowledge in recreational escape rooms. Recommendations in the article for developing and implementing escape rooms in education will help educators in creating these new learning environments, and eventually help students to foster knowledge and skills more effectively.

Quantum mechanics (QM) has become part of many secondary school curricula. These curricula often do not include the mathematical tools for a formal, mathematical introduction of QM. QM therefore needs to be taught at a more conceptual level, but making secondary school students understand counterintuitive QM concepts without introducing mathematical formalism is a challenge. In order to accept QM, students not only have to see the need of it, but also have to see that QM is understandable and logical. Dutch secondary school students are familiar with potential energy (PE) in the context of gravitational and elastic energy. Therefore, the introduction of QM by using the potential wells and tunneling with emphasis on students’ prior knowledge of PE could be a way to make QM more understandable and logical. To explore this, we investigated the relation between the understanding of energy diagrams and the understanding of the potential well and tunneling. A module was created to promote students’ understanding of PE in classical context. Then, a quasi-experimental intervention was used, in which the experimental group received additional lessons using the module on classical energy diagrams before being taught QM. Two tests were developed in order to determine students’ understanding of PE and QM. The results of the tests showed that the experimental group not only had better understanding of PE diagrams, but also of QM even before they were being taught QM. Analysis of the tests also showed that there was a significant correlation between the understanding of PE diagrams and the understanding of QM. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that emphasis on PE can be used to reduce the gap between students’ prior knowledge and QM.

In this paper, we present an escape box as a means to introduce the escape room concept into classrooms. Recreational escape rooms have inspired teachers all over the world to adapt the popular entertainment activity for education. Escape rooms are problem-based and time-constrained, requiring active and collaborative participants, a setting that teachers want to achieve in their classroom to promote learning. This paper explores the adaptation of the escape room concept into educational escape game boxes. These technology-enhanced escape boxes have become hybrid learning spaces, merging individual and collaborative learning, as well as physical and digital spaces. The design of the box with assignments on each side puts users face to face with each other and requires them to collaborate in the physical world, instead of being individually absorbed in a digital world. The developed box is a unique concept in the field of escape rooms; the content is adaptable. This paper describes the process leading to the design criteria, the design process, test results and evaluation, and provides recommendations for designing educational escape rooms.

In order to investigate students' misunderstandings of potential wells and tunneling, a conceptual knowledge test was administered to Dutch secondary school students after they were taught about quantum mechanics. A frequency analysis of responses to the multiple choice questions (n=98) and coding of the responses to the open-ended questions and explanations (n=13) shows that Dutch secondary school students experience difficulties similar to those reported for undergraduate students. The students' underlying difficulties were analyzed using a typology of learning impediments. Results of this analysis show that students have difficulty connecting knowledge of potential wells and tunneling to their prior knowledge. Students mainly have creative and epistemological learning impediments, which cause eight incorrect synthetic models.

This study builds on a research-practitioner partnership embedded within an education for sustainable development (ESD) project and aims to explore the major potential challenges (i.e., disciplinary boundaries set by subject specialization, especially in secondary education) and success factors (i.e., teacher co-learning experiences in ESD) associated with differences in teachers’ professional action competence (PACesd) in a sample of 557 in-service teachers in primary and secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. The study employed a recently validated PACesd measurement instrument and involved quantitative data analysis in a structural equation modelling framework. The results show that primary education teachers tend to report higher PACesd levels compared to their peers in secondary education. Moreover, regardless of educational level, gender and teaching experience, all teachers participating in a working group or a learning community in ESD are more likely to show higher levels of PACesd. Implications of the findings, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Based on the concept of action competence, the current study introduces an integrated framework of Professional Action Competence in Education for Sustainable Development (PACesd) described by three defining features: willingness, knowledge of pedagogical approaches, and self-efficacy. To validate this framework, we developed a questionnaire measurement instrument: ‘PACesd-Q’. This questionnaire was administered to a sample of 557 primary and secondary school in-service teachers in Flanders, Belgium. The instrument’s psychometric quality was assessed in terms of its reliability, construct, and criterion-related validity. Results of reliability analysis and hierarchical (second-order) confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of good measurement properties of the instrument in terms of reliability and construct and criterion-related validity. We suggest the instrument can be successfully used to provide educational practitioners with a tool to monitor and eventually identify professional development needs regarding education for sustainable development.

There is a growing research interest in mechanistic reasoning (MR) in the field of science education, as this type of reasoning is perceived as an essential thinking skill for science education. This literature review synthesized 60 science education studies on MR published from 2006 to 2021. The findings showed three common aspects of conceptualizations of MR in science education: (1) causality in relation to MR, (2) use of entities and their associated activities, and (3) use of entities at (at least) one scale level below the scale level of a target phenomenon. While most of the reviewed studies related the importance of MR to cognitive aspects, a smaller number associated its value with scientific modelling. Three main difficulties in generating MR were categorized: (1) identifying and using unobservable entities, (2) assigning activities to entities, and (3) identifying and using an appropriate number of entities. Various types of support for fostering MR were identified. Implications and future studies are discussed.

A key theme in the science education literature concerns the reluctance of students to participate in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Self-determination theory (SDT) states that social factors in an educational setting, such as teachers’ motivating style, can influence students’ motivation and engagement. This paper investigates the relationship between STEM teachers’ motivating style (autonomy support, provision of structure, involvement) and students’ motivation and engagement with regard to STEM. Furthermore, the relationship between students’ motivation and students’ engagement is investigated. Thirty classroom observations were conducted in different STEM lessons, to assess teachers’ motivating style and students’ engagement. The students’ motivation was assessed at the end of the school year, using an online questionnaire. The results reveal that STEM teachers’ provision of structure is positively linked to students’ motivation and engagement with regard to STEM subjects. The impact of teachers’ autonomy support was negatively predictive for students’ autonomous motivation, and positively predictive for students’ engagement. A negative relationship between students’ controlled motivation and engagement was found. Based on these results, this study suggests that taking teachers’ motivating style into account in future educational initiatives regarding STEM is highly relevant as a means of stimulating students’ motivation and engagement.

Non-formal education is an integral component to lifelong learning and its aim is for young people and adults to acquire and maintain the skills and competencies necessary to adapt to a continuously changing environment. Non-formal education implements different learning activities and is supplementary to formal education, taking place outside, but supplementary, to the formal educational system. From the conception and throughout the ongoing evolution of environmental education, non-formal education has been identified as an important framework for conducting Environmental Education and Education for Sustainability. Therefore, non-formal settings for secondary education level can contribute to Education for Environmental Citizenship by providing the opportunity and conditions that enable young people to acquire the body of knowledge as well as the skills, values, attitudes and pro-environmental actions necessary to become an Environmental Citizen. In addition, an Environmental Citizen is empowered and motivated to participate in society as an agent-of-change in the direction of solving contemporary environmental problems, preventing the creation of new ones, and achieving sustainability and restoring our (human) relationships with nature. Pedagogies including place-based education, civic ecology education, ecojustice pedagogy, action competence and socio-scientific inquiry-based learning can contribute to building students’ competencies for the deep civic participation necessary to realise environmental and social change. However, due to the novelty of the concept, the lack of a complete pedagogical framework for Education in Environmental Citizenship in non-formal settings presents a major challenge.

As education was forced to go fully online in early 2020 as a consequence of the imposed lockdowns, concerns were raised related to student well-being. This study examines student well-being at the science faculty of a large urban university in the Netherlands within the framework of Basic Psychological Need Theory, a sub-theory of Self-Determination Theory. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining the results of an online student survey with 16 Likert-scale questions as well as two open ended questions (2228 participants, corresponding to a response rate of 32%) with a student focus group interview. The Likert-scale questions were subjected to factor analyses and reveal problems with well-being in four areas: study, personal worries, personal well-being, and societal worries. The analyses of the answers to the open ended questions as well as the focus group data show that students are positive on the autonomy offered by the inherent flexibility of online education, e.g., as a consequence of reduced travel time. However, the psychological needs of competence and relatedness are seriously undermined during times of lockdown, mainly because of poorer student-teacher interaction, lack of structure, loneliness, and helplessness. Students state that they need more support in these areas, for example by on-campus meetings whenever possible, psychological support, improvements in online education, online social events, adequate communication, and leniency in the interpretation of regulations and deadlines. Implications are discussed., Online education, Basic psychological needs, Student well-being, COVID-19, Student support.

In this study, the conceptions of pre-university level secondary students with respect to radiation and radioactivity were investigated. A literature review determined what was already known about secondary school students’ conceptions that differ from scientific theory, regarding radiation and radioactivity. Next, 12 Dutch students and their teachers were interviewed. Half of the already known student conceptions were confirmed in the interviews. The most persistent conception was students’ inability to distinguish between irradiation and contamination. All newly discovered conceptions, such as students’ idea that radiation can exist independently of the source of radiation, were discovered within a medical context. A remarkable finding was that students have full confidence in medical professionals, while at the same time they believe that all medical imaging techniques are dangerous. It can be concluded that curricular developments and changes in teaching contexts lead to changes in student conceptions concerning established topics. Knowledge of these conceptions and how to change them might be an important focus for teacher training, as teachers play a role in overcoming conceptions that do not correspond with prevailing scientific theories and, at the same time, may be a source of these conceptions.

Sustainability has become a prominent theme in society and can be considered as an integral part of scientific citizenship. This study investigates to what extent the production, use and re-use of (bio)plastics initiates students’ reasoning and to identify the kind of content knowledge students put forward. The structure of students’ arguments was mapped according to Toulmin's model of argumentation,i.e., claim, data, warrant & backing and qualifier & rebuttals. Students (N= 27, grade 10 & 11) participated in groups of three. The students were introduced to the topic of the production, use and re-use of plastics by watching a video, answering questions, reading articles and having interviews and group discussions. Students were prompted to argue on the sustainability of bioplastics and fossil-based plastics. The results show that students frequently used arguments related to preventing pollution, designing to recycle and designing to degrade. However, themes such as avoiding waste, origin of energy and materials, energy efficiency and costs were rarely used or even absent in students’ reasoning. Overall, the students’ reasoning contained all of Toulmin's categories, and especially the increase in the number of qualifier & rebuttals is interpreted as an indication of awareness of the complexity of the issue at hand. This study underlines that students are able to bring in relevant scientific knowledge when confronted with a suitable sustainability issue, but also more societally oriented arguments enriched their perspective. Implications for the design of interventions aiming to engage students in life cycle analysis (on plastics) are discussed.

In this chapter, we will consider the relationships between values, beliefs and Environmental Citizenship. The role of personal values, value orientations and environmental beliefs in explaining pro-environmental actions and behaviour is widely explored. It is already acknowledged that self-enhancement (egoistic and hedonistic) values are less predictive of pro-environmental actions than self-transcendence (biospheric and altruistic) values. Additionally, beliefs are considered to be at the core of human behaviour in cognitive theories explaining pro-environmental behaviour and are an important part of many theories used to predict pro-environmental actions. We regard Environmental Citizenship as a combination of certain pro-environmental actions and civic engagement, both public and private, that lead to the mitigation of environmental problems. It is important to answer the question of whether general values and beliefs can potentially be relevant antecedents of Environmental Citizenship. Understanding how values and beliefs relate to Environmental Citizenship would allow for evidence-based ways of promoting Environmental Citizenship in schools and communities and would empower educators to make effective decisions in promoting Environmental Citizenship.

This study focuses on the perceived gap between the required and actual level of digital research skills (DRS) of students entering tertiary science education. By combining existing frameworks for research skills and digital literacy skills, a guiding framework of DRS was constructed. The DRS framework incorporates seven categories and is evaluated using an exploratory qualitative study employing semi-structured interviews with university teachers (N = 15). The level of DRS at the start of university science education and university teachers’ perceptions of first-year students’ level of DRS have been investigated. The results show that the skills of writing a research paper using digital tools, using proper resources, and analysing, transforming, and visualising data were generally found to be wanting.

Introduction: We present a validated instrument for assessing Environmental Citizenship (EC) of students in lower secondary education. The Environmental Citizenship Opinions (ECO) questionnaire focusses on general citizenship components, key sustainability competences, and Socio-Scientific Reasoning aspects. By combining these domains, our work provides a needed innovation as these different aspects of EC have not previously been covered in one single, balanced and validated measurement instrument. Methods: The ECO questionnaire was validated through a pilot round and a subsequent large-scale study (781 lower secondary students). Several rounds of Confirmatory Factor Analysis resulted in a final model of 38 items divided in 7 first order and 5 s order constructs. Results: The final model fit statistics indicate near excellent quality of our model (RMSEA = 0.036, CFI = 0.93, TLI = 0.93, SRMR = 0.05), which consists of EC knowledge, EC attitudes, EC skills, EC reflection and complexity of EC issues. Calculations on the relative attribution of each of the five main constructs to overall environmental sustainability citizenship, highlight that attitudes and reflection skills are the most important constituents. Discussion: Our result present the ECO questionnaire as a valuable, valid and reliable tool to measure environmental citizenship of students. Applications in practice include monitoring student’s development and supporting teachers during the challenging task of effective teaching for EC in and outside the classroom.

Throughout the world, Computer Science Education (CSE) has ex- panded exponentially over the past decade, focused on teaching primary and secondary students computing ideas and tools. To teach all these students computer science (CS), models for teacher preparation range from one and done professional learning work- shops to full certificate and licensure programs. This report provides a landscape of how CS teachers are prepared academically in var- ious countries and makes evidence-based recommendations for how teachers should be educated to develop knowledge and skill to teach computer science. It also discusses how to develop these knowledge systems while promoting instruction that is equitable and centers students in the classroom. We brought together a group of international computer science education scholars who have been engaged in teacher preparation. In addition to what knowl- edge teachers need to teach CS, we also focused on how the field is preparing teachers and the role of computer science in the design of technology tools to achieve goals while mitigating potential societal harms.

Model simulations of past climates are increasingly found to compare well with proxy data at a global scale, but regional discrepancies remain. A persistent issue in modeling past greenhouse climates has been the temperature difference between equatorial and (sub-)polar regions, which is typically much larger in simulations than proxy data suggest. Particularly in the Eocene, multiple temperature proxies suggest extreme warmth in the southwest Pacific Ocean, where model simulations consistently suggest temperate conditions. Here, we present new global ocean model simulations at 0.1° horizontal resolution for the middle-late Eocene. The eddies in the high-resolution model affect poleward heat transport and local time-mean flow in critical regions compared to the noneddying flow in the standard low-resolution simulations. As a result, the high-resolution simulations produce higher surface temperatures near Antarctica and lower surface temperatures near the equator compared to the low-resolution simulations, leading to better correspondence with proxy reconstructions. Crucially, the high-resolution simulations are also much more consistent with biogeographic patterns in endemic-Antarctic and low-latitude-derived plankton, and thus resolve the long-standing discrepancy of warm subpolar ocean temperatures and isolating polar gyre circulation. The results imply that strongly eddying model simulations are required to reconcile discrepancies between regional proxy data and models, and demonstrate the importance of accurate regional paleobathymetry for proxy-model comparisons.

Across the globe, Computer Science Education has grown tremendously over the past decade to teach primary and secondary students computing ideas and tools. From integrating computational thinking in disciplines to teaching computer science as a stand alone subject, models for teacher preparation range from one and done professional learning workshops to full certificate and licensure programs. The group will focus on providing a landscape of how CS teachers are prepared academically in various countries and make evidence-based recommendations for how teachers should be educated to develop knowledge and skill to teach computer sci- ence. The working group will also discuss how to develop these knowledge systems while promoting instruction that is equitable and centers students in the classroom. In addition, the working group will focus on new directions in computing education (such as, artificial intelligence and machine learning) and their implica- tions for teacher preparation. We will bring together a group of international computer science education scholars who have been engaged in teacher preparation. In addition to what knowledge teachers need to teach CS, we will also focus on how the field is preparing teachers to think critically about AI/ML and the role of computer science in the design of technology tools to achieve goals while mitigating potential societal harms.

How is public engagement perceived to contribute to open science? This commentary highlights common reflections on this question from interviews with 12 public engagement fellows in Utrecht University’s Open Science Programme in the Netherlands. We identify four reasons why public engagement is an essential enabler of open science. Interaction between academics and society can: (1) better align science with the needs of society; (2) secure a relationship of trust between science and society; (3) increase the quality and impact of science; and (4) support the impact of open access and FAIR data practices (data which meet principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability). To be successful and sustainable, such public engagement requires support in skills training and a form of institutionalisation in a university-wide system, but, most of all, the fellows express the importance of a formal and informal recognition and rewards system. Our findings suggest that in order to make public engagement an integral part of open science, universities should invest in institutional support, create awareness, and stimulate dialogue among staff members on how to ‘do’ good public engagement.

As education was forced to go fully online in early 2020 as a consequence of the imposed lockdowns, concerns were raised related to student well-being. This study examines student well-being at the science faculty of a large urban university in the Netherlands within the framework of Basic Psychological Need Theory, a sub-theory of Self-Determination Theory. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining the results of an online student survey with 16 Likert-scale questions as well as two open ended questions (2228 participants, corresponding to a response rate of 32%) with a student focus group interview. The Likert-scale questions were subjected to factor analyses and reveal problems with well-being in four areas: study, personal worries, personal well-being, and societal worries. The analyses of the answers to the open ended questions as well as the focus group data show that students are positive on the autonomy offered by the inherent flexibility of online education, e.g., as a consequence of reduced travel time. However, the psychological needs of competence and relatedness are seriously undermined during times of lockdown, mainly because of poorer student-teacher interaction, lack of structure, loneliness, and helplessness. Students state that they need more support in these areas, for example by on-campus meetings whenever possible, psychological support, improvements in online education, online social events, adequate communication, and leniency in the interpretation of regulations and deadlines. Implications are discussed.

This article reports on a case study that aims to help students develop mechanistic reasoning through constructing a model based stop-motion animation of a physical phenomenon. Mechanistic reasoning is a valuable thinking strategy for students in trying to make sense of scientific phenomena. Ten ninth-grade students used stop-motion software to create an animation of projectile motion. Retrospective think-aloud interviews were conducted to investigate how the construction of a stop-motion animation induced the students’ mechanistic reasoning. Mechanistic reasoning did occur while the students engaged in creating the animation, in particular chunking and sequencing. Moreover, all students eventually exhibited mechanistic reasoning including abstract concepts, e.g., not directly observable agents. Students who reached the highest level of mechanistic reasoning, i.e., chaining, demonstrated deeper conceptual understanding of content.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) emphasizes learning through experiencing and constructing. Where IBL is often applied in science education, the conceptualization of IBL practices in mathematics education is less obvious. We compared students’ reports on IBL practices in two different teaching cultures as an attempt to better understand IBL practices in connection with overarching teaching cultures. In this study, we investigated IBL practices in lower-secondary mathematics lessons in the Beijing area and the Netherlands through a survey about the experiences and preferences of 858 Chinese students and 441 Dutch students. Results show that students from the Beijing sample reported experiencing IBL activities in most mathematics lessons, while students from the Dutch sample reported them in some lessons, and both preferred the same amount of IBL activities as they experienced. The Dutch sample reported little experience with posing questions to tackle. The study also suggests a correlation between IBL experience and IBL preference of each class: students with more IBL experience are likely to show a higher preference for IBL activities. Results of this study do not confirm expectations based on stereotypes about the two teaching cultures. The students’ perspective in both samples suggests that providing complex problems and organizing group work have potential for further encouraging IBL in mathematics.

The aim of this study is to develop more understanding about strategies to support teachers' professional development in curriculum innovations, in which pedagogy and content change simultaneously compared to the conventional curriculum. A pre‐existing framework, including strategies for professional development, was adapted, implemented, and evaluated from the perspective of teachers' sense‐making in teaching context‐based science curricula. This framework guides the design of activities that support teachers' development in three new aspects of teaching context‐based science units: setting a context in class, performing a new teaching role, and teaching new content. In a case study, six teachers in secondary education participated in a professional development program based on the adapted framework. A qualitative inner‐case analysis was conducted to describe teachers' sense‐making during the program, in terms of the categories “assimilation,” “accommodation,” “toleration,” and “distantiation.” Results showed that teachers participating in the professional development program successfully assimilated and accommodated all three aspects; however, the process of teachers' sense‐making of the new content followed a different path compared to the processes of the other aspects. The relation between these results and the adapted framework are discussed to retrieve strategies for planning professional development programs to support teachers in curriculum innovations.

Incremental Grading is a student-driven assessment approach where students have the responsibility to grade their own work based on pre-defined assessment criteria, usually rubrics. The desired outcomes of Incremental Grading are higher self-assessment skills, higher ownership of learning, lower degree of procrastination, and a more distributed workload for teachers. The approach has been described as a pattern language in previous work and has now been applied in two courses for academic teaching. In this experience report we evaluate the effectiveness of Incremental Grading in these courses, using a mixed-method approach. The results show that Incremental Grading has a positive impact on the self-assessment skills of students, can positively affect the quality of their work and consequently their final grades, and makes teacher's feedback more valuable.

Sustainability has become a prominent theme in society and can be considered as an integral part of scientific citizenship. This study investigates to what extent the production, use and re-use of (bio)plastics initiates students’ reasoning and to identify the kind of content knowledge students put forward. The structure of students’ arguments was mapped according to Toulmin's model of argumentation, i.e., claim, data, warrant & backing and qualifier & rebuttals. Students (N = 27, grade 10 & 11) participated in groups of three. The students were introduced to the topic of the production, use and re-use of plastics by watching a video, answering questions, reading articles and having interviews and group discussions. Students were prompted to argue on the sustainability of bioplastics and fossil-based plastics. The results show that students frequently used arguments related to preventing pollution, designing to recycle and designing to degrade. However, themes such as avoiding waste, origin of energy and materials, energy efficiency and costs were rarely used or even absent in students’ reasoning. Overall, the students’ reasoning contained all of Toulmin's categories, and especially the increase in the number of qualifier & rebuttals is interpreted as an indication of awareness of the complexity of the issue at hand. This study underlines that students are able to bring in relevant scientific knowledge when confronted with a suitable sustainability issue, but also more societally oriented arguments enriched their perspective. Implications for the design of interventions aiming to engage students in life cycle analysis (on plastics) are discussed.

The following sections are included: Introduction Science Communication: An Evolving Profession and Field of Study Changing Views on Science Communication Science Communication in an Increasingly Changing and Global World This Book References

Environmental Citizenship can take on different meanings in different countries and discourses as outlined in other chapters of this book. When Environmental Citizenship becomes part of the educational system, another level of complexity is added to the construct, the diversity of the educational systems in various countries. In this chapter, we will address this issue with a focus on formal secondary education. In the previous chapter on primary school and informal education, much has been written about how to practice different teaching approaches related to Education for Environmental Citizenship. In this chapter, we will focus on how to overcome the demands in order to be able to enact such teaching approaches in secondary education, with students aged 11–19 years old. In secondary education the subject or discipline comes into focus. As a result, students are taught by several subject specialists from different disciplines. To enact Environmental Citizenship, these different teachers need to collaborate. Moreover, secondary schooling might have different aims compared to other school forms, and it is often regulated with specific subject syllabi. In this chapter we discuss how Environmental Citizenship can be enacted considering these challenges.

In this chapter, we will consider the relationships between values, beliefs and Environmental Citizenship. The role of personal values, value orientations and environmental beliefs in explaining pro-environmental actions and behaviour is widely explored. It is already acknowledged that self-enhancement (egoistic and hedonistic) values are less predictive of pro-environmental actions than self-transcendence (biospheric and altruistic) values. Additionally, beliefs are considered to be at the core of human behaviour in cognitive theories explaining pro-environmental behaviour and are an important part of many theories used to predict pro-environmental actions. We regard Environmental Citizenship as a combination of certain pro-environmental actions and civic engagement, both public and private, that lead to the mitigation of environmental problems. It is important to answer the question of whether general values and beliefs can potentially be relevant antecedents of Environmental Citizenship. Understanding how values and beliefs relate to Environmental Citizenship would allow for evidence-based ways of promoting Environmental Citizenship in schools and communities and would empower educators to make effective decisions in promoting Environmental Citizenship.

Non-formal education is an integral component to lifelong learning and its aim is for young people and adults to acquire and maintain the skills and competencies necessary to adapt to a continuously changing environment. Non-formal education implements different learning activities and is supplementary to formal education, taking place outside, but supplementary, to the formal educational system. From the conception and throughout the ongoing evolution of environmental education, non-formal education has been identified as an important framework for conducting Environmental Education and Education for Sustainability. Therefore, non-formal settings for secondary education level can contribute to Education for Environmental Citizenship by providing the opportunity and conditions that enable young people to acquire the body of knowledge as well as the skills, values, attitudes and pro-environmental actions necessary to become an Environmental Citizen. In addition, an Environmental Citizen is empowered and motivated to participate in society as an agent-of-change in the direction of solving contemporary environmental problems, preventing the creation of new ones, and achieving sustainability and restoring our (human) relationships with nature. Pedagogies including place-based education, civic ecology education, ecojustice pedagogy, action competence and socio-scientific inquiry-based learning can contribute to building students’ competencies for the deep civic participation necessary to realise environmental and social change. However, due to the novelty of the concept, the lack of a complete pedagogical framework for Education in Environmental Citizenship in non-formal settings presents a major challenge.