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The goal of this case study was to examine how a group of young children in a historically marginalized neighborhood in the northern part of the Netherlands perceived their engagement in an out-of-school, STEM community-based program aiming to enhance young children's interest and self-identification with science. We collected data through semi-structured interviews with eight purposefully selected children and analyzed those through a constant comparative approach and with the use of open coding strategies. The findings revealed specific aspects of the design of the program that were perceived as motivating and engaging: the integrated multidisciplinary approach to exploring scientific concepts and opportunities for active engagement and personally relevant science experimentation. The findings are offered alongside a set of recommendations for the design of out-of-school, community-based programs that aim to support young children's engagement with science.

The main focus of this paper is to put forward an argument about the value of asset-based, culturally relevant/responsive and sustaining pedagogies in science education, especially in former colonial contexts. Countering the framing hegemony of science education through a historically Euro-dominant lens, we call for a critical analysis of the state of science education in the Netherlands by exploring, specifically, the Dutch Caribbean community which includes Suriname and the former Dutch Antilles and Aruba and the need to respond with a more culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogical stance. In doing so, we provide a concrete example of a CR-SP-focused community-based STEAM program for young children and their parents in the north of the Netherlands. We hope that this paper will provide the foundation to springboard conversations among educators and researchers with an interest in designing, enacting and researching CR-SP-informed programs and curricula geared for historically marginalized families and children.

This study reports about biology undergraduates' writing in a course with genre-based writing instruction. The students read, analyse and synthesise research articles using the Scientific Argumentation Model (SAM), a tool to make explicit the characteristics of the research article genre. We explored to what extent 21 students make a synthesis when writing a review of two research articles and which research article's genre characteristics (rhetorical moves and qualifiers) they use. We defined a synthesis as a task in which students select, organise, and connect the articles' content. The analysis of students' reviews showed that most students made a synthesis of both articles. The articles' objective, supports and main conclusion were mostly reflected in the students' reviews. Most students did not use a qualifier in their final conclusion, and when they did use a qualifier it sometimes did not correspond to their main text, suggesting difficulties with understanding the rhetorical meaning of qualifiers. We suggest, supported by our interview and questionnaire data, that SAM could be useful for understanding, selecting, and organising research articles' content when writing a review. We conclude that the use of SAM could be a first step in synthesising research articles focused on supporting students' rhetorical consciousness.

Grounded within literature pointing to the value of narrative in communicating scientific information, the purpose of this study was to examine the use of stories as a tool for teaching about natural selection in the context of school science. The study utilizes a mixed method, case study approach which focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of narrative-based curriculum materials. The data consisted of questionnaires, classroom observations, and interviews with the students and teachers. The analysis of the data showed that most of the students developed adequate scientific understandings about natural selection and they perceived the narrative as easier to comprehend than the textbook. The findings speak to the need for examining ways of blending narrative effectively into science lessons.

Women have been underrepresented in STEM fields around the world (UNESCO, 2018). Prior research identified some of the reasons for this gender disparity such as systemic barriers, lack of confidence, lack of female role models, and cultural and gendered science stereotypes. These issues have been framed in contemporary literature within the construct of STEM identity. Building upon this literature, our project explored the role of the university classroom in supporting the development of a strong STEM identity and specifically the view of self as a competent science person. The project consisted of two parts. In the first part student-led desktop and empirical research focused on generating evidencebased recommendations for how an introductory Calculus course could be redesigned to be more gender-inclusive. The second pertained to the evaluation of the redesigned Calculus course centered around two main indicators of success: (i) students' confidence as mathematics learners, and (ii) their intention to continue with STEM education. The project has scientific and practical implications as it contributes evidence towards understanding the kinds of activities that might support university students' STEM identity development and provides a set of concrete, evidence-based, gender-inclusive instructional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]