Search

In this paper we discuss the types of knowledge used by six middle school students as they engaged with a debugging task designed to integrate ideas from computer science, mathematics and science. Our findings show that the computational thinking practice of debugging is a rich source of opportunities to integrate these different disciplines. The analysis illustrates how the types of knowledge the students did and did not use at each step of the debugging process were related to their ability to succeed at each step. Our work contributes to theory and practice by uncovering implications for studying debugging through two refined frameworks and for designing debugging tasks to support transdisciplinary learning.

As a response to the increased need for humanization and representation in STEM, a set of open-source, customizable icons was developed using stackable vector graphics to allow participants to design their own research icons. These icons have the potential to both grant research participant's greater agency in their representation and attempt to minimize bias introduced by the researcher. Additionally, the representation provided by the developed icons help to illuminate those that are participating in geoscience. The visual representation of research participants provides an opportunity for these individuals to see themselves represented in geoscience spaces and aids in visualizing the geoscience community. Examples of implementation in both quantitative and qualitative research are provided and the authors encourage their use by the broader research community.

This paper reports on a two-week Earth Science programme, designed and delivered by the New Zealand Crown Research Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited (GNS Science) referred to as the GeoCamp. This initiative has offered 10- to 13-year-old students learning experiences outside the classroom in several regions throughout New Zealand. The programme discussed in this paper was held in the Wairarapa region in the south-east of the North Island. We examined 23 students' attitudinal changes toward scientists and science. Data collection reported in this paper occurred on the first day of the programme and six months later, when students were asked to draw annotated diagrams of scientists. Our results indicate that students participating in the camp broadened their views of scientists from being stereotypically eccentric chemists in lab coats, to those being aligned with real-world scientists, i.e. not being eccentric, some being females, some working outdoors, and being collaborative. They also recognized that scientists engage in a diverse range of work, and suggested some specific problems that they would like to solve if they were to be scientists. We suggest that these results reveal affective learning outcomes of this Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC) approach.

First-generation college students (FGCS), defined as students whose parents did not earn a baccalaureate degree, encounter distinct obstacles navigating academia. Barriers faced by FGCS, including lack of financial security, lower sense of belonging, and inadequate mentorship, are often compounded by the intersection of other marginalized identities. As such, efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion can and should include FGCS. To better support FGCS, first we must fully understand who they are, where they are pursuing degrees, what they choose to study, and their representation in the geosciences. We use over 40 years of data to explore the demographics and field of study of FGCS in U.S. institutions. We observe that FCGS have outnumbered non-FCGS at the undergraduate level since data collection began in the 1990's. At the doctoral level we present data from 1974-2016 that show that although non-FGCS have outnumbered FGCS since the 1990's, most doctoral graduates of color continue to be FGCS. Our data also show that in 2016 over 61% of all undergraduates receiving a bachelor's degree across all fields were FGCS, 54% of physical science undergraduates were FGCS, and yet only 25% of those in the geosciences were FGCS. Out of the various fields analyzed, the geosciences have the lowest percentage of FGCS at the undergraduate and doctoral level. This begs the question, why are FGCS yet another markedly underrepresented group in the geosciences? Here we begin to address this question and provide guidance for how to reduce barriers to FGCS inclusion in the geosciences.

Capacity strengthening activities -- be that in the form of courses, workshops, seminars -- have become embedded in research projects as a requirement for funding and as a means for researchers to demonstrate positive societal impacts. We apply qualitative research techniques including interviews, questionnaires and observations to scrutinise and document an international capacity strengthening course aimed at informing and supporting environmental management practice and policy in the Philippines. We appraise power gradients and dynamics between course instructors and participants from different cultures and geographical locations in the design and delivery of this course. We identify five key factors that course instructors should consider as part of their pedagogy: (i) active learning, (ii) knowledge scaffolding and consolidation, and (iii) situated learning, as well as being attuned to (iv) the language dynamics and (v) expertise and networking within the room when teaching the course. Practical efforts to address these issues require that instructors work with participants to co-produce knowledge, rather than assuming epistemic authority and imposing knowledge. This entails reflexive and adaptable practices before, during and after the course. It is recommended that such practices should be central to projects that include capacity strengthening activities, whether delivered locally or internationally.

Socially relevant geoscience topics may be difficult for students to learn. For example, connecting hydraulic fracturing to Midwestern US earthquake swarms and using the fossil record to infer past Earth environments may challenge students because of their prior exposures to nonscientific explanations. Sociocognitive theoretical perspectives based on decades of developmental and educational psychology, as well as science education research posit that students may have particular difficulty in evaluating the connections between lines of scientific evidence and explanations. This challenge is especially daunting when students are confronted with various alternative explanations (e.g., scientific and nonscientific explanations). In the present study, we compared two types of scaffolds designed to facilitate Mid-Atlantic middle school students' (N = 40) scientific thinking and learning about controversial geoscience topics when confronted with alternative explanations. In a less autonomy-supportive scaffold, participants were given four lines of evidence and two explanatory models, one scientific and one nonscientific. (Fracking; Supplementary Materials 1 & 2); in a more autonomy-supportive scaffold, students chose four of eight lines of evidence and two of three explanatory models, one scientific and two nonscientific (Fossils; Supplementary Materials 1 & 2). Quantitative analyses revealed that both activities facilitated students' evaluations in shifting students' judgments toward the scientific and deepening their knowledge, although the more autonomy-supportive activity had greater effect sizes. Structural equation modeling suggested that more scientific judgments related to greater knowledge at post-instruction for the more autonomy-supportive scaffold. These activities may help students develop more scientific evaluation skills, which are central to understanding geoscience content and science as a process.

Mathematics is a common component of many science and social science degrees, but frequently not considered a prerequisite for their study. This can lead to some students studying mathematics components at undergraduate level with little or no previous mathematical learning and varying levels of motivation, or desire, to study mathematics. This situation has consequences for student experience and teaching practice, including the potential for lower levels of student engagement, higher levels of student anxiety and lack of student motivation for studying a subject that is not what they chose as their degree subject. This paper details an intervention designed to address issues experienced in the teaching of mathematics to undergraduate students, with varying motivation for the study of mathematics and high levels of mathematics anxiety, in their first year of study in a department of Earth Sciences at a UK university. The intervention provided a bespoke mathematics module, designed and taught collaboratively by a teaching specialist in mathematics and a subject specialist in Earth Sciences. The mathematics specialist was able to provide extensive experience in teaching students from widening participation backgrounds and those with mathematics anxiety, making the content more accessible to the students, particularly those with mathematics anxiety. The Earth Sciences specialist was able to contextualize the mathematics content, showing students how the content was applicable to the rest of the degree and helping locate the mathematical content within the broader scope of the discipline. Previous approaches to this module were taught either solely by an Earth Sciences specialist or solely by a mathematics specialist. Compared with those approaches the collaborative teaching intervention improved student attainment by 10% in the average module mark and moved the module from having the lowest student satisfaction scores in the department to the highest. This innovation also benefited both teachers with respect to professional development, which is discussed in the paper.

Despite concerted efforts aimed at improving gender diversity in the discipline, the underrepresentation of women continues to persist in the geoscience domain. Research suggests that successful completion of introductory undergraduate STEM coursework is pivotal to the retention of students in STEM major programs and that spatial skills are fundamental to STEM learning at the introductory level. This study examines the relations between a specific type of spatial skill important to geoscience reasoning, perspective-taking skills, and conventional measures of academic achievement (i.e., grade point average and course-based assessment) critical for continuation in STEM major programs. Additionally, this study queries whether or not students' perspective-taking skills improve after five-weeks of introductory geoscience coursework, and if this skill differs between genders. Students enrolled in an undergraduate Natural Hazards and Disasters geoscience course completed a measure of perspective-taking at the beginning and midway through the course. Results revealed that students' perspective-taking skills were not related to their performance on conventional measures of academic achievement, and that they did not improve after five weeks of coursework. However, we did find that men outperform women on the measure of perspective-taking both at the beginning and midway through the course. These findings may have broad implications for interventions aimed at improving the retention of women in geoscience by bolstering women's perspective-taking skills.

A day-long geoscience educational module, "Sharing and Learning: The Natural Environments of Acoma Pueblo," provided an opportunity to explore the various connections that Acoma Pueblo community members make between their cultural values and geologic concepts. The purpose of such an exploration is to make explicit the cultural understandings of the geologic environment that bring meaning to the Western scientific knowledge, for both future Acoma Pueblo community members and other Indigenous scholars. A mixed-methods approach [sequential transformative design] was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data during the project concerning participants' sense of place and perception of geoscience concepts in relation to Acoma Pueblo cultural values. Indigenous research frameworks informed the analysis of the datasets and provided opportunities during the module for Western science to enhance the Indigenous knowledge system celebrated within the Acoma Pueblo community. In this article, we focus on the analysis of the qualitative portion of the larger mixed-methods study. The qualitative data analysis of a group interview after implementation of the Sharing/Learning program distinguished six primary themes: Traditional Knowledge, Western Geoscience, Education, Stories, Natural Resources, and Geoconnections that persisted throughout the group interview. Results from the study support the idea that a brief intervention which presented geoscientific information alongside Traditional Knowledge did have an impact, with newly recognized "geoconnections" as evidence. Furthermore, engaging Indigenous communities through connections between culture and geoscience has the potential to foster respectful relationships between academic researchers and Indigenous community members, especially when research practices are informed by Indigenous research frameworks. These respectful relationships are the foundation for authentic future research collaborations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples.

Effective undergraduate statistical education requires training using real-world data. Textbook datasets seldom match the complexities and messiness of real-world data and finding these datasets can be challenging for educators. Consulting and industrial datasets often have nondisclosure agreements. Academic datasets often require subject area expertise beyond those of a general education or lack connections to real-world applications. Many governments, including the United States, now require the release of data from projects they directly complete or fund though grants and contracts. We show how statistical educators may find datasets and incorporate them into courses. Specifically, we use two examples from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and one example from the ecology literature. We demonstrate the use of these datasets in an upper-level analysis of variance (ANOVA) class. In addition to describing how we found the datasets, we describe how to include them into course work and the course's student assessments. We have used these datasets over multiple semesters and included student feedback from these courses. Although our examples focus on an ANOVA class, the general methods for finding data shared here could be used for statistical classes ranging from high school to graduate education. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Haiti is among the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world, and Haitian youth face disproportionate risks to their health and well-being. Yet, to date, few studies have partnered with young people to position them as agents of change addressing climate change impacts in their communities, particularly in Global South contexts. As a step toward addressing this important gap, the present study used in-depth interviews (N = 6) to explore the multi-faceted behavioral developmental impacts on Haitian students (ages 20-30 years) who took part in a participatory environmental education program focused on access to clean water in Jacmel, a coastal city in Southern Haiti. The program combined hydrology and ecosystem education with youth-led water quality testing, community surveys, and data mapping--enabling students to collect, analyze, and visualize locally-meaningful data with real-world significance. Thematic analysis (TA) of post-program interviews conducted with program staff (n = 2) and students (n = 4) resulted in three major themes describing program-based developmental impacts equipping youth to address climate-driven threats in their community: (1) learning and skills development: Youth gained a deeper knowledge of hydrological and ecological systems, as well as research, digital, and technology skills; (2) health and environmental behaviors: Youth were experiencing and advocating behavioral shifts associated with preventing waterborne illnesses and protecting local ecosystems; and (3) civic engagement: Youth were developing a critical mindset regarding power relations and social change and were simultaneously motivated to disseminate local data to raise community awareness and engage with local authorities to improve environmental conditions. Findings shed light on the transformative potential of environmental and civic science education to engage young people as key actors in building adaptive capacity and reducing climate vulnerability. Implications for developmental science are discussed.

Hundreds of thousands of undergraduates enroll in general education science courses to fulfill university core requirements. However, many of these lecture-based courses fail to foster high-level data literacy skills. This work details the design, implementation, and analysis of a new climate change-based classroom activity for college students that pairs data interpretation with participation in an online citizen science project called Floating Forests (http://floatingforests.org). We pilot tested our activity in introductory geoscience and biology courses at six universities ([approximately] 1,500 students) during the 2020-2021 academic year. Additionally, we developed and validated a survey to assess how engagement with our activity impacted students' self-reported changes across four factors: (1) perceptions of the impacts of climate change, (2) data literacy self-efficacy, (3) beliefs about the value of citizen science, and (4) beliefs about science engagement. In a pre- to post-test comparison, students who utilized our activity in their courses showed statistically significant increases (p < 0.05) across all four factors. These results highlight the potential benefit of implementing data-driven, citizen science-based activities in introductory-level undergraduate courses.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing people are no less capable of being geoscientists or working geoscience academics than are hearing people. However, deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are represented in lower percentages in these fields, contributing to a lack of diversity. People with some form of hearing loss face stigmas and misconceptions, as well as microaggressions and ableism that may impede their recruitment and retention in the geosciences. This paper explores some of the barriers faced by deaf and hard-of-hearing scientists, some lived experiences, ways progress has been made to include people with hearing loss, and what more can be done.

Through the Sediment, Ice, & Learning on the Tanana (SILT) project, a team of university scientists engaged two middle school student groups in testing innovative environmental research technologies to measure sediment flowing underneath river ice. The culturally responsive, place-based pilot program tests these technologies as a strategy to increase students' science interest and science self-efficacy. Over a series of three workshops, 39 students built and deployed low-cost turbidity sensors to measure sediment flowing underneath river ice and designed model payload attachment systems to attach the sensors to drones for measuring sediment fluxes during spring river ice breakup. Students' changes in science interest and self-efficacy were measured using both a true pre- and post-program survey and a retrospective pre-program survey.

A material commonly known as Flubber, with properties that are excellent for teaching about glaciers, has been widely used in geosciences education. Yet, the original recipe contains borax, which has health risks that should be avoided. A new recipe is shared containing low-cost, readily available ingredients that produces a reformulated Flubber with properties similar to the original without the associated health risks.

The literature review has clearly indicated that the scale and characteristics of demand for Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences experts across different countries is unknown. Therefore, there is an urgent need to investigate this issue. This paper presents the results of research on the real demand for GEES specialists. In the paper, real demand is expressed by job vacancies (N = 17 378) published in six European countries over a period of 18 months. To analyse such an extensive body of text data, we used data mining techniques such as: SVD, inter-factor correlation analysis, word frequency analysis and word significance indicators, which allowed us to recognise similarities and differences in the size and structure of demand for these specialists in specific groups of countries. Employers from the UK and Ireland offered the most comprehensive range of positions whereas the expectations of Polish employers were the least diverse. Word frequency analyses for each occupation group demonstrated which components of GEES experts' knowledge and skills are considered universal on the labour market and which are subject to substantial regional variations. Moreover, word significance analyses allowed us to identify the occupations where a wider range of general skill areas was required and the positions for which primarily geographic skills were in demand.

This study explores a third-grade teacher's (Deb) developing knowledge and practice for incorporating representations into her teaching of science over the course of 2 years. Data was gathered from the same science unit (Rock Formation) over 2 years, and consisted of video of seven lessons, one of which was the same lesson taught over both years. Also collected were artifacts from the lessons, pre (planning) and post (reflection) lesson conversations for each of the seven lessons, and interviews conducted with Deb before and after her teaching of the full unit each year. The results showed Deb's learning process of using representations was multi-faceted and incremental. Even with using the same representation forms and/or activities, in the second year, Deb was able to: (1) incorporate representations on multiple aspects of teaching such as reviewing previous knowledge, introducing new topics, and assessing students thinking; (2) use multiple representations in one aspect of teaching; (3) engage students in higher levels of learning. These changes were related to Deb's reasoning of selecting representations, which are described further in the paper. This research contributes to an emerging knowledge base on what teachers know and are able to do with incorporating science representations into their practice. It also contributes to the field of science teacher professional development and the need for considering the multi-faceted nature of teacher learning. Implications for teacher professional development are discussed.

Background: Course-based research experiences (CBREs) are highly valued for science learning and research. Most are discipline-centered, but there is a great deal of interest in developing them to promote interdisciplinarity. Yet, we have much to learn about how CBREs work, and even more to learn about how disciplinary diversity operates as an element of design to promote learning and research. Method: This mixed methods case study triangulates data on student experience, research networks, research artifacts and fieldnotes from participant observation to understand how disciplinary diversity factors into productive engagement for learning and research in an interdisciplinary course-based research experience (I-CBRE). Findings: A common boundary object (scientific paper) mediated developmental interactions among individuals both within and beyond the course. The boundary object also facilitated the productive engagement of students as instrumental actors in broader interdisciplinary research networks. Contribution: This study shows how an "object tracing" approach can be used to examine productivity in disciplinarily diverse scientific contexts, and reveals some of the distinctly syncretic moves that participants deploy to make progress as learners and researchers. Extending work by Engel and Conant, the study emphasizes the importance of designing for "productive syncretic engagement" in research experiences characterized disciplinary diversity.

Science teacher's self-efficacy has been at the center of many investigations on students' achievement in science, teacher burnout, and teacher performance. While overly studied, this construct has not been examined with scientific literacy in depth. Thus, this study aims to identify the influence of science teacher's scientific literacy on their science teaching efficacy through a canonical correlation analysis. The study utilized an explanatory-correlational research design to unravel the correlation between scientific literacy and science teaching efficacy. It was found out that scientific literacy was correlated with science teaching efficacy. Further the study revealed that Science, Technology, and Society (STS) and content knowledge in earth science, life science, and health science were positively associated with science teachers' self-efficacy in biology, chemistry, and physics. On the other hand, knowledge in physics and Nature of Science (NOS) were not associated as highlighted in the literature. This suggests that a science teacher's content knowledge in specific sciences predicts their efficacy in teaching science. More so, the teacher's knowledge of how science and technology affect society and how society directs science and technology shapes their confidence to teach science. This implies that practical and observable science allows teachers to demonstrate science concepts to their students effectively.

Two-year community college (CC) students face many barriers for recruitment and retention into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields and vertical transfer to 4-year universities (4YUs). Experiential learning, mentoring, and cohort building are effective mechanisms for increasing STEM recruitment and retention, and close collaborations between CCs and 4YUs leverage complementary opportunities, supporting vertical transfer. We present a case study incorporating these concepts for a year-long Geoscience Education and Outreach Program (GEOP), a collaboration among a CC, a 4YU, and a non-profit science center, where 20 CC students participated in integrated academic, research, and internship components over three years. We present program design, implementation, revision, and outcomes for both students and institutions. Cohort-building activities encouraged professional conversations and built peer connections that addressed imposter syndrome, cultural divides, and other personal barriers to vertical transfer. The academic component had the highest completion rate, and a majority of respondents in exit interviews reported the internship as the most valuable experience, with half naming research or aspects thereof as most valuable. The vertical transfer exceeded typical CC rates, with 70% of GEOP students transferring to a 4YU, all in STEM disciplines. Successful implementation of GEOP required multi-institutional coordination, effective mentor-mentor and mentor-student communication, and program flexibility. Based upon our experiences, we provide several recommendations for implementation of similar programs.

This study examines and describes how various online remote laboratory courses, necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, were implemented at Hankuk University in Korea in 2020. We compared four general undergraduate laboratory courses, one each for physics, chemistry, biology, and earth science, and two major-level laboratory courses taught during the spring and fall of 2020. Employing a sociocultural perspective, we examined how the changes in structures at the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels shaped the responses of educational authorities and impacted the agency of university instructors. Instructors implemented various remote laboratory courses in each content area dependent upon availability and access to material resources, including access to video of laboratory activities, and also based on the nature of experimental data associated with each content area. Drawing from survey responses and in-depth interviews with instructors and students, we share findings about how instructor practices impacted the interactions of students, the processes for evaluation, and student learning. We discuss how the global pandemic has re-ignited the debate about the role and value of experimental laboratory activities for undergraduate science majors and about the significance of hands-on versus minds-on science learning. Implications for how universities approach laboratory coursework in the post-COVID-19 are discussed, and questions for university science instruction are raised for future research.

This study aims to examine preschool teachers' earth and space science practices and the expected achievements of children in these practices. The research was conducted with a phenomenological pattern. Participants of the study consisted of 28 preschool teachers working in public schools and determined by the criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods. Research data were collected by using an interview form. The research form includes four questions regarding the purpose of the research. The data obtained in the study were analyzed by inductive content analysis method. As a result of the research, it was revealed that preschool teachers' performed demonstration, dramatization, art, experiment and question--answer regarding the sun theme; demonstration, art, dramatization, observation and expression for the moon theme; art, observation, demonstration and expression for the star theme and demonstrations, experiments, observations and educative play for the night-day theme. In addition, it has been revealed that scientific knowledge about science concepts is presented to children in practices for earth and space science. The aim of these practices is to provide basic scientific process skills to children.

This study assessed the knowledge, feelings, and life experiences of students in public middle schools in the Brazilian Amazon toward aquatic mammals by applying semi-structured interviews, with a qualitative-quantitative approach. A total of 241 students, from all genders, aged between 12 and 14 years old, from four public schools of Pará State were interviewed. The data were transcribed and analyzed in an inductive way, in dialog with the literature of scientific education and ethnozoology. This methodology was developed and validated during the doctorate research of the first author of this paper. The students showed a rich knowledge, feelings, and life experiences regarding the Amazonian aquatic mammals, those related to biological, morphological, behavioral, ecological, and taxonomic aspects, as well as the threat to these species. The research reveals the need for schools of the region to develop and use didactic resources and strategies for intercultural dialogue in science classes, favoring the development of reflective attitudes in students and promoting decision-making favorable to the conservation of aquatic mammals.

As contemporary society evolves, technological revolutions are increasingly forcing academic and secondary institutions to adopt innovative strategies rather than traditional instruction. Therefore, the use of ICT in teaching is an active teaching method with proven effectiveness on learning outcomes and student motivation in life and earth sciences. Our study aims to examine the impact of ICT integration on student learning and motivational outcomes in science education. In order to do that, we used three tests, the knowledge test, the achievement of objectives test and the motivation test. The control group consisted of 30 students compared with 30 students in the experimental group, and the experiment lasted for 8 weeks. Also, we used a motivation questionnaire for students in the experimental group as a pre-test at the beginning, followed by a post-test at the end of the study to measure the degree of student motivation after using ICT, these last one were used as data collection tools, and all statistical analysis were performed using SPSS version 23. The results obtained showed a very particular statistical increase (p<0.0001) in the results and the degree of motivation of the students in the experimental group. According to our results, the integration of ICTE could be an effective way to improve students' learning and increase their motivation for teaching life and earth sciences.

Community-based learning is a strategy or model of learning management that integrates curricular content into the community using work based learning to encourage learners to learn from real-life situations in the community under the participation of teachers, learners and people in the community. The purposes of this research were to develop environmental education learning plans for enhancing rivers management in the Northeast of Thailand using community-based learning as effective and effective, to study and compare knowledge, attitude and environmental ethics for enhancing rivers management in the northeast before and after study and to compare knowledge, attitude and environmental ethics for enhancing rivers management in the Northeast of students with different gender. The sample used in the study were 50 the third year undergraduate students in Environmental Education program, Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies, Mahasarakham University, which was derived by purposive sampling. The research tools were the environmental education learning plans for enhancing rivers management in the Northeast of Thailand using community-based learning, knowledge test, attitude test and environmental ethics test. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and hypothesis testing using Paired t-test and One-Way ANOVA. The results of the research showed that: 1) The environmental education learning plans for enhancing rivers management in the Northeast of Thailand using community-based learning were the efficiency of 81.08/85.43, the efficiency index was a value of 0.7709, it showed that the students have increased knowledge and resulted in the students progressing from their studies accounted 77.09%; 2) The students had average score of the knowledge, attitude and environmental ethics in the posttest higher than the pretest statistical significance (p < 0.05); 3) There was statistically significant different of score of knowledge, attitude and environmental ethics of students with different gender (p < 0.05).

The objective of this article is to identify and discuss the views of teachers of physics-chemistry (Ph-Ch) and Life and Earth Sciences (LES) on the use and effectiveness of interactive simulations PhET (Physics Education Technology) in student teaching and learning. A survey research method was used in this study. 114 Moroccan science teachers (67 Ph-Ch; 47 LES) at middle and high schools were surveyed. The quantitative analysis was performed to provide insight into who uses PhET simulations, why they use them, and how they are used. The data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The results indicate that the use of interactive simulations in investigative science teaching and learning is very effective for both teachers and students, despite the presence of a set of obstacles that hinder the use of classroom simulations. The implication of this research is that the use of interactive simulations in science teaching in Morocco can enhance learning activities and help students to understand scientific concepts effectively.

Science curriculums and curricular materials are essential guidelines in materializing effective science teaching. The primary goal of the current study aims to present a thematic analysis of the last three elementary and middle school science curriculums objectives released in 2013, 2017, and 2018 to determine whether they provide a base for science teachers to design intellectually demanding instructional tasks. This study conducted an in-depth document analysis to describe the curricular themes and objectives' intellectual demands beyond a mere description. Moreover, a critical document-based thematic analysis achieved a call for an in-depth interrogation of the intended science curricula. The current study reveals that the explored science curriculums mainly include physics-related and biology-related topics and chemistry-related topics. There is less place for the issues related to astrophysics and earth sciences. Although three curricular changes (2013, 2017, and 2018) were actualized to enrich the science curriculums' scope, intellectual capacity, and thematic variation, the conceptual emphasis seemed to be strictly copied over the years. The curriculums under examination appeared to let the teachers design high intellectually demanding tasks to teach science knowledge and epistemic practices, however, to a certain extent. It is concluded that the sharp decreases in the number of objectives observed in the abstraction zone may hinder teachers from generating teaching environments where students can transfer acquired knowledge and practices to external contexts. Educational recommendations are offered in the sense of curriculum development and teacher education.

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 appropriate assistive and supportive technologies, students with BVI can be successful in conducting scientific investigations to address Next Generation Science Standards. The Discoveries in Earth Science (DES) program provides engaging accommodations adaptive to the needs of elementary, middle, and high school grade students with BVI to successfully prepare for careers in STEM.

Universities are recognizing the need to prepare graduates to think conceptually and have the ability to take on complex, real-world problems. Strategies to assess conceptual knowledge are limited and often require more time and effort to complete than is accessible for most undergraduate courses. Card sorting is a very broad technique for understanding how people group concepts, but in higher education has typically been used to show a student's development towards expert-like thinking in a discipline as a whole. However, it typically does not give much insight into how we should change our teaching. In this paper, using the novel setting of two terms of a first-year, earth and ocean science lab that uses problem-based learning (PBL), we show how one can generate a card sort that is built using course learning goals and then use the analysis to make actionable improvements to course instruction. Using a card sort designed so that the expert sort corresponds to learning goals supported by the lab activities, we found that in both offerings of the course students generally moved towards expert-like sorting with a reduction in novice-like sorting. A striking feature stood out in both terms of the course, with one question scoring significantly lower than any other expert pairings, despite a change in the wording of that question between terms. This suggests that our course materials do not promote this specific conceptual connection that we had expected and gives us a clear place to look for issues in our course material. In a broader context, our results suggest that tailoring card sort questions to material at a course level, rather than at the discipline level, can provide a manageable, routine assessment of conceptual knowledge in students, while also providing feedback on the quality of course materials.

Promoting a functional scientific literacy entails preparing people to effectively engage and make decisions regarding real-world socioscientfic issues (SSI) through consideration of the relevant products and processes of science, as well as social, cultural, environmental, and ethical factors. Students can develop a functional scientific literacy through place-based pedagogical approaches focused on real-world SSI that augment formal classroom instruction. This quasi-experimental triangulated mixed-methods study investigated how 50 fourth graders in an intervention group, in comparison to their 79 classmates, developed nature of science (NOS) views through experiencing a place-based Missouri River SSI education Program (MRSIP). Salient themes of the month-long MRSIP included Missouri River human impacts, pallid sturgeon decline and recovery, and how scientists investigate and manage those issues. Our findings demonstrate that the MRSIP participants and their non-participating classroom peers expressed NOS views ranging from those that were largely stereotypical (e.g., science must proceed by a set method in a laboratory) to those that transcended stereotypes (e.g., science proceeds by many methods implemented in various field settings). However, after students participated in the MRSIP, they expressed significantly more sophisticated non-stereotypical views about how scientists research and understand Missouri River SSI and the role science plays in resolving those issues. The comparison group of the MRSIP participating students' classmates realized no such gains across the same time period. Pedagogical implications include how place-based SSI teaching can leverage young learners' sense of place and augment their classroom experiences in ways that help them understand NOS and engage local SSI.

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting contact restrictions, conducting field trips to hydrological research basins became close to impossible. Hydrological field knowledge is an essential part of hydrological education and research. In order to impart this knowledge to students of hydrological engineering subjects in times or situations where on-site exploration is not possible, the VR4Hydro tool was developed. VR4Hydro is a virtual reality platform built from 360° panoramas that allows users to interactively explore the Gersprenz River basin in Germany. The following study seeks to investigate the applicability of performing virtual field trips in the context of hydrological education by evaluating user experience. Sixteen students of the subject engineering hydrology were asked to document their experiences with VR4Hydro using a qualitative approach by answering a series of multiple-choice questions as well as long-answer text questions. The analysis and discussion of the results showed that virtual excursions generally met with great interest among users. The majority rated the virtual tour as a valuable addition to traditional teaching methods. All students found the tool particularly appealing in cases where external circumstances did not allow for a real excursion. The findings of this study show that the application of virtual field trips (VFT) in hydrological engineering can be a valuable supplement to real field trips to improve the interest and learning outcome of students.

We investigated how families experienced immersion as they collaboratively made sense of geologic time and geoscience processes during a place-based, learning-on-the-move (LOTM) experience mediated by a mobile augmented reality (MAR) app. Our team developed an MAR app, "Time Explorers," that focused on how rock-water interactions shaped Appalachia over millions of years. Data were collected at the Children's Garden at the Arboretum at Penn State. Data sources were videos of app usage, point-of-view camera recordings with audio capturing family conversations, and interviews from 17 families (51 people). The analytical technique was interaction analysis, in which episodes of family sense-making were identified and developed into qualitative vignettes focused on how immersion did or did not support learning about geoscience and geologic time. We analyzed how design elements supported sensory, actional, narrative, and social immersion through photo-taking, discussion prompts, and augmented reality visualizations. Findings showed that sensory and social immersion supported sense-making conversations and observational inquiry, while narrative and actional immersion supported deep family engagement with the geoscience content. At many micro-sites of learning, families engaged in multiple immersive processes where conversations, observational inquiry, and deep engagement with the geoscience came together during LOTM. This analysis contributes to the CSCL literature on theory related to LOTM in outdoor informal settings, while also providing design conjectures in an immersive, family-centered, place-based LOTM framework.

Today, individuals need a solid understanding of how earth as a system works in order to understand and develop solutions for science-based issues affecting societies on a global scale such as natural disasters, global warming or COVID-19 pandemic. Humans also deliberate space investigations, such as interplanetary travels and life in space. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new skills to meet the requirements of the current world order overcome this kind of issues through science and geography education. Spatial and systems thinking skills are two of 21st century skills in teaching and learning science-related topics. The study purposes to examine current Turkish primary science curriculum regarding these skills. Document analysis method of qualitative research design was implemented in the study. Emergent qualitative analysis methods of content analysis and open coding were used. It is sought to analyze the research literature on geography education in order to delineate competences necessary for understanding societal problems related to earth science and astronomy-based physics units considering Turkish primary science curriculum framework. The findings of the study showed that the competences spatial and systems thinking skills should be more integral part of science curricula. Especially for spatial thinking skills, educators and policy makers should reconsider the learning objectives in primary science curriculum framework. In conclusion, the results indicated that spatial and systems thinking skills were partially acquired in the curricula. Some units should be clarified and enhanced depend on spatial thinking abilities, systems thinking abilities or both of them.

Topographic map-reading skills are critical for certain professions but can be difficult to learn. The purpose of this pilot study is to provide insight on the role augmented reality technology can play in the development of topographic map-reading skills. Using a situated cognition theoretical framework, this study tracks the development of students' skills in three different instructional approaches using the Topographic Mapping Assessment (TMA), instructor observations, and student feedback. Using a quasi-experimental research design, 85 college-level students in eight sections of an introductory undergraduate geoscience laboratory course were assigned to a control group (n = 19) that was instructed using the standard curriculum (paper-and-pencil lab exercises and field trips), a 2-D group (n = 14) that completed six activities using 2-D maps, or an augmented reality sandbox (ARS) group (n = 52) that completed six activities requiring both 2-D maps and augmented reality technology. Results from multi-level analyses of covariance suggest no significant difference in overall post-instruction scores, except female students in the ARS groups (n = 17) tended to score higher than students in the control group (n = 11), potentially indicating this method can increase outcomes for females in STEM. Other identified instructional benefits of using the ARS include increased collaboration between students, greater visibility to the instructor of student difficulties and challenges, and improved ability for the instructor to provide real-time feedback and guidance.

The Earth's shape concept develops as consecutive cognitive problems (e.g., the location of people and trees on the spherical Earth) are gradually resolved. Establishing the order of problem solving may be important for the organisation of teaching situations. This study attempted to determine the sequence of problems to be resolved based on tasks included in the EARTH2 test. The study covered a group of 444 children between 5 and 10 years of age. It captured the order in which children solve cognitive problems on the way to constructing a science-like concept. The test results were compared with previous studies. The importance of cultural influences connected to significant differences (24%) in test results was emphasised. Attention was drawn to the problem of the consistency of the mental model approach highlighted in the literature. The analysis of the individual sets of answers provided a high level of consistency of indications referring to the same model (36%), emphasising the importance of the concept of mental models.

Today, earth sciences engineering education programs face with serious problems. It is often not possible to provide experience on different geographical environments or materials. Considering these problems of earth science related engineering education programs, virtual reality environment potentially can provide technology enhanced training alternatives. However, in the literature there are not many studies showing how virtual reality can enhance the earth science related engineering education programs. Accordingly, the aim of this mapping of the literature and systematic review study is to explore studies dealing with virtual reality in the earth sciences engineering education programs. Through a rigorous screening process, the first search in the Scopus database provided 150 studies, where 19 of them were selected in the course of this study and the mapping of the literature report was drawn with all these articles. Additionally, with seven of these articles a systematic review is conducted. The mapping of the literature report shows that studies on this topic have increased in recent years and have been published in a variety of journals. The number of China and USA origins studies are remarkable among the examined studies, which are predominantly in the fields of mining engineering and geological engineering. As a result of the in-depth analyses, the systematic review report indicates that virtual reality applications in the earth sciences engineering education positively contribute to the learning outcomes and experiences of students/trainees from different perspectives.

In the Australian school curriculum, geography is housed within the humanities and social sciences. This classification affects the content within the curriculum, the backgrounds of teachers and their professional development opportunities, and also the expectations and subject choices of students. As an earth scientist working in the Australian university sector, Kate Selway's research is closely linked to geography and she teaches many undergraduates who had their passion sparked during geography lessons at school. From this perspective, she suggests three reasons why the expansion of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills in the school geography curriculum would be of benefit.

Educational policy and management emphasise the role of science (e.g., earth science, geography) as a fundamental aspect of societal advance, but student enrolments at universities in these disciplines remain low. This commentary explores ways to foster more collaboration between university academics and high school teachers to implement STEM-related curriculum through hands-on exploration of novel earth observation (EO) technologies. To this end, we develop project-based learning activities through the Copernicus applications and services for low impact agriculture in Australia (COALA) project, an international venture of eleven partners seeking to promote the adoption of products and services for sustainable agriculture in Australia, underpinned by satellite technology from the European Copernicus programme. We reflect on our experiences developing project-based learning activities, and particularly on the benefits and obstacles we faced.

This study aimed to examine teachers' satisfaction with and needs for earth science model experiments science textbooks used in primary schools. To this end, 103 primary school teachers participated in an online survey, and five teachers with doctorates in science education theory were interviewed. The findings of the study were as follows. First, primary school teachers in South Korea were highly satisfied with earth science model experiments presented in science textbooks. Second, despite the high satisfaction, there were various reasons why model experiments were inappropriate and difficult to conduct. Third, the teachers wanted to replace the model experiments of earth science that could result in misconceptions, had low success rates, and were time-consuming to prepare. Fourth, when designing earth science model experiments, teachers felt the need to confirm the meaning and accessibility of the model experiments. This study confirmed that model experiments should have a meaning and emulate the facts to help students understand rather than merely imitate.

Constructing explanations of scientific phenomena is a high-leverage practice that promotes student understanding. In the context of this study, we acknowledge that children are used to receiving explanations from teachers. However, they are rarely encouraged to construct explanations about the causes and consequences of phenomena. We modified a strategy to elicit and analyze primary students' reasoning based on scientific theory as a methodological advance in learning and cognition. The participants were fourth-graders of middle socioeconomic status in Chile's geographical zone with high seismic risk. They drew explanations about the causes and consequences of earthquakes during a learning unit of eighteen hours oriented toward explanation-construction based on the Tectonic Plates Theory. A constant comparative method was applied to analyze drawings and characterize students' reasoning used in pictorial representations, following the first coding step of the qualitative Grounded Theory approach. The results show the students expressed progressive levels of reasoning. However, several participants expressed explanations based on the phenomena causes even at an early stage of formal learning. More sophisticated reasoning regarding the scientific theory underpinning earthquakes was found at the end of the learning unit. We discuss approaching elementary students' scientific reasoning in explanations based on theory, connected with context-based science education.

Located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is endangered by natural disasters. Through the changing of learning activity in a proper way by the application of STEM Project-Based Learning, future generations are expected to develop the knowledge and thinking skill to solve the problem. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate implementing STEM Project-Based Learning on student's Problem-Solving Skills. This research used a Pre-Experiment method with a One-Group Pretest-Posttest design and essay questions as data collection tools. In this research, 30 7th-grade students at one school in Bandung, Indonesia, were chosen as the participants. The data analysis showed significant improvement between student's Problem-Solving skills pretest and post-test (N-Gain=0.73). In addition, Idea-Finding is the most significant improvement during the Fact-Finding on the lowest. Based on the result, STEM Project-Based Learning is recommended to improve students' Problem-Solving Skills since they can use their integrated knowledge to solve a real-world problem.

Based on an empirical study of policy enactment and mathematical enculturation in Swedish school-age educare, a conceptualization of mathematics as the assemblage of "activities" and "values" is proposed. Observations were analysed using policy enactment theory and the lens of mathematical activities. The result shows that making creations, describing relationships and addressing problems are mathematical activities evident in the practices of school-age educare. Values of plausibility, critical stance and connectedness are evident. This alternative conceptualization of mathematics offers possibilities for respecting a balance between education and care in practice. The result opens for alternative ways of thinking about mathematics as a complementing and compensating area that resists the tendency towards "schoolification" in educare.

It is widely acknowledged that understanding of science is key to becoming global citizens and to embrace technological advancements. Although research suggests that girl's performance in science has improved over the years, there are still concerns about the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers in most African countries, including South Africa. Variability in science performance according to gender is still an unresolved issue. In this study we aimed to examine the relationship between gender and science item achievement of Grade 9 South African learners in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015. We used data collected by TIMSS 2015. The data were further analysed using International Database (IDB) analyser and t-test statistics. The results show that in general gender did not influence learner achievement in most of the test items. However, the findings indicate that girls performed better than boys in most of the questions in all 4 content domains and in the knowing and reasoning cognitive domains. The study highlighted that gender had a limited effect in the manner in which the girls and boys answered the different test items. The observed gender differences in the content domains could be related to socio-cultural environments and learning experiences.

Digital outcrop models (DOMs) have facilitated quantitative and qualitative studies in digital and virtual environments of source and reservoir rock analogs important to the oil industry. The use of immersive virtual reality (iVR) to extend field experiences has motivated several research groups to develop software integrating iVR techniques with tools to interpret and derive geological information from DOMs. This virtual approach can also contribute to the development of geological and spatial thinking skills taught in the classroom and during field trips. The immersive virtual field trips (iVFTs) can provide students access to outcrops and additional data restricted to field learning activities while allowing additional interactions impossible in the field. iVFTs have been developed recently; however, the structuring of iVFTs for geology classes has not been presented in a way that inexperienced iVR users can make use of such systems. In this scenario, our work proposes a method to structure an iVFT using georeferenced data containers and the virtual reality software Mosis LAB while evaluating users' perceptions during an iVFT study case. The evaluation using technology acceptance model questionnaires showed that users were positively impacted by the observational iVFT experience, effectively supporting e-learning, and class field learning activities and preparations. This approach allows field trip experiences in less accessible study sites, especially in less favorable conditions like the ones during the Coronavirus 2019 pandemic where many geoscience departments had their field trips hampered.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many undergraduate internships, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs, were canceled or moved online. Although several studies have examined student success during the online transition, less research has examined how REU programs have changed from this experience, the ongoing and novel challenges, and strategies that program coordinators employed to overcome them. To investigate this gap, REU site programs were surveyed in the NSF Geosciences (GEO) Directorate, with findings that many students declined participation after having been accepted into programs, and that there were difficulties accessing institutional support services and meeting changing student needs. Despite these challenges, nearly all respondents reported program satisfaction, with several indicating the importance of GEO REU community support. Overall, REU coordinator resilience appears to be a major factor in program success.

Geoscience employers have increasingly called for the future workforce (students) to demonstrate competence in non-technical skills, including teamwork. This descriptive qualitative study contributes to ongoing efforts to identify the specific practices, skills, habits, and knowledge that make up these desired teamwork competencies in the geosciences. We collected interview data from three online focus group discussions centered around teamwork. Focus group participants (n = 12) were hydrogeology and environmental geology employers and team managers from government, private industry, and nonprofit organizations in the United States. Using a teamwork skills taxonomy model as our conceptual framework, we coded the transcripts to generate three categories of teamwork skills specific to environmental geoscience teams. First, our data indicate that these employers value team transition skills related to specifying goals, interpreting team tasks, identifying resources, and planning. The second category of desired teamwork competencies included action skills such as metacognition, coordination, and mentoring. These skills directly impact successful task completion. The third category captured interpersonal skills such as emotional intelligence, proactive communication, and organization. A fourth category of desired teamwork competencies emerged from data analysis and include ethical skills related to trust, integrity, and humility. This study provides a detailed description of teamwork competencies desired by environmental geoscience employers. We recommend that geoscience instructors consider using techniques such as intentional teaching of teamwork skills, experiential learning, professional development, and teamwork awareness in order to prepare students for workforce expectations.