Engineering

Learning Science and Engineering by Designing Sustainable Houses

Science and engineering offer ways to maintain the thermal comfort of our homes while minimizing impacts on the environment. This article introduces the Energy-Plus House Design Project, an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit developed to inspire and prepare high school students for tackling this challenge. In this project, students learn and practice science and engineering by designing a house that generates more renewable energy than it consumes over the course of a year (hence known as an energy-plus house).

Author/Presenter

Elena Sereiviene

Xiaotong Ding

Rundong Jiang

Dylan Bulseco

Charles Xie

Year
2025
Short Description

Science and engineering offer ways to maintain the thermal comfort of our homes while minimizing impacts on the environment. This article introduces the Energy-Plus House Design Project, an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit developed to inspire and prepare high school students for tackling this challenge. In this project, students learn and practice science and engineering by designing a house that generates more renewable energy than it consumes over the course of a year (hence known as an energy-plus house).

Learning Science and Engineering by Designing Sustainable Houses

Science and engineering offer ways to maintain the thermal comfort of our homes while minimizing impacts on the environment. This article introduces the Energy-Plus House Design Project, an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit developed to inspire and prepare high school students for tackling this challenge. In this project, students learn and practice science and engineering by designing a house that generates more renewable energy than it consumes over the course of a year (hence known as an energy-plus house).

Author/Presenter

Elena Sereiviene

Xiaotong Ding

Rundong Jiang

Dylan Bulseco

Charles Xie

Year
2025
Short Description

Science and engineering offer ways to maintain the thermal comfort of our homes while minimizing impacts on the environment. This article introduces the Energy-Plus House Design Project, an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit developed to inspire and prepare high school students for tackling this challenge. In this project, students learn and practice science and engineering by designing a house that generates more renewable energy than it consumes over the course of a year (hence known as an energy-plus house).

Exploring Middle School Science Teachers’ Curriculum Sensemaking

A teacher’s working context is an important factor in how they make sense of and enact curriculum. Understanding how external factors (e.g. state and/or district policies, school cultural norms) interplay with teachers’ personal resources (e.g. self-understanding, rules of thumb for decision-making) can help identify supports for implementation of increasingly available standard aligned curriculum materials. However, in science education, limited research has explored how curriculum enactments are influenced by this complex interplay.

Author/Presenter

Gary Wright

Laura Zangori

Suzanne Otto

Rebekah Snyder

Laura Cole

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

A teacher’s working context is an important factor in how they make sense of and enact curriculum. Understanding how external factors (e.g. state and/or district policies, school cultural norms) interplay with teachers’ personal resources (e.g. self-understanding, rules of thumb for decision-making) can help identify supports for implementation of increasingly available standard aligned curriculum materials. However, in science education, limited research has explored how curriculum enactments are influenced by this complex interplay. In this qualitative embedded case study, we investigated how four middle school science teachers within the same school district used their internal resources to make sense of external factors when enacting new NGSS-aligned place-based curriculum materials.

Expanding Uses of the STEM Observation Protocol (STEM-OP): Secondary Science Teachers’ Reflections on Integrated STEM Practice

There are few guidelines related to how to implement integrated STEM education in the K-12 science classroom. It is important that teachers have opportunities to reflect on integrated STEM instruction when implemented so that they may further develop their practice. This research aimed to understand how the STEM Observation Protocol (STEM-OP) may be used as a way for teachers to reflect on their integrated STEM practice.

Author/Presenter

Emily Dare

Joshua Ellis

Christopher Irwin

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

There are few guidelines related to how to implement integrated STEM education in the K-12 science classroom. It is important that teachers have opportunities to reflect on integrated STEM instruction when implemented so that they may further develop their practice. This research aimed to understand how the STEM Observation Protocol (STEM-OP) may be used as a way for teachers to reflect on their integrated STEM practice. This exploratory case study was designed to better understand secondary science teachers’ reflections on the STEM-OP by addressing the following research questions: 1) What are secondary science teachers’ reflections on integrated STEM practices as measured by the STEM-OP? and 2) In what ways do secondary science teachers envision using the STEM-OP as a tool in their practice?

STEM Teacher Characteristics and Mobility: Longitudinal Evidence from the American Midwest, 2010 Through 2023

This study examines the demographics, qualifications, and turnover of STEM teachers in Kansas and Missouri—two contiguous, predominantly rural states in the Midwestern region of the United States. The existing literature lacks detailed insights regarding U.S. STEM teachers, especially with recent economic and social changes over the COVID-19 pandemic, and there is particularly limited evidence regarding STEM teachers in the U.S. Midwest.

Author/Presenter

Chanh B. Lam

Yujia Liu

J. Cameron Anglum

Tuan D. Nguyen

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

This study examines the demographics, qualifications, and turnover of STEM teachers in Kansas and Missouri—two contiguous, predominantly rural states in the Midwestern region of the United States. The existing literature lacks detailed insights regarding U.S. STEM teachers, especially with recent economic and social changes over the COVID-19 pandemic, and there is particularly limited evidence regarding STEM teachers in the U.S. Midwest. Utilizing large-scale administrative longitudinal data, we filled part of this gap by documenting the characteristics and turnover patterns of STEM teachers in Kansas and Missouri over a 13-year period, from 2010 through 2023.

Exploring the Attending and Interpretation of Three Science and Engineering Practices Among Secondary Science Teachers

This study explored secondary science teachers’ attending and interpretation of three science and engineering practices (SEPs) occurring in a classroom setting. This data were further examined to see if teaching experience and disciplinary area influenced the secondary science teachers attending and interpretation of the SEPs. The data collection process involved having teachers talk about the science instruction they viewed in short videos.

Author/Presenter

Yuxi Huang

Julie A. Luft

Hong H. Tran

Joseph J. Deluca

José M. Pavez

Brooke A. Whitworth

Year
2025
Short Description

This study explored secondary science teachers’ attending and interpretation of three science and engineering practices (SEPs) occurring in a classroom setting. This data were further examined to see if teaching experience and disciplinary area influenced the secondary science teachers attending and interpretation of the SEPs.

Socioscientific Issues: Promoting Science Teachers’ Pedagogy on Social Justice

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are problems involving the deliberate use of scientific topics that require students to engage in dialogue, discussion, and debate. The purpose of this project is to utilize issues that are personally meaningful and engaging to students, require the use of evidence-based reasoning, and provide a context for scientific information.

Author/Presenter

Augusto Z. Macalalag Jr.

Alan Kaufmann

Benjamin Van Meter

Aden Ricketts

Erica Liao

Gabrielle Ialacci

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are problems involving the deliberate use of scientific topics that require students to engage in dialogue, discussion, and debate. The purpose of this project is to utilize issues that are personally meaningful and engaging to students, require the use of evidence-based reasoning, and provide a context for scientific information. This study highlights the value of integrating SSI in science education to engage students with social justice.

What Distinguishes Students’ Engineering Design Performance: Design Behaviors, Design Iterations, and Application of Science Concepts

Engineering design that requires mathematical analysis, scientific understanding, and technology is critical for preparing students for solving engineering problems. In simulated design environments, students are expected to learn about science and engineering through their design. However, there is a lack of understanding concerning linking science concepts with design problems to design artifacts.

Author/Presenter

Hanxiang Du

Gaoxia Zhu

Wanli Xing

Charles Xie

Year
2025
Short Description

Engineering design that requires mathematical analysis, scientific understanding, and technology is critical for preparing students for solving engineering problems. In simulated design environments, students are expected to learn about science and engineering through their design. However, there is a lack of understanding concerning linking science concepts with design problems to design artifacts. This study investigated how 99 high school students applied science concepts to solarize their school using a computer-aided engineering design software, aiming to explore the interaction between students’ science concepts and engineering design behaviors.

What Distinguishes Students’ Engineering Design Performance: Design Behaviors, Design Iterations, and Application of Science Concepts

Engineering design that requires mathematical analysis, scientific understanding, and technology is critical for preparing students for solving engineering problems. In simulated design environments, students are expected to learn about science and engineering through their design. However, there is a lack of understanding concerning linking science concepts with design problems to design artifacts.

Author/Presenter

Hanxiang Du

Gaoxia Zhu

Wanli Xing

Charles Xie

Year
2025
Short Description

Engineering design that requires mathematical analysis, scientific understanding, and technology is critical for preparing students for solving engineering problems. In simulated design environments, students are expected to learn about science and engineering through their design. However, there is a lack of understanding concerning linking science concepts with design problems to design artifacts. This study investigated how 99 high school students applied science concepts to solarize their school using a computer-aided engineering design software, aiming to explore the interaction between students’ science concepts and engineering design behaviors.

Employing Automatic Analysis Tools Aligned to Learning Progressions to Assess Knowledge Application and Support Learning in STEM

We discuss transforming STEM education using three aspects: learning progressions (LPs), constructed response performance assessments, and artificial intelligence (AI). Using LPs to inform instruction, curriculum, and assessment design helps foster students’ ability to apply content and practices to explain phenomena, which reflects deeper science understanding. To measure the progress along these LPs, performance assessments combining elements of disciplinary ideas, crosscutting concepts and practices are needed.

Author/Presenter

Leonora Kaldaras

Kevin Haudek

Joseph Krajcik

Year
2024
Short Description

We discuss transforming STEM education using three aspects: learning progressions (LPs), constructed response performance assessments, and artificial intelligence (AI). Using LPs to inform instruction, curriculum, and assessment design helps foster students’ ability to apply content and practices to explain phenomena, which reflects deeper science understanding. To measure the progress along these LPs, performance assessments combining elements of disciplinary ideas, crosscutting concepts and practices are needed. However, these tasks are time-consuming and expensive to score and provide feedback for. Artificial intelligence (AI) allows to validate the LPs and evaluate performance assessments for many students quickly and efficiently.