Curriculum

Collaboration between ecologists and learning scientists can give rise to powerful models for scientific outreach within ecology. This paper presents a process by which learning scientists and ecologists codesigned a science curriculum that invites students to join an ecological community of practice. In the Journey to El Yunque middle school science curriculum, students engage with simulation models generated from data gathered by Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research (LUQ LTER) scientists.

Engineering design systematically identifies needs, wants, and problems and then devises solutions to address them. A central component of our work is guiding students in the engineered design of solutions to local environmental problems.

Songer, N. B. (2023). Why is engineering design important for all learners?. Open Access Government April 2023, pp.300-301. https://doi.org/10.56367/OAG-038-10193

Nancy Butler Songer, from the University of Utah, makes a call for collective action to create a new curriculum focused on the design of solutions.

Songer, N. B. (2023). Inspiring STEM education focused on solutions. Open Access Government July 2023, pp.322-323. https://doi.org/10.56367/OAG-039-10836

Nancy Butler Songer, Associate Provost of STEM Education at the University of Utah, discusses the importance of supporting and including young people as part of environmental decision-making teams and key problem-solvers of our futures.

Songer, N. B. (2023). Youth as essential problem-solvers of our futures. Open Access Government October 2023, pp. 312-313. https://doi.org/10.56367/OAG-040-10836

Educating students about real-world, issues such as local invasive species aims to encourage wider engagement with STEM.

Calabrese, J. E. & Songer, N. B. (2024). Youths’ solutions to local invasive species. Open Access Government January 2024.

Research on teacher educators’ professional learning has gained increasing interest within science education. Curriculum materials have been suggested as a means of supporting teacher learning for several decades but have not yet been examined as a potential tool for supporting the learning of teacher educators. In this paper, we conceptualize a set of design heuristics to guide the development of educative curriculum materials for teacher educators.

Research on teacher educators’ professional learning has gained increasing interest within science education. Curriculum materials have been suggested as a means of supporting teacher learning for several decades but have not yet been examined as a potential tool for supporting the learning of teacher educators. In this paper, we conceptualize a set of design heuristics to guide the development of educative curriculum materials for teacher educators.

In this article we introduce a National Science Foundation-funded research project called TecRocks that has developed new interactive simulations and an innovative online curriculum module that weaves rock formation and plate tectonics together such that secondary teachers and students can approach these two topics as integrated systems. In the 2022-23 school year, the curriculum was implemented in middle and high school classrooms across the United States.

Cook Whitt, K., Harris, E., Kenyon, L., Kenyon, F. L., Hanson, A., Tate, R., Mohan, L., & Guy-Gatan, C. (2023a, April). Related Paper Set: Designing, supporting, and enacting elementary science units for teacher phenomenon adaptation. Related paper set presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual Conference, Chicago, IL.