Are students more engaged and do they perform better in science if their school encourages them to work on science projects, participate in science fairs, belong to a science-related club or go on science-related field trips--in addition to teaching them the mandatory science curriculum? To find out, PISA (Programme for International Student…

This report presents results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) U.S. science assessment in 2011. A representative sample of 122,000 eighth-graders participated in the 2011 NAEP science assessment, which is designed to measure students' knowledge and abilities in the areas of physical science, life science, and Earth and…

This book emphasizes children's learning and is filled with recipes and formulas. The goal of this book is to connect students to the past, provide links to nature, show the importance of science in everyday life, and help students see themselves as part of a global community. Many of the recipes and formulas in this book have multicultural…

In 2012, WestEd received a "Development" grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) competition to develop and implement Internet-based Reading Apprenticeship Improving Science Education ("iRAISE"). "iRAISE" was implemented in Michigan and Pennsylvania and was provided to over 100…

Presented is a compilation of data, developed by the New York State Department of Education from table summaries of school forms, of science programs in New York State in 1973-74. A list of tables is included. Among these tables are: (1) the number of school districts indicating their plans for revision of local science courses (K-12); (2) the…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined Californians' views on science education. The findings are based on telephone interviews with 1,004 adults conducted April 7-22, 2010. Cell phone and Spanish language interviews were included to provide more complete coverage of California's population. In order to enhance understanding of the…

This report examines the effects of increasing science course-taking requirements in the Chicago Public Schools. CPS has been at the forefront of the national movement to require a college-preparatory curriculum for all high school students. In 1997, CPS mandated that all entering ninth-graders take a college-preparatory curriculum in high school,…

This study provides data on the offerings and enrollment in science and mathematics in public high schools during the fall of 1956. The information was obtained from a 10% sample of these schools selected at random. The same schools were used for a similar survey in 1954 and the data in that survey are compared with the data in the 1956 survey.…

This codebook for a machine-readable data file contains the frequencies for the values of variables for cases that are the individual activities in the Surroundings module of the BSCS Human Sciences Program. Students rated each activity on a six-item, Likert-type scale and responded to open-ended questions about the activity. Surroundings was one…

This codebook for a machine-readable data file contains frequencies for the values of 310 variables for 446 student cases that comprised the field test data from the testing of Knowing, a Level III module of the BSCS Human Sciences Program. This module was developed and field tested with eighth-grade students in middle schools and junior high…

This codebook for a machine-readable data file contains the frequencies for the value of 23 variables for each of the 3,173 student-activity evaluation interactions (cases) for the 44 activities in the Human Sciences Knowing Module. Students rated each activity on an eight-item, Likert-type scale and responded to open-ended questions about the…

This codebook for a machine-readable data file contains frequencies for the values of 1,275 variables for 734 student cases that comprise the field-test data from the BSCS Human Sciences curriculum project. This three-year interdisciplinary science curriculum, designed for 11- to 14-year-olds, was field-tested in seven middle and junior high…

This codebook for a machine-readable data file contains eight variables that describe the characteristics of 623 activities or activity parts that comprise the activities used in the field test of the BSCS Human Sciences Program, 1973 to 1976, and 1977, in middle and junior high schools in the United States. The file also includes 52 variables…