Consideration of socioscientific issues (SSIs) promotes the development of moral and sociocultural perspectives that encourage a rich understanding of the nature of science. The use of moral reasoning to approach SSIs is known to influence how students justify arguments and persuade others; less is known about how student moral reasoning is…

Recent calls for reform in K-12 science education and the National Academy of Engineering's Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century emphasize improving science teaching, students' engagement, and learning. In this study, we designed and implemented a curriculum unit for sixth-grade students (i = 1305). The curriculum unit integrated…

Integrating sophisticated graphical analysis skills as they learn science is essential for K-12 students and emphasized in current standards. In this study, we iteratively designed a Graphing Integration Inventory (GII) over a three-year period, while also supporting students to develop their capabilities to use graphs to learn science content in…

Historically, most efforts to improve public knowledge of science and technology have focused on improvements in K-12 schooling, although post-secondary education and informal education have also been mentioned as important factors. Currently, little empirical data exist to determine how or when to best leverage science and technology education…

"Hands-on" activities play an important, but controversial, role in early science education. In this study we attempt to clarify some of the issues surrounding the controversy by calling attention to distinctions between: (a) type of instruction (direct or discovery); (b) type of knowledge to be acquired (domain-general or domain-specific); and…