Many high school students learn about nutrient cycling during biology, environmental science, and agriculture classes. These lessons often focus on soil and plants, and nutrient cycling is usually taught independently from climate change. Scientists know that animals, including fish, can have strong effects on nutrient cycling (i.e., nitrogen and…

To promote health equity, it is crucial to educate the next generation of healthcare workers about disparities early on during their education. We developed a virtual research program at a medical school in the United States of America with the goal of increasing the awareness of youth about the complexities of health inequities. The program was…

Climate change is the one of the most controversial issues in environmental history since natural processes and human activities lead to causation. This complexity often thwarts communication and education efforts. Some research suggests that place-based approaches are effective for delivering climate change instruction because they feature local…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore experiences of naturalistic interpersonal contact with persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and attitudes toward persons with IDD among Korean American adolescents and young adults. In interviews with 12 Korean American high school and college students, Korean American…

Social, motivational, and instructional factors impact students' outcomes in STEM learning and their career paths. Based on prior research and expectancy-value theory, the study further explored how multiple factors affect students in the context of integrated STEM learning. High school STEM teachers participated in summer professional development…

The Project Citizen Research Program (PCRP) was a three-year research initiative that evaluated the effectiveness of the Center's Project Citizen teacher professional development (PD) program and curriculum intervention for middle and high school students. The program took place over three academic years that were impacted by the COVID-19…

One-on-one mentoring is effective for helping novices with career development. However, traditional mentoring scales poorly. To address this problem, MentorPal emulates conversations with a panel of virtual mentors based on recordings of real STEM professionals. Students freely ask questions as they might in a career fair, while machine learning…

Seattle Children's Research Institute has built a series of in-person education programs to inspire and empower students to explore futures in biomedical research and healthcare. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented us from offering an in-person laboratory program, forcing a rapid pivot to an online format. The Virtual Research Training Program (VRTP)…

This paper presents a multi-year study on the impact of attending an engineering summer school on girls' confidence that they could become an engineer. While it is relatively easy to recognise and address tangible barriers to entering an engineering profession -- such as a lack of preparedness in terms of a mathematics or physics background --…

Research on innovative, integrated outreach programs guided three separate week-long outreach camps held across two summers (2018 and 2019). These camps introduced computer science through real-world applications and hands-on activities, each dealing with cybersecurity principles. The camps utilized low-cost hardware and free software to provide a…

Youth have astute observations about site-specific personal and environmental factors that contribute to littering and marine debris, and they have a strong potential to act as change agents in communities. Interactions with youth in Pinellas County Florida add insights into a growing body of research on environmental education and marine debris…

Education laws and policies have moved toward promoting socio-emotional (SEL) skills, adopting numerous terminologies in their standards. However, the incremental change has left compensatory education practitioners who are committed to promoting SEL opportunities with little guidance when the programs' governing policies do not include language…

Based on results from a 2008 research study of regional citizen knowledge concerning watershed issues, a water conservation education program was designed and implemented. Findings from the initial study demonstrated program success as evidenced by knowledge gain and willingness to "commit" to water saving behaviors in 94% of students. A…

Though school is out for the summer, ninth- and tenth-grade students at Union Intermediate High School are burning off energy playing a game of tag on the soccer field. But that is not all they are doing. They are also synthesizing and applying key chemistry concepts they have just learned related to the conditions of the early solar system. They…

High school and undergraduate research students were surveyed over the 10-week period of their summer research programs to investigate their understanding of key concepts in science ethics and whether their understanding changed over the course of their summer research experiences. Most of the students appeared to understand the issues relevant to…