When the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth on April 8, 2024, it will represent a rare astronomical event that won’t take place for – a . For parents and educators, at least those who live along an arc of land from Texas up through Indiana and Maine, it offers a unique and memorable learning opportunity.

As STEM researchers at , we suggest three ways to make the total solar eclipse a fun experience for young children and along the way.

1. Discuss historical versus modern understandings of eclipses

It is important that children learn to when developing explanations for why something happens. One way to do this is to compare historical and modern explanations for why solar eclipses occur.

Share with the kids that, historically, many people across cultures feared eclipses. Some thought they . Others believed they predicted bad tidings to come, including .

Contrast those explanations with easy-to-understand scientific explanations of today. Britannica Kids offers a great . Scientific American has a webpage that .

When contrasting scientific evidence with historical beliefs, it is important not to be critical of other cultures. Use the eclipse to talk about how scientific knowledge is built over time through observation. There are many things we do not know now that we will learn 10, 20 or even 100 years from now.

2. Have conversations using scientific language

Teaching children about the solar eclipse isn’t just about explaining the what and the why. It’s also about engaging in rich dialogue. Our prior research shows that young children’s science knowledge is . Both and play a role in shaping this language.

Use science-related vocabulary to enrich children’s understanding of the eclipse. Examples include: orbit, rotate, spin, reemerge, Sun, Moon, Earth, far, distance, total and partial.

and when adults use inquiry-based strategies. For example, adults can ask children what they see happening while watching the eclipse and why they think that is. Then the adults can ask the children to make predictions about what else could happen and provide evidence for their explanations.

Children can document their observations throughout the eclipse in their own using both science-related vocabulary and drawings of what they see. The journals are a great opportunity to discuss their ideas and have rich conversations.

3. Use household items to help children understand the eclipse

Three-dimensional models allow children to visualize things that are otherwise difficult to see, such as the orbit of the Earth and the Moon. Comparisons between the model and their observations of real life, especially when guided by a teacher or parent, about complex topics in science.

During the solar eclipse, the Moon moves directly between the Earth and the Sun. In small groups at school or at home, one child can represent the Earth, while another holds a basketball to represent the Sun and another a tennis ball to represent the Moon.

The child representing the Earth can orbit the Sun and rotate in place, experimenting with changing their distance from the Sun and Moon. Closing one eye, the child may eventually see the basketball completely blocked by the tennis ball when it aligns just right. This is what happens in a total solar eclipse.

In this exercise, children are not only modeling the eclipse but also building scientific vocabulary. Throughout the activity, parents and teachers can ask children to compare and contrast the model to their own observations. They can ask questions, such as why do the Sun and Moon look like they are similar sizes in the sky, even though we know that the Sun is many times larger than the Moon? If the Moon is smaller, how does it block the Sun completely? The key is to help children generate hypotheses, test their ideas and then develop new conclusions.

We hope these ideas will encourage everyone to take advantage of this wonderful scientific learning experience. We also warn you not to look directly into the Sun during the eclipse and to get the right . Looking directly at the Sun, even through sunglasses or cameras, .

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

On April 8, more than 750 college students across the United States will launch hundreds of weather balloons into the atmosphere to research, observe and engage with the total solar eclipse as a part of a student initiative spearheaded by the Montana Space Grant Consortium.

Drawing from the highly successful NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored (NEBP) implemented during the 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2023 total solar eclipses, this current NEBP initiative aims to broaden STEM student participation during the upcoming total solar eclipse — .

Students from 75 higher education institutions, including Minority Serving Institutions and community colleges will have the opportunity to garner atmospheric measurements that can only be conducted during an eclipse. 

The balloons, carrying long, hanging strings of scientific instruments, will enter the path of totality, the area on Earth’s surface where the moon completely covers the sun. 

People along the path of totality, which stretches from Texas to Maine, will have the chance to see the eclipse. For those outside this path, a partial solar eclipse will be visible.

NEBP hopes to “enable inclusive STEM education for participating students, advance learners’ understanding of the process of science as well as create, enhance and sustain networks and partnerships.”&�Բ�����;

As anticipation builds for the upcoming spectacle, we wanted to share incredible archives from NEBP’s previous balloon launches. The breathtaking snapshots from the sky offer a unique perspective on past solar eclipses to gear up for the big day.

All photos courtesy of National Eclipse of Ballooning Project (NEBP) Education

Naya, a freshman at John F. Kennedy High School in New Orleans, was inspired to create the watch through a program called , where K-12 students learn and participate in hands-on science, technology, engineering and math projects. The organization offers an eight-month-long STEM fellowship to low-income high school students of color who show an interest in solving real-world problems and gives them training, career and networking opportunities.

She signed up for the fellowship because she wanted to keep herself busy. Little did she know the opportunities the program would allow her.

The organization also hosts STEM Saturday, a free weekend program where K-12 students can create inventions. When Naya attended her first STEM Saturday in October, she thought designing a watch that detects seizures would be a great idea. But the following weekend — the last weekend to complete her project — she changed her plan entirely and instead created a watch for stroke detection, since her grandmother had suffered a stroke. She named her invention WingItt, a fitting title for an idea that sprouted at the last second.

The watch works by detecting nerve impulses and heartbeats. Naya says that many stroke victims may develop noticeable signs such as a droopy face or strange taste in their mouth, but she wanted to create something that can detect internal symptoms. As she researched, she found that strokes were more common in people 55 and older than in younger people, so she wanted to cater to this demographic. As she works out the kinks in her prototype, she wants to ensure that it is detecting only strokes and not picking up on other issues, such as those involving the heart.

A huge priority for Naya is making sure her watch is affordable for older adults who may not have the money for expensive technology, like iPhones and Apple Watches, that have health-monitoring features.

“I want to do something I’m interested in, that will also change the world,” she says.

Naya’s invention could well be on its way to doing just that, as she is one of 126 students out of over 2,500 nationwide to be selected as champions in the . The competition for grades 6 to 12, presented by the U.S. Department of Education and , will host its inaugural festival next month in Washington, D.C., where the champions will showcase their creations. The students are also receiving two months of and four months of master classes with STEM experts like astronauts and sports statisticians. 

“I never thought that I would win,” Naya says. She says she looks forward to presenting her watch and seeing the other inventions at the festival. 

Naya thinks younger students who may have an interest in science should give STEM a try because it has given her experiences she never thought she would have. She says students in her area specifically should give STEM NOLA a chance because it has allowed her to go to new places and learn new things.

As a freshman, Naya still has plenty of time to do more in the world of STEM. Her other plans include playing softball and getting a college scholarship, and longer-term, becoming an obstetrician-gynecologist.

“I love the fact that you’re bringing new life into the world, that’s the coolest thing ever to me. I’m a woman helping women. It can’t get any better than that!”
Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation and Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to the and The 74.

But do you remember what pi actually stands for? What the number represents? 

And have you ever heard of #DressforSTEM Day, which is also March 14? 

No? Here’s fourth-grader Ada with everything you need to know: 

Ada knows what Pi is, but how many adults do? The 74’s Jim Fields asked the people of Philadelphia — and the results are hilarious:

STEM Superstars: In honor of Pi Day, here are five inspiring teens creating STEM breakthroughs: 

And in celebration of Women’s History Month, The 74’s Trinity Alicia explores women’s ongoing impact in STEM and how a hashtag is driving the Pi Day conversation to representation of women in the field:

Natasha Kulviwat, having been interested in neuroscience and mental health from an early age, noticed that neuroscience wasn’t making as much progress in mental health diagnoses and interventions as she thought it should.

So, the 17-year-old from Jericho High School in Jericho, New York embarked on a search for a biomarker related to suicide, wondering if there was a way to use neuroscience to identify those at risk.

Kulviwat looked at brain tissue for those who died by suicide and found there was an increase in a protein biomarker in suicide decedents. The biomarkers could also identify genetic vulnerabilities that could lead to suicidal ideation. 

So, for instance, pathologists could find spikes in the protein biomarkers and, along with a self-report questionnaire, could catalyze suicide prevention in the future.

“My research serves as a small puzzle piece that will hopefully advance the way we view diagnostics for suicide in the future,” Kulviwat said.

But there’s another annual observance this month dedicated specifically to celebrating women working in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers — while also acknowledging there’s still a long way to go. 

began as a grassroots movement in 2016, started by a group of female meteorologists to celebrate female STEM pioneers, those active in the field and the next generation of female scientists on March 14.

March 14 marks Pi Day, a celebration of the mathematical symbol pi. by physicist Larry Shaw, March 14 was selected because the numerical date represents the first three digits of pi (3.14) — and also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday.  

It wasn’t until 2009 that Pi Day became an official holiday when the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation. But almost 40 years after Pi Day was born, women in STEM and their allies are asking for more diversity in the field.

All it took was a who planned to wear the same purple dress on Pi Day in 2016 and 2017, garnering viral attention as well as the opportunity to drive the Pi Day conversation to the underrepresentation of women in STEM.

This Pi Day (3.14) the ladies at AccuWeather are wearing the same dress to promote more women in STEM: Science Technology Engineering & Math

— Cam Tran WESH (@CamTranTV)

While MIT that the gender gap in STEM careers remains significant, with women accounting for only 28% of the field in 2023, Edutopia that female visibility in the field is increasing, with nearly 58% of young girls drawing a picture of a scientist who looks like them in 2016 — when #DressForSTEM was launched — compared to 1% when the study was first conducted in the 1960s. 

Today, in 2024, #DressForSTEM still stands: Those who participate in the initiative wear purple and create social media posts with the hashtag #DressForSTEM on March 14.

We’ve chosen to go a step further and celebrate by presenting photographic proof of the ongoing contributions women have made to STEM.

For William Gao, his research is personal. Three of his grandparents, who lived in rural China with sparse access to health care, were diagnosed with cancer. 

“Poor health care meant late diagnoses,” Gao said. “And late diagnoses meant grim prognoses.”

During his research, 18-year-old Gao noticed that shortages in pathologists around the world cause long diagnosis times, especially in developing countries. He said this elevates mortality rates in breast cancer patients, for example.

To tackle these health care disparities, the teen from Centennial High School in Ellicott City, Maryland, developed an AI diagnostic tool to support doctors and hospitals in the diagnosis process. Rather than sending tissue samples to a separate lab, with long wait times for results, Gao’s app creates a heat map, then and there, of a biopsied tissue revealing exactly what part of the tissue sample could be malignant.

Knowing where to look in a tissue sample could vastly speed up the diagnostic process, Gao said. And, not only that — the app ameliorates the risks associated with patient privacy, since it eliminates the process of transferring patient data between institutions.

Gao said that this is a noteworthy step towards offering more equitable health care outcomes, and he sees room to collaborate with the venture and entrepreneur space to scale the app. 

“I hope it can be applied in rural areas which can create a real impact and really have an ability to support patients around the world,” he said.

Gavriela Beatrice Kalish-Schur knew from an early age that STEM was for her. But it was in high school that she knew she wanted to specialize in neuroscience, “I think because we know so little about the brain,” she said.

She also knew that anxiety impacts many young people, and that current therapies aren’t as effective as they could be, or they’re very expensive — or both.

The 18-year-old senior at Julia R. Masterman High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said she was interested in understanding what’s happening on a cellular level with anxiety to help inform the development of more effective treatments.

Her experiment: Make fruit flies anxious. She targeted a certain brain pathway called IRE1, knocking it down in the flies. “Knocking down is like turning down the volume when you’re listening to music,” she explained. 

Then she observed their behavior. And like the proverbial wallflower at a school dance, the fruit flies clung to the wall of the petri dish, rather than spread over the surface as they normally would. In other words, the flies exhibited anxious behavior.

Kalish-Schur discovered that these flies had different protein levels than the control group. Understanding the relationship between the IRE1 pathway and anxiety, she said, can lead to more targeted treatments for anxiety in humans. 

”We can use what we already know and new techniques to develop cures for diseases that harm a lot of people,” Kalish-Schur said.

As a small illustration of her long, idiosyncratic writing career, Joy Hakim likes to tell the story of a chance encounter in an Oakland elevator.

On the way down after a speaking engagement, a woman handed her a slip of paper — it contained the phone number of her son’s private school. He and his classmates, she said, could really benefit from their school swapping out its traditional history textbooks for a set of Hakim’s.

Asked who she was, the woman admitted that she was a representative of one of the big publishing houses.

“I was appalled,” Hakim remembered. “But this is an industry where almost no one believes the books educate well — and scores prove that.”&�Բ�����;

Hakim doesn’t know if the school ever switched over. But the episode underscores her uncomfortable place in an industry that has never quite embraced her. By turns raw, thrilling and eye-opening, her writing offers young people a look at history that they rarely get between the covers of mass-produced textbooks.

Her most well-known work, a 10-volume history of the United States that began appearing in the early 1990s, remains in print. And at age 93, she’s still in the fight: Her newest series on biology debuted in September, continuing her tradition of wrestling with complicated ideas and difficult historical and scientific questions. 

But even after three decades, she remains unsure that she’s made much of an impact as textbooks with bigger promotional budgets enjoy much wider readerships. 

That view is belied by her legions of admirers. Praised by leading historians like David McCullough and James McPherson, she also may be the only textbook author to reliably receive fan mail. At one of her kids’ houses sit cases of letters, testament to the gratitude of two generations of readers. 

, podcaster and author of , who has championed deep subject matter knowledge in all areas of study, called Hakim “a force of nature.”

“Most textbooks are either extremely dry or so encyclopedic in their attempts to cover the universe of topics that they’re highly superficial and therefore boring,” Wexler said. “Joy Hakim understands how to use the power of narrative to bring topics in history and science to life.”

Wexler predicted that if more schools adopted Hakim’s titles, reading scores would jump because her work offers both the knowledge and vocabulary kids need to succeed on tests. 

And as the nation grows increasingly polarized about history, Hakim’s work eschews easy categorization. It is championed by liberals for not glossing over our dark past — and by conservatives for offering rigorous, challenging texts and sophisticated arguments.

, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute and a former New York City teacher, said Hakim’s history series “had a place of honor in my fifth-grade classroom and deserves a place of privilege in every school. It’s beyond her power to reverse the long-running and in American education, but she’s done her part to make real history accessible and interesting to those who seek it out, or who are engaged by it.”

Hakim’s books, he said, offer an important antidote to those that aim to trick kids into learning a little history via historical fiction or lightweight, fantasy-driven fare. “Hakim is winningly anachronistic by comparison: She takes history — and more pertinently her young readers — seriously.”

But she has often had to fight simply to be heard by school districts under adoption systems she sees as backwards. Teachers and students are hungering for good books, Hakim said, yet the adopted titles often stem from publishers’ long-standing relationships with state education bureaucrats, whom they lobby furiously. 

“I don’t think that they sell whether they’re good or crappy,” she said. “They sell because of this massive promotional effort that goes into them.”

‘I sat down and I started writing’ 

Hakim’s career as a writer for young people began simply, on a long car drive.

A one-time teacher and journalist — she taught in Baltimore for a spell and was both a business and editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk’s daily newspaper — by the 1980s, she was freelancing in Virginia Beach and raising three kids with her husband, a grain importer. She happened upon a notice for a hearing in Richmond, the capital, by a board looking for ways to improve school textbooks. At that pre-Internet time, it was a topic that aroused national attention. Hakim (pronounced HAKE-im) decided to check it out.

She expected to hear testimony from writers and editors. Instead, the publishers sent salespeople, who in her view stonewalled the proceedings by rhapsodizing about how beautifully designed and illustrated the books were.

“The whole thing was just a hoax,” she recalled. “The publishing industry was not serious about doing anything.”

Steaming, Hakim climbed back into her car and began the two-hour drive home. At some point, she thought to herself: Why not write her own history book?

“I sat down and I started writing,” she said.

Hakim didn’t stop for seven years, telling vivid personal stories of America’s founders, pioneers and others.

As she conceived it, the book aimed for a fifth-grade audience. To get direct feedback, she tapped a small group of 10-year-olds in her neighborhood, offering five dollars apiece to critique her manuscript. Hakim instructed the readers — mostly boys — to scrawl one of three reactions in the margins: G for Good, B for Boring and NC for Not Clear. 

Next, she invited classroom teachers to use the manuscripts in exchange for feedback. 

That one book ultimately became a 10-volume manuscript called . 

The books covered much of what she’d decided was important in American history — as she told one interviewer, from “people coming over the Bering Strait” to Bill Clinton’s inauguration.

And they offered children a thrilling narrative. In a chapter on Columbus’ voyages, she wrote that after surviving the treacherous waters of the Sargasso Sea, the explorer’s men wanted to turn back: “The sea seems endless. On October 9 they say they will go no farther. Columbus pleads for three more days of sailing. Then, he says, if they don’t see land they may cut off his head and sail home in peace.”

But for all the books’ originality, Hakim lacked a publisher. Eventually she met a literary agent who successfully garnered the attention of Oxford University Press.

, in a review titled, “Showing Children the Dark Side,” said Hakim “frees children from the grasp of hoary American myth nurtured by novelists and historians; without sermonizing, she allows them to glimpse the horrific underside of the once magical word ‘frontier.'” 

Hakim, for instance, was among the first writers for young people to address the 1839 Amistad rebellion, devoting an entire chapter to the slave uprising four years before the incident rose to prominence with the .

Historian David McCullough called the series “a big breath of fresh air and the best possible news for the youngsters who get to read these books.” 

Princeton University historian James McPherson said he was “impressed by the accuracy and the depth of her research,” telling one reviewer that Hakim’s books represented women and minorities in ways others hadn’t.

‘I have done something that’s quite different’

Like many authors, Hakim felt Oxford did little to publicize the series, leaving her to do much of the promotion herself. But in 1993, a family friend opened a key door: The composer BJ Leiderman, a long-ago classmate of one of her children, was by then writing for National Public Radio. He suggested to colleagues that they feature her, and soon Hakim found herself in front of a microphone at the network’s Norfolk affiliate. The result was a lengthy “Morning Edition” segment that helped introduce her to the world.

In the interview, she told host Bob Edwards, “The history books that are out there, most of them are committee-written, and committees can’t write. Committees have to be bland. So, I am doing something … that’s quite different.”

Looking back on the reception she got in 1993, Leiderman said Hakim was “progressive in the best sense of the word, searching out all different areas” to study.

All the same, he recalled, selling the books — sometimes on her own — struck him as a long, tough slog reminiscent of veteran rock stars playing small clubs to keep their music alive.

Despite the struggle — or perhaps because of it — “A History of US” soon became one of Oxford’s rock-solid titles, selling hundreds of thousands of copies, said Damon Zucca, the publisher’s director of content development and reference. The series has also received “the most fan mail from kids, parents, and teachers, who have been sending ardent missives about these books to Joy and to us for nearly thirty years now.”

But keeping them in classrooms has been a battle. Hakim recalled visiting Oakland schools a year after the district adopted her books, curious how they were being used. She couldn’t find them anywhere. “They’d all been replaced,” she said. A few teachers told her they’d saved their copies and were literally hiding them in closets to keep administrators in the dark. 

At one point, Hakim even sued after textbook giant Houghton Mifflin purchased the books’ distributor, D.C. Heath. Fearing it was a bid to bury the titles, she pursued an antitrust violation. Civics-geek alert: The case eventually landed before the federal bench of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who 14 years later would rise to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Hakim eventually got the books out from under the big publisher’s purview. Now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, it didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

Eventually, “A History of US” gave rise to a companion with all-star voice talent including Morgan Freeman, Julia Roberts and Robert Redford. But by then Hakim was on to something new: a three-book series about the history of science, from Aristotle to Einstein.

Then as now, Hakim’s most fervent buyers are often private school teachers and homeschooling parents who are free to use materials that appeal to them. She also holds a kind of magnetic appeal to cultural conservatives like Lynne Cheney who have derided public school readings they view as mushy and politically correct.

Yet conservatives have also protested Hakim’s books. In one case, Texas parents organized a letter-writing campaign, telling state officials that the books were unpatriotic.

They’ve been banned at least twice, as far as Hakim knows — once quite recently after a parent complained that they were too liberal. She jokes that the honor puts her in good company. 

Asked how she’d categorize herself, Hakim doesn’t hesitate. “I’m just a teacher,“ she said. “My books talk. I’m in a conversation with these kids and I respect their intelligence — and they understand that.”

‘This is a tough chapter’

Ask about her workflow and Hakim will tell you that she is blessed with — or cursed by — a journalist’s penchant for accuracy, which often prolongs her creative process. In the case of the science books, she finished the last one — on Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity and the origins of quantum mechanics — and her new publisher had submitted it for peer review, when she received an unsolicited email from an unfamiliar name with an mit.edu address.

It was from renowned physics professor , also editor of the American Journal of Physics. He’d read a piece in TIME magazine about her plan to write about Einstein and offered to read the manuscript.

Hakim sent him the first four chapters. A few days later, Taylor wrote back asking if someone had actually reviewed them.

He and Hakim met a few times and, in Taylor’s words, “got to know — and respect — each other.” In all, they spent the next year-and-a-half revising the book, to the chagrin of Smithsonian Books. “They were not happy with me,” Hakim recalled. “But I’m so happy that I did it.”

In the book’s introduction, Hakim wrote of the “private tutorial with one of the greatest physics teachers this country has produced,” adding, “Sometimes my head hurt with all the stretching.”

The book won several best-of-the-year awards, which she credits largely to Taylor’s influence. For his part, Taylor told The 74 that Hakim “made great contributions to high school science teaching” and deserves wider recognition. 

As with the history series, the science books found a devoted audience as Hakim challenged young readers to grasp hard topics and complex ideas. In a chapter explaining Galileo’s writings on relativity, Hakim urged them to “catch your breath, relax and be prepared to stretch your mind.” 

In the chapter, she described how an observer on shore, watching a ball fall from the mast of a moving ship, sees it move in an arc, while an observer on deck sees it travel in a straight line. Acknowledging that the idea seemed outlandish, she warned: “This is a tough chapter; stick with it; the ideas here are important.”

Indeed, when journalist and scholar Alexander Stille set out to capture the essence of Hakim’s history books in 1998, he concluded, “Instead of talking down to children in simplified language, her books invite children to make an effort.” He that “a grandmother from Virginia” could produce books superior to those of most publishing houses.

‘The world has changed’

Now, nearly 20 years after the science texts first appeared, Hakim is out with a new series for teens about the history of biology.

gave the first volume a coveted starred review, calling it “thoroughly engrossing and highly recommended.” 

The second book is due out in April, part of a planned four-volume series. Published by MITeen Press, the last two books won’t appear until 2025 and 2026 respectively, but Hakim jokes that at her age she may not live to see it in readers’ hands.

She has asked her publisher to pick up the pace.

At the same time, she remains unsatisfied about her previous work: Three decades after “A History of US” began appearing on shelves, Hakim says the series could use a refresh. 

“I wrote it 30 years ago, so some of it is really dated,” she said with a self-conscious laugh. For one thing, she wants to recast the role of women, a topic she didn’t adequately address in the 1990s, mostly due to her own blind spot. An avowed feminist, she now sees she didn’t step back enough and appreciate the importance of the women’s movement. 

“Thirty years ago, we were different people than we are today,” she said. “The world has changed.”&�Բ�����;

Yet, oddly, little has changed in Hakim’s career. Her husband is gone and the “grandmother from Virginia” is now a great-grandmother, but she still feels like a disruptor and an outsider, angry that we don’t have “better books” in schools. After millions of words on the page and cases of fan mail, she admits that she has barely struck a blow in the nation’s larger battle with historical illiteracy.

The textbook industry that she set out to disrupt in the 1980s is still dominated by a handful of publishers — actually, consolidation has , not more, choices. Together, they still produce what she considers bland, formulaic books that are making the nation’s reading crisis worse, not better.

“I’ve worked all these years and I’m not sure what I’ve achieved,” she concluded. “I’ve sold some books, but I haven’t changed the field.”

While in orbit, he conducted single-cell genome sequencing demonstrations. 

“We were able to do so many great things, and have lots of fun — including making space habitat videos,” he said.

The video series, , is a collection of short videos focusing on STEM for K-12 students, while also showing what it’s like to live and work in space. 

The videos can be used as an element in a classroom, and teachers can build lessons around them. 

“Children and students, they all have a curiosity,” Shoffner said. “So through the richness of these videos, we want them to run across something that is of a key interest to them and start to explore that.”

But he says there’s also a lesson about how to make STEM fun. He says STEM “teaches us some great skills of communication, of creative thinking and problem solving.”

He hopes the videos will inspire both students and teachers to uncover their natural curiosity. “That will be really exciting to know that’s possible,” Shoffner said.

Imagine observing a 3rd-grade classroom where students are working together to plan and carry out investigations to explain why two magnets stick together or push away from one another. If the investigations are derived from a phenomenon-driven curriculum, you’d likely also see groups of students enthusiastically moving around the room, placing magnets on different surfaces and objects to see what happens, exuding excitement with each result and using an array of literacy skills to make sense of and explain what they’re observing. 

This was exactly what I encountered in Rhondi Kennedy’s third-grade classroom at Central Intermediate School near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as part of my first visit with the Knowledge Matters School Tour and my first chance to see an elementary school implementing phenomenon-driven curriculum across all elementary grades.

Phenomena are observable events that occur in the universe that we use science knowledge to explain or predict. Students experience phenomena in their everyday lives when they see puddles disappear overnight or feel a wall vibrate when music is played loudly. 

Phenomena are also the context for the work of both scientists and engineers and can be used to drive learning experiences for students unlocking their natural curiosities, motivating them to want to make sense of why a phenomena occurs or how it works.

Phenomenon-driven instruction represents a shift in science education that began with The National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences’ 2012 release of Framework for K-12 Science Education which recommended science education be built around three major dimensions: science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and core science ideas. Engaging students in making sense of phenomena supports the nexus of the three dimensions. It is how students construct meaning of science ideas and engage in scientific practices and ways of thinking. 

When we sat down with elementary teachers at Central Intermediate and asked them to share what surprised them the most since implementing a curriculum centered on phenomena, they talked about the confidence students exhibited when sharing science ideas and ways of thinking about science through talk and writing. One teacher noted that “the kids are just getting better at learning how to communicate with each other” and that “they’re getting the confidence to discuss and turn and talk”. 

We witnessed this confidence firsthand during our visit to various classrooms at Central Intermediate and could see how the curriculum provided ample opportunity for students to talk and share what they were thinking with their peers. One teacher noted that the students “are having to do so much more reasoning” and thinking about “Do I agree with this person? Why do I disagree?” Students like learning how the world works and enjoy talking about phenomena. 

Often, the phenomena students investigate in the classroom represent phenomena they have encountered outside the classroom, giving students a wealth of background experiences to bring to their discussions. Many of the students in Mrs. Kennedy’s classroom talked about experiences they had with magnets at home and used those experiences to make sense of what they were seeing in the classroom. 

The ability for students to pull from a wealth of experiences outside the classroom to explain phenomena in the classroom also helps students write with more confidence and ability. Brittany Lavergne, a fourth-grade teacher noted that “before [using the curriculum] we were just trying to get them [students] to have a complete answer, complete idea, a complete sentence. Now we’re getting claims with supporting evidence, with multiple pieces of evidence and student responses that are so much more in depth.”

Dramatic improvement in writing is one of the most oft-mentioned early benefits to implementing phenomenon-driven science curriculum because students write about what they are observing through direct experiences. In fact, they are often eager to write about something they’re curious about or have had experiences with in the past. 

Teachers at Central Intermediate have also seen student writing improve as students transition across grades. Mrs. Lavergne shared that “It just seems like every group we get, they’re better writers. They’re able to express what they’re learning and what they’re thinking. And it’s just an increase from what we had seen the years before.”

The students at Central Intermediate showcased remarkable motivation and confidence in discussing scientific ideas, demonstrating the effectiveness of phenomenon-driven instruction. This approach not only ensures access to quality science education but also acts as a dynamic catalyst for enhancing oral language, vocabulary, and writing skills. The visit to Central Intermediate vividly illustrated the transformative power of phenomenon-driven curriculum, shaping students into well-rounded individuals ready to excel in the scientific community and beyond.

The world is dependent on innovations, systems and equipment that are designed and sustained using science, engineering, technology and mathematics. This means the nurturing of STEM talent cannot be reserved for a slice of our student population but, instead, an essential component of every student’s educational journey.

It turns out, industry agrees.

Our colleagues in the community report the need for curious and creative professionals who can work in teams to solve the toughest problems encountered in the fabs and labs of our most advanced workplaces.

Because innovation is happening at a quickening pace, readying students through the curriculum for every workplace scenario will be impossible. The ability to design solutions from scratch, in real time, is necessary to the innovation enterprise.

Whether this is perceived as an issue of equity or economics, the goal is the same: To value STEM knowledge in the same way we value reading.

K-12 needs to be rethought and redesigned or it will not only fail to meet the needs of a STEM-dependent world, it will fail to meet the needs of a unique generation of students who learns, thinks and engages with the world around them differently than any before.

Millennial and Gen Z parents are tech-integrated and experience-driven. Their children are hard-wired to be the same. Practically, this means they innately use technology to learn anytime, anywhere. But it also means they want to learn by doing. They consider technology their guide but want in-person engagement for connection, collaboration and support.

These were the trends and challenges we had to consider when designing . ASU Prep is a P-20 system of schools and educational services embedded in a larger learning enterprise at Arizona State University. The needs and preferences of our student body is what drives our iterative design. Students become masters in various learning domains from home, at a K-12 campus, on a university campus, at their parent’s workplace or even with peers at a coffee shop.

Thanks to the innovative K-12 policy environment in Arizona, students who can do a day’s worth of school work in less time can fill the remaining hours getting ahead in courses, catching up on concepts where they struggle, working, pursuing an interest in music, theater, Olympic sport or even launching their own small business.

Online learning should not be remote from people. We pair students with Learning Success Coaches to help students build personalized educational pathways into their desired future career. From kindergarten on, ASU Prep students build their own learning plans in concert with a guide and present it to their parents.

Our students are exposed to ASU courses as soon as they are ready and can take any of the 4,000-plus courses on the ASU catalog: in person, online or through our . High school students at ASU Prep are applying their learning via paid internships and hybrid high school/university schedules.

It’s working. With graduation and college-going rates that exceed the averages and large numbers of students matriculating to STEM careers, we believe that we are the school system of the future. As part of , ASU Prep is wired like no other K12 system in the country and is poised to design and open access to a K12 model fit for the future of work. 

We do all these things not to simply grow enrollment but to develop a knowledge base of what works to share with the broader community and the ASU teams that are increasing university enrollment in underrepresented communities.

Stakes are high for both our country and the families striving within. We embrace the efforts laid out in the New Essential Education Discoveries (NEED) Act to evaluate what is happening right now in the most innovative systems in the United States and apply those lessons rapidly for the benefit of all students.

There is brilliance in every household. We believe it’s our job to design new educational models that value curiosity and show every student that they do, in fact, have a path to a successful future.

The University of Texas at El Paso announced Wednesday that it will take a lead role in a new National Science Foundation-funded resource center that will support and strengthen Hispanic-Serving Institutions with their STEM-related grant applications.

The six-year, $7 million grant will establish the Hispanic-Serving Institution Center for Evaluation and Research Synthesis, or HSI-CERS, the nation’s only center of its kind. The center will work to help institutions better study and evaluate ways to verify and improve the effectiveness of NSF HSI-funded projects.

The center will be part of UTEP’s Diana Natalicio Institute for Hispanic Student Success. Anne-Marie Nuñez, executive director of the Natalicio Institute, is the grant’s principal investigator. She called the grant a landmark investment that emphasizes the university’s position as a leading HSI.

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“This particular grant signals UTEP’s leadership in research on effective practices to serve Hispanic students,” said Nuñez, a leading scholar of HSIs and diversity in science. “UTEP gets positioned and recognized as a leader in creating knowledge in that area rather than having outsiders create that knowledge. As for the community, it’s really important that those of us who are on the ground here are creating that knowledge.”

Nuñez said the new center will assist other institutions that may lack the human or financial resources, as well as the capacity, to understand what they can do to create more equity in STEM, and more effectively reach students from diverse backgrounds. She added that through this work, UTEP will provide the first portrait of the collective effectiveness of these programs.

According to the NSF, the center will use interdisciplinary efforts to generate a model that tackles complex data through quantitative and qualitative methods. Researchers will develop standardized and comparable techniques to analyze NSF HSI-grant projects. It will create a database that future grantees can use for evaluations and a consistent evaluation framework, as well as offer training on how to use both.

Nuñez’s two HSI-CERS co-principal investigators are Azuri Gonzalez, director of partnerships and operations at the Natalicio Institute, and Amy Wagler, professor of mathematical sciences.

The assessments will help NSF HSI-funded programs that serve Hispanics and other minority students in fields of STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The announcement was made on the patio of the Peter and Margaret de Wetter Center before a crowd of about 40 people made up mostly of university administrators, faculty and staff.

The HSI-CERS grant puts UTEP on the national stage alongside the NSF, said Jacob Fraire, president of the ECMC Foundation. Fraire, who has more than 35 years of professional higher education experience, previously served as director of policy and strategy for the Natalicio Institute. He was part of the team that submitted the grant proposal.

He called Nuñez an HSI expert who deserves a lot of the credit for the successful application that will make UTEP and the Natalicio Institute a focal point for prospective NSF grantees in regard to proposal evaluations for the next six years.

“You don’t have to submit your proposals to UTEP, and you don’t have to go to UTEP committees,” Fraire said. “But you certainly will be encouraged to do so because UTEP will have built the kinds of resources that would add value to your project.”

In addition to HSI-CERS, the NSF also named UTEP as one of five institutions that will lead a second related $7 million project focused on building community and collaborations among current and potential HSI awardees. It is the UNIDOS Network Resource Center for Community Coordination, or HSI-CCC. Florida International University is the lead institution. Meagan Kendall, associate professor in UTEP’s Department of Engineering, Education and Leadership, is one of the co-principal investigators.

Gonzalez said that she looked forward to future collaborations among the institutions through Kendall to expand knowledge of what works and what can be done better.

“Telling the story of Hispanic student impact right is no small feat, but we welcome that challenge because it is a story worth telling and learning from,” Gonzalez said.

Both new centers are part of the NSF HSI Program Network Resource Centers and Hubs.

“Building on past investments, these new centers will help NSF achieve its broadening participation goals in STEM by growing and strengthening the education and research support that facilitates student and faculty success at HSIs,” James L. Moore III, NSF assistant director for STEM education, said in a press release.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

That is because the country is at the start of a massive effort intended to bring semiconductor manufacturing to the Southwest, battery research and development to rural upstate New York and more. It’s an effort that promises to spread good-paying jobs to parts of the country that haven’t benefited from them in recent decades.

More semiconductor manufacturing, more engineering jobs, more tech jobs — over the next 10 years, these and other jobs in STEM fields are faster than all others combined, with twice the median salary. More STEM jobs means the country needs more STEM-ready students, and that means helping elementary schools engage children with a rich and energetic brand of science before sixth grade, when children often start forming career aspirations.

This is particularly critical in rural areas, because if children in these communities don’t have a science-rich education, they will be less likely to be interested in or qualified for the STEM jobs coming to their regions. And if that’s the case, the purpose of locating these jobs there will be undermined, as employers will have to recruit qualified workers from other parts of the nation or world.

Getting young Americans involved in science now in a way that captivates them early in their education will prepare them to fill the STEM jobs of the near future and build the foundation for a strong and prosperous economy.

When children from all backgrounds see themselves as scientists, society reaps the benefits. But researchers estimate this country has missed out on generations of “” because many lack a relevant and relatable science education starting in elementary school, and kids cannot be what they cannot see. 

The found that students in kindergarten to third grade learned science for an average of just 18 minutes a day – less time than many of them spend on the school bus. The results of that are clear: Only 36% of fourth graders tested as proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress science exam. 

If the new approach to industrial policy and STEM jobs is going to succeed, that has to change. Science education must start early, because children develop their interests and passions early. And it must attract all kids, no matter their backgrounds, resources or experiences.

The way to do that is to move students from learning about science from behind a classroom desk to exploring the world outside and around them — whether that’s studying drainage and flooding in an urban area or finding the angle of the sun to determine the best placement of solar panels in a rural community. Children’s minds come alive to science when they see it in every part of their world. They respond to active learning environments that offer the opportunity to collect data, test and solve problems in real time. The organization I lead, , transforms school grounds into real-world labs. Last year, we brought science to life for 53,000 students and 188 schools in 77 communities, starting in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and now extended to historically underserved areas of Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C.

These take teachers and students out of the classroom and into the outdoors, where they can study the growth of plants or crops, build landforms to gauge erosion by pouring water on it or use plastic bags to find hidden water through leaf transpiration.

Children make the connection between the science they see in their schoolyards and the relevance of it to their own communities. 

As a Mississippi native who now lives, works and parents in Washington, D.C., I know that kids in rural areas grow up, get educated, work and live differently than those in cities or suburbs. High-speed internet, for example, is not a given. Technology and office work are not the norm. Some schools don’t have the that are taken for granted in many parts of the country. Almost 1 in 5 public school students attend a rural school, yet policymakers rarely address rural needs. Nonprofits and social service agencies often fill gaps in urban and suburban areas, but less so for rural schools. Indeed, the most robust voice for rural schools, the Rural School and Community Trust, no longer has an — a metaphor for the isolating lack of broadband internet or reliable cell service that confronts many rural schools.

For generations, those differences did not affect the nation economically. But now, they matter a lot. Modern society and the modern economy rely more on strong scientific readiness in places like the Southwest and rural upstate New York than ever.

The $80 billion in investments that Congress and President Joe Biden have made are designed to share the wealth of economic growth in every part of the country, not just Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Mining that wealth can’t happen, however, unless every school — rural, suburban and urban — has the facilities and a plan to get young children involved in science.

If this new industrial policy is to succeed in making this country economically sound and secure in the wake of the pandemic, engaging all citizens is critical. Making science real and relevant is, in that sense, a national economic security initiative. This opportunity is too crucial to miss.

My first career was not in teaching. I worked in an HIV Lab in New York City for five years before returning to my home in New Mexico in 2012. While away, I had developed a passion for science, and became convinced that one way I could make a contribution to the community I loved might be to help spark that passion in young people. I wanted to show students that science is more than the boring, read-and-take-notes course that I was subjected to in my youth.

And now, as more people express skepticism for data, I also want to help young people learn how you go about validating it; to understand that data is real and that understanding how to document and interpret it can give one real power.

When I began teaching, New Mexico was just preparing to transition to the . Our district didn’t have an aligned curriculum but, determined as I was to engage my students by sharing with them my lab experience, I embarked on designing lessons based on experimentation and data analysis. My results weren’t steller; the students were still bored. But my proof of concept came when I asked them to analyze video game data. It was here, in what they considered a relevant context, that they started to engage.  

As I became more familiar with the performance expectations of the NGSS, my instinct about the importance of students really understanding data, and how to conduct analyses, was confirmed. Because unlike traditional science assessments that required little math knowledge, the new standards challenged students to analyze charts, graphs, maps and data sets — and to recognize patterns. 

Video games notwithstanding, I struggled to find relevant data for students to use. I even attempted an assignment asking students to find local data and graphs, but that turned out to be far too complicated for middle schoolers. I spent long hours searching for information to fit the new standards, but my lesson plans often failed to engage the students. I found some good project-based lessons, but putting them in any kind of successive order felt disjointed and disconnected. Despite having good standards, understanding what they asked students to know and to be able to do, and with all the best of intentions, instruction in my classroom was still a bit of a mess.   

Things changed in 2018, when a neighboring school in our district that was field-testing OpenSciEd middle school units offered to demonstrate lessons. Because I’d become a bit discouraged by my own less-than-successful efforts, I was excited to give it a try. Our New Mexico Public Education Department offered OpenSciEd workshops, for which I was very grateful. 

What excited me the most about the OpenSciEd curriculum was that it’s modeled after real life scientific research. Standards that required students to memorize content knowledge were replaced by the new “Performance Expectations,” which, in addition to content knowledge, require the steps of scientific inquiry. Instead of teaching students to memorize the order —Observe, Question, Research, Hypothesis, Peer Review — OpenSciEd models the experience I had in the laboratory of solving problems.  

When I was working in a lab, I would become consumed with figuring out a solution to the myriad problems I encountered along the way — and, as we began using the curriculum, I was delighted to see that this was the experience my students were having as well. They really took to their role as scientific investigators! 

“It’s like a puzzle, it’s all out there, just sitting there, pieces broken off, it’s up to you to get that viewpoint,” eighth grade student Shawn Baker told our visitors from the Knowledge Matters Campaign. “Start with one piece and slowly add, add, add — until you have one big understanding.”

And, COVID couldn’t have been a more real-world example to demonstrate to our students the importance of solving problems by utilizing the scientific process. By the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, we collectively became consumed with the importance of scientific literacy and data sense-making.

Each lesson in the OpenSciEd curriculum asks students to look at information, analyze it, and ask themselves what makes sense and what doesn’t. We’re using science literacy skills to look at information and make evidence-based judgments. These are skills and attitudes I didn’t pick up until college. I am proud that I am helping my students learn this at such a young age. They know how to look at a problem and start solving it. If I were an employer, particularly if I were running a lab, I would absolutely be looking for people who have the skills my students are learning from this curriculum.  

These are some of my lessons learned from adopting and implementing OpenSciEd over the years:

1. Don’t be afraid to make the curriculum your own. 
2. There’s a lot of content in OpenSciEd and it can get overwhelming. We’ve all heard the expression, “Go slow to go fast.” That applies here. 
3. Students are doing the heavy lifting with this curriculum, and some of them might not be used to that much thinking. It may be tempting for teachers to revert to their traditional practice of giving students the answers and expecting them to retain it versus discovering it on their own. But investigating it on their own creates more engagement, which helps with information retention. 
4. Be careful what you omit (for pacing or other reasons). When I have omitted things in the past, I have often found that we’ve missed a crucial step in building student comprehension. Every year I teach this curriculum I appreciate more and more how thoughtfully it was constructed.  
5. Grading student work will take longer than in previous years, but it’s worth it. Because of the nature of what they’re doing, the work you’re reviewing provides a real opportunity to recognize where the students are in their understanding and use it to offer useful feedback.   

My best advice is to go for it. Having every student in every class engaged and learning is the payoff. Our kids need and deserve to have science made meaningful to them in the way we’ve been able to with this curriculum.

When you walk into a science classroom at West Feliciana Middle School you will likely see a lot of excited engagement — with students exploring scientific phenomena and making observations about what they see, asking questions and making predictions about the world around them, and conducting experiments to answer their research questions. These activities model the methods of a professional scientific researcher and, while relatively new to the school, are becoming commonplace for our student body.

Ten years ago I was a student at West Feliciana Middle School. While I have always been one of those who succeeded in the standard classroom environment, science classes rarely piqued my interest. Even though school came easily to me, I struggled to pay attention, or even stay awake, during science class. I yearned for opportunities to “get my hands dirty” and try things out for myself. Unfortunately, most of the science classes I experienced utilized what I now understand to be the “sit and get” model, with students sitting silently in their seats while the teacher presented information. Unsurprisingly, this was wildly boring for many of us.

I write this now as a student teacher in the same middle school where I grew up. I’m a senior at Louisiana State University’s GeauxTeach STEM program currently working to earn my full Louisiana teaching certificate. Science is my passion, and my interest in becoming an educator was to inspire that same passion in students from my hometown community. (I have since decided to pursue a medical degree; but that’s another story.)

Luckily for me, my assigned mentor teacher, Sarah Parkerson, was also my seventh-grade science teacher when I was a student at WFMS, providing me with the unique opportunity to compare my classroom experiences of 10 years ago to the experiences that students are currently receiving at WFMS. The contrast truly is remarkable.

WFMS now uses , a middle school science curriculum created to support the , that require so much more of students than those in place when I went through school. At the start of each unit, students are presented with a familiar “anchoring phenomenon.” This phenomenon is then used as a framework to explore the scientific principles and processes laid out in the standards.

In one of our units, for example, the curriculum used a bath bomb as its anchoring phenomenon to teach students about chemical reactions. Almost all of the students in my classes have been familiar with this common bathroom item, but, upon initial probing, my students realized they didn’t have any idea of why or how it worked. We started out the unit by asking questions about the bath bombs.

 “What is it made out of?” “Is the gas trapped inside?” “What happens if you put the bath bomb in a different liquid?” When they dropped the bath bomb in the water, we asked them to make and record their observations. They then performed experiments to see how the mass and properties change before and after dropping the bath bomb in water. We even analyzed the materials in the bath bomb to see what combinations of ingredients would give us similar reactions.

Throughout this entire process, the students were rarely sitting at their desks taking in information and being given explanations by their teacher. They were the ones asking questions and making observations. They took measurements. They conducted mini experiments and analyzed their results. While the activities may have been facilitated by the classroom teacher, it was unquestionably the students who were driving their learning. And it was extremely motivating to them to find answers to their questions. Their curiosity and engagement was sustained throughout the unit.

In the end, our students learned a ton about chemical reactions and how we identify them, based on a common bath item they’d never thought twice about. They came to class excited to do experiments to figure out an explanation behind something that they knew worked but never knew why it worked, bragging to their friends when their predictions turned out to be correct. I’m certain they would not have been nearly as excited to sit in a chemistry classroom and learn the same material from a lecture. I know that I would have preferred the “OpenSciEd” curriculum as a student 10 years ago. I wish I had been taught this way.

I also firmly believe that our student’s retention of scientific knowledge is enhanced by this approach. In our most recent unit, students are learning about the digestive system and our body’s metabolic reactions through the anchoring phenomena of a sick middle school girl named “M’Kenna.” Throughout the unit, these seventh graders are referencing things they learned in their sixth grade OpenSciEd unit about the body’s healing processes as building blocks for what they’re learning now. Through these small but significant references to their sixth grade experiences, my students have shown that they are not only improving their volume of learned science knowledge, but are also making connections to previously learned material. 

I’ve become convinced that inspiring a love for science in young people depends on falling in love with the scientific process itself. As functioning adults we ask questions, make observations and seek connections to answer our questions. On a fundamental level, this is the basic framework that scientific researchers, regardless of their chosen scientific field, work with every day. If we can model this process in our classroom, we can not only introduce the basic scientific process to our students but also improve their problem-solving skills.  

The enthusiasm my students at WFMS have for science, in contrast to the experience my classmates and I experienced a decade ago, makes it abundantly clear that utilizing the scientific process has the power to engage — far more than sitting and memorizing any particular tidbit of scientific knowledge. The fact that students are doing this in a collaborative environment, with their peers, also makes it so much more “real.” And I sincerely hope that this will inspire our students to live their lives as scientists, not just until state testing concludes. 

Robert Emery Godke is a senior at Louisiana State University’s GeauxTeach STEM program and a student teacher in the West Feliciana Parish Schools in Louisiana.

I, Shusheela Valdez, recently had the pleasure of joining the Knowledge Matters School Tour on a visit to Graves County, Kentucky — just down the road from where, a year ago, Mayfield, Kentucky was decimated by a Category 4 tornado. The School Tour traveled to this little community in the southwest corner of the state because of the reputation it had received as a model district for implementation of the OpenSciEd curriculum. We wanted to see what that looked like and learn how it happened. 

For the last eight years, I have trained educators from Kentucky to California on implementing , a high quality open source curriculum aligned with the . I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the instruction in Graves County — and the elegant way in which this amazing curriculum came to life — was the strongest I’ve seen anywhere.

Amanda Hanson is one of two instructional supervisors in the district. We spent some time together processing her district’s story. Below is a transcript of that conversation that has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Valdez: When did you adopt OpenSciEd and why?

Henson: Our journey began back in 2018, not long after the Next Generation Science Standards were adopted. I was visiting many classroom teachers’ rooms at the time and when we saw what our new state assessment in science entailed, we were like, “ow, we are not preparing our students to do this!” I talked to other teachers and we were all pretty overwhelmed at what our kids were expected to do. We knew we needed help and started looking around at what was available. OpenSciEd really rose to the top.

Why was it such a right fit for your district?

One thing is that we’re a huge “cooperative learning” district. All of our teachers are trained on and implement in their classrooms. Students are very familiar with talking and discussing as a group. Our structure is to have students talk in an organized manner, and not opt out — to ensure every voice is heard. So we had that in place and were making some important progress — and then we looked at OpenSciEd and recognized that that’s how it’s designed: it’s designed for that kind of student thinking and student talk. It just fit really well with what we were already doing in the district.

What would you say was the secret of your success?

Without a doubt it was the professional development we received. We knew we couldn’t throw a new curriculum at teachers without providing extensive support. We were extremely fortunate to receive a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York that enabled us to bring in an external partner, Tricia Shelton, chief learning officer for the National Science Teaching Association. We received two days per unit from her, so 12 days total. 

Because we were a “field test” — pilot — district for OpenSciEd, we got additional coaching from NSTA. They wanted to know how the curriculum was working in classrooms. What does this look like? Where do students struggle? Tricia would come in and watch our teachers, co teach with them, model lessons, etc. This was invaluable. The other thing that was great about this is that it conveyed to our teachers a culture of open, continuous improvement. Now we have teachers who can do that modeling, that coaching. If a teacher has a question, our more experienced teachers will say, “Come on in and watch me do this lesson.” And because we’re doing the same thing district wide, we have lots of opportunity for ongoing collaboration and support. 

Tell us a little bit more about the Kagan structure and how you think it’s such a powerful bedrock for OpenSciEd.

Kagan structures allow the teacher to be the facilitator of instruction and OpenSciEd is designed perfectly to encourage this. The OpenSciEd curriculum asks many open-ended, high-level questions. The teacher can pose the question and use a Kagan structure to facilitate student talk in a manner where all students must think and engage in the task. This allows for rich conversation in which the students want to explore the topic and they are in turn taking responsibility for their learning. Students are on task learning and having fun, as well as building a teamlike approach and collaborating with one another. Every student has a role, no one is left out and equal participation happens as students show positive interdependence where they need each other to learn.

What are some of the highlights of the student experience you’re seeing as a result of your implementation of this curriculum?

Students are really exploring, they’re learning, they’re talking, they’re discussing, they’re figuring things out. Most importantly, they’re excited. You saw it in the classrooms you visited. The students were all very focused. There’s not a single student off task. I really think we’re training our students to take ownership of their learning. That’s one of the beauties of this curriculum.  There are guiding questions but the teachers are taught to hold back so that students get engaged in finding the answers for themselves. Our students are really engaged in science.  Across our buildings, it’s one of their favorite subjects.

I also love how kids are learning that it’s ok to struggle, and it’s even OK to be wrong. We saw that in one of the classrooms you visited. One of the students, who happens to be very bright, was wrong about something he’d written down and another student came in and corrected him and it was OK. He even said, “Thank you for helping me”. That’s the culture we want to build for our students. 

Is implementation of this science curriculum supporting your literacy goals?

An additional bonus of OpenSciEd is how reading and writing are embedded into the curriculum. They do a lot of writing, but they hardly notice it because it’s just so natural for them to record what’s happening. And because of how much collaboration there is, they’re constantly explaining their thinking. The curriculum is designed to ensure that students grow in all areas, not just science.

I was two months into my dream job as Lafourche Parish’s director of elementary schools, ready to help lead our district back from COVID, when the second-most destructive hurricane in American history made landfall in south Louisiana. In one short week of 2021, Category 4 Hurricane Ida damaged nearly every one of our school buildings and wreaked havoc on the lives of our families. Our hopes for normalcy — that the pandemic was finally behind us — screeched to a halt. 

Some of our schools were left completely unusable. How were we going to provide for the needs of our 12,000 students? Our superintendent insisted students needed to be brought back on campus sooner than later. By nothing short of a miracle, all students were back to school in eight weeks. 

One year later, the Louisiana Department of Education for the district’s commitment to high quality science instruction and maintaining student growth on the state assessments, despite disruptions from the pandemic and Hurricane Ida. A large celebration, “Making the Impossible Possible,” was held at the local high school. State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley presented our district with a banner marking our comeback. Finally, something to truly celebrate! It was a testament to the resolve of the bayou people. None of this could have been possible, however, had our district not gone through the extensive process four years ago of adopting Amplify Science, which “.”

I was in my former role as a school principal when we implemented the high-quality curriculum. In that position, I experienced first-hand the dramatic change in students being far more engaged and excited about the opportunities they were given with Amplify Science. No more sit-and-get. Science was now about hands-on learning, experiments and problems to solve relevant to their lives.   

When I met with parents, they talked about the topics in Amplify Science. There was a special excitement about the “floating train,” part of a third grade unit on balancing forces. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Wow, our students are so turned on, they’re teaching their parents. We’re developing future scientists here. We were engaging girls in science! Students, teachers and parents are all talking about science.”&�Բ�����;

The implementation of Amplify was a pretty seamless one. Unlike with other newly adopted curriculums, we didn’t get much or any pushback. Louisiana had adopted new science standards in 2017 and our teachers were looking for support. Amplify Science addressed the standards and our teachers felt it really gave them confidence with the new content. They loved that everything was all right there for them and embraced learning this new “phenomenon-based” approach.  Any hesitation the teachers had about whether or not the kids could do it was overwhelmed by the kids’ excitement.  

The Knowledge Matters team toured Lockport Upper Elementary when they visited this spring. As I accompanied our visitors into classrooms, I had a chance to see the instruction with fresh eyes, and I was excited by what I saw. Topics were rich. Third graders were reading to find evidence about environmental changes and adaptive traits. Fourth graders were exploring how sound travels. Fifth graders were building terrariums and making predictions about what would happen in them over the coming weeks. In each classroom, science came alive — and evidence was abundant of students growing their speaking, listening, reading and writing skills right alongside their science content knowledge. This was in stark contrast to the direct instruction of science concepts we had used in the past.

Educators told our visitors they were grateful to have a curriculum that provided in one place all the pieces they needed to be effective. They no longer had to spend hours gathering and researching and putting lessons together on their own. They could now spend their time perfecting their craft. They quickly realized that their students were actively engaged in lessons, they were having fun, they were thinking critically, they were reading and writing about science — they were truly learning. There was an overwhelming consensus among educators and families that this shift in science instruction was a welcome one.  

What happened in those two days of the Knowledge Matters tour would give any educator the “frissons,” a French word we use in south Louisiana when we get the chills. It was more than I ever expected — a few of us were even brought to tears. Perhaps best were the students’ voices, saying things like, “Science is fun;” “It’s like magic, but it’s real;” “Science is my favorite subject.”

Our journey is far from complete. There is still much work to be done here in Lafourche Parish Schools. But we know we have laid the groundwork for future success with the help of a high-quality science curriculum. None of this could be done without the dedication of our classroom teachers and support from our families and community. The biggest winners in all of this are our students, the single reason we exist. We are definitely in this to win it for them!

Developing a sense of curiosity was the expectation in my house, so science had always been a part of my life. But, it wasn’t always my favorite class. So it’s been my goal as an educator to change that experience for students — to inspire them with the kind of science education that fills them with a sense of wonder, and to give them the agency that they, too, can be scientists, if they so choose. 

I have taught science for more than 20 years. I’ve been in hundreds of science classrooms, mostly witnessing students compliantly writing notes into graphic organizers, passively watching their teacher explain the parts of the digestive system, for example. I suffered through data reports showing that only certain students — generally those of a certain ethnicity, gender or ability — were successful in science while others were left woefully behind. I watched as teachers worked countless hours to write their own curriculum, gather their own materials and struggle to make lessons work. And, hardest of all, I listened to students share their distaste for their science classes. 

Science is a subject of curiosity, wonder and exploration, but our classrooms did not mirror this. I knew — and the talented educators I worked with knew — that something had to change. 

Then the stars aligned, in a way that rarely happens. California adopted , which, instead of treating learning like a “sit and get,” takes what they call a “three dimensional” approach that moves students from passive learners to curious architects of their own learning. Our teachers were hungry to learn about the new standards, and to better understand the pedagogical shifts they required. The district created a multiyear professional learning plan for all secondary teachers, which our teachers eagerly embraced, spending time away from their classroom and during the summers and weekends to dive deeply into NGSS and realign their instruction to meet those demands. 

And, we needed instructional materials! But, we specifically needed materials that could provide teachers with tools to help students make sense of what they’re learning. We knew that to achieve that, we would need to implement a curriculum that was designed around the pedagogy of NGSS rather than around isolated facts of science. 

In the 2020-21 school year, now on Zoom, our middle school science teachers used the to consider two open source curricula. Teachers were particularly impressed by , noting the curriculum’s intentional connections to sensemaking and previous learnings, while effectively progressing learning. We ultimately selected OpenSciEd for our middle schools. 

Implementing a new curriculum is never smooth, it never fits just right at first, and it never magically solves all of our problems. We knew the instructional shifts and changes required to implement Open SciEd were going to challenge teachers. We wanted to provide teachers the space to try out the pedagogy, to take risks in their classrooms and to be vulnerable as they learned new ways of learning, without high stakes accountability. So we implemented it slowly. We asked teachers to complete two units a year and continue to add two units each year until we implement all units. Teachers are supported in the implementation of each unit with professional learning, including Lesson Studies centered around certain pedagogical moves, such as what OpenSciEd calls the “.”&�Բ�����;

For the last decade, SMUSD has invested significant time and resources to improve the quality of science education, and the proof of our success is in our classrooms. Our students are engaging in learning that is centered around them, that cares about their understanding, and that teaches them to work together to strengthen their understanding of concepts. 

“This collaboration idea doesn’t just apply to science. It applies to everything we are going to do, no matter what career you pursue,” one student said during the Knowledge Matters School Tour visit. “You are going to have to collaborate with everyone else. You and other people are going to have to solve it and work together.”&�Բ�����;

While the change has been challenging, the students are already showing growth, one teacher said, adding that teaching the new lessons becomes easier as time goes on. “I think it’s through the science and engineering practices that we’re really getting kids to express what they know,” another teacher observed. We’re opening their eyes to becoming global citizens.”&�Բ�����;

We are moving in the right direction. We are moving towards a classroom environment where each and every student, no matter their ethnicity, gender or ability, is engaged in building their scientific knowledge and developing their critical thinking, collaboration and communication skills, and most importantly, their confidence in seeing themselves as potential scientists.

This spotlighting interesting academic work, originally appeared at .

Racial and ethnic disparities in advanced math and science skills occur far earlier in the U.S. than previously known. Our new study finds that  display advanced math skills by kindergarten. The contrasting percentage for both Black and Hispanic students is 4%.

These disparities then continue to occur throughout elementary school. By fifth grade, 13% of white students and 22% of Asian students display advanced math skills. About 2% of Black students and 3% of Hispanic students do so. Similar disparities occur in advanced science skills.

What explains these disparities? Factors that consistently explain these disparities include the family’s socioeconomic status – such as parental education and household income – and the student’s own understanding of math, science and reading during kindergarten.

We observed these findings in analyses of a nationally representative sample of about 11,000 U.S. elementary school students. The students were followed from the start of kindergarten until the end of fifth grade.

Why it matters

 of U.S. scientists and engineers are Black or Hispanic.

Racial and ethnic disparities in advanced math and science skills are constraining the country’s  and . Students who display advanced math skills early are more likely to later obtain doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering and math fields – collectively called STEM – and to become  or .

Yet little has been known about how early racial and ethnic disparities in advanced math and science skills emerge. This information could help inform  at a   of child development.

Currently, most efforts by  and  to address Black and Hispanic underrepresentation in STEM begin in   or . Yet minority students’  in STEM careers begins to  by middle school, with many students viewing scientists as stereotypically white.

Recent work suggests that racial and ethnic disparities in advanced math skills are  in the U.S. by the upper elementary grades.

What still isn’t known

We were able to identify the factors that mostly explained disparities in advanced math or science skills between Hispanic and white students during elementary school. These factors included the family’s socioeconomic status, the student’s emerging bilingualism, and the student’s early knowledge about math, science and reading. However, these same factors explained only some of the disparities between Black and white students.

Other factors we did not study could be involved, including the greater likelihood of  to attend  . The emerging bilingualism of many Hispanic students may help facilitate advanced STEM skills through greater ,  and problem-solving.

To increase STEM representation in high school, college and the workforce, efforts by educators and policymakers to support talented students of color may need to begin by the elementary grades.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

Today, we give center stage to Zidaan Kapoor, a homeschooled 15-year-old from Redwood City, California who knows a thing or two about the anxiety that comes with having food allergies. Zidaan was diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies when he was just a toddler, but it wasn’t until his most recent bout that he truly understood the dangers. 

“The aftermath was something I never experienced,” he says. “It was debilitating anxiety.  I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t trust my family members [to prepare food for me].”

So he developed an app called Fight Fears to solve this problem for both himself and his peers. Through a series of questions, the app analyzes the user’s anxiety level. Based on that, users get challenges to complete to quell that anxiety, with the goal of allowing users to feel more in control of their allergy fears. Zidaan also founded and operates a math and chess tutoring business for other youth.

But right now, he says he’s most concerned about social justice, climate change and mental health: “I’m kind of using all of this as a baseline to move forward in a way that I can discover as I move along.”

See our full interview — and celebrate our full 2022 class! 

—Video edited by James Fields and produced by Emmeline Zhao

In states like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Virginia, student test scores are climbing back toward their pre-pandemic levels, encouraging those who feel progress being made and worrying many who still see teaching and learning severely depressed by the impacts of closures. 

However, in , student scores show deep learning loss in both ELA and math, in which fewer than a third of students are now proficient. Districts in are reporting scores “plummeting” in every subject, for every grade. And while rolls out a new, “teacher-developed” assessment that makes it difficult to compare new scores to pre-pandemic years, state results show just about a quarter of students scoring proficiently in any given grade or subject. 

The results come as national tests and data  — like the NAEP exam and data gleaned by nonprofit assessment maker NWEA — seemingly confirm the severity of the pandemic’s impact and underscore the need for schools and districts to wisely invest available recovery dollars.

Looking beyond assessments, here are nine other updates from across the country about how states and school systems are confronting the challenges posed by COVID-19 and its variants — and working to preserve student progress amid the pandemic:

WASHINGTON — Hungry for More Student Interest, WA Teachers Test a Free Science Curriculum

The lack of high-quality, engaging, and affordable science curriculum has made it difficult for many states to reach their goals of incorporating and implementing aligned to Next Generation Science Standards, experts and teachers . But, an openly developed and freely available curriculum, could be a game-changer as schools and districts reenergize their focus on science instruction and offerings. Washington is one of at least 10 states encouraging educators to pilot the OpenSciEd materials. This represents a departure from science instruction based on lectures and student memorization of information and toward student-centered exploration, investigation, and discussion. 

TEXAS & TENNESSEE — 2 States Get Tutoring Right, and Model How to Expand it Nationwide

States like Tennessee and Texas have taken the initiative to close achievement gaps, particularly in math, and get students back on track by implementing high-dosage tutoring programs and partnering with Zearn, a top-rated, open-source math learning platform. And though tutoring has risen as a top, evidence-based strategy to accelerate learning, Zearn co-founder and CEO Shalinee Sharma underscores the need for states to support schools, districts, and their teachers by properly vetting tutoring providers, ensuring the availability of aligned and high-quality training, and navigating challenges associated with staffing and scheduling. 

FLORIDA — Only 48% of 5th Graders Passed the State’s Science Exam; Fewer Than a Quarter Were ‘Proficient’

Recent statewide science exam results show a 1 percent increase from 2021 scores and a 3-7 percent decrease from 2012-2019 with 48 percent of Florida fifth-graders passing the 2022 exam, based on a score of 3 or higher. “That means some 5th graders struggling in science are headed into middle schools, where science courses can get harder,” author Danielle J. Brown noted. 

WISCONSIN — Evers Unveils Proposed $2B Boost to K-12 Schools

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers recently proposed  for the 2023-25 state budget. If passed, the additional funds would be invested into literacy-related programs, student mental health aid, and free lunch programs for all students. “After a tough past few years, we know our kids and our families and schools need our help now more than ever to get caught up and to get more educators and staff into our classrooms, and ensure every kid has the support and resources that they need to be successful,” Evers said.

GEORGIA — State’s GEER Funds Confront COVID-19 Learning Loss

Gov. Brian Kemp announced over supporting learning recovery around the state. Organizations included the Georgia Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, Georgia Alliance of YMCAs, and Georgia Department of Education, along with many others. “We know there is still more work to do when it comes to recovering from pandemic-driven learning loss in our classrooms,” Kemp said. “That’s why I’m thankful to know that these additional funds — on top of the historic investments we’ve made in K-12 education — will both put students first and help set them on a renewed path of learning success.” The funds are intended to support programs that have been launched in partnership with schools, like community-based tutoring, summer and after-school initiatives, and expanded services for students with special needs.

CALIFORNIA — State May Become 20th State to Mandate Kindergarten

A bill awaiting signature by California Gov. Gavin Newsom , beginning in the 2024-25 school year. Proponents of the bill in the California State Legislature cite research showing strong positive links between early childhood education programs and quality of life indicators, like income, teen pregnancy, and higher education attainment. Alberto M. Carvalho, Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, penned a piece in support of the legislation. (Update: Gov. Newsom just )

INDIANA — New Grant Helps $111 Million Early Literacy Investment

To combat flagging literacy rates, the state of Indiana and Lilly Endowment Inc. using proven teaching techniques that align with the “science of reading,” a collection of research-based strategies that focus on building skill in phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. “I believe this funding will not only better prepare our students for a successful life, but will benefit the teaching profession by offering stipends to those who choose to participate in professional development and providing future educators additional instruction on Science of Reading methods,” shared Jeff Raatz, chair of the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — D.C. Schools Roll Out Program to Improve Student Reading Levels

A new D.C. Public Schools effort called DCPS Readers Next Door is launching in the district this school year, and grow literacy rates. Featuring decodable texts and curriculum aligned to the “science of reading,” the program also lifts up lessons and texts from D.C. authors and educators. The new resources come as the first standardized test scores since the onset of the pandemic shine a light on how deeply learning was impacted by COVID-19 and school closures. This year, 36% of D.C. students scored proficient in reading, a 4% decline since pre-pandemic levels. 

NEBRASKA — Newly Approved Math Standards Put Greater Emphasis on Data, Statistics

In response to a statewide dip in math proficiency, members of the Nebraska State Board of Education . According to state law, districts must adopt the standards or their own set of standards on par with rigor within a year. Cory Epler, the department’s chief academic officer, said he expects districts to use federal relief funds to purchase high-quality math curriculum. “Adopting standards is not enough by itself to raise proficiency. Quality instruction is important as well,” he said.

This update on pandemic recovery in education collects and shares news updates from the district, state, and national levels as all stakeholders continue to work on developing safe, innovative plans to resume schooling and address learning loss. It’s an offshoot of the Collaborative for Student Success’ QuickSheet newsletter, which you can .

We met an inspired 15-year-old STEM activist, Kavya Venkatesan, from Old Bridge, New Jersey who believes innovation and STEM can solve social issues affecting everything from bias in healthcare to sustainability. Kavya is also dedicated to building the nation’s female STEM workforce pipeline

She has developed strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change on her home state by creating an app, NJ X Connect, that connects individuals in low-income, coastal communities with flood relief organizations and resources in the event of an emergency. “Because right now, our strategy in those communities should be helping them be more resilient,” she said.

Kavya’s second app, Helios, a heat advisory system, aims to educate users about their risk of being hospitalized from heat strokes.

Her passion for STEM as a means of social change led her to the national organization Society of Women Engineers, where she brings industry professionals and students together to develop solutions for social change.

“I realized diversity, equity and inclusion — it has to be something that we need to focus more on in the STEM field,” Kavya said.

See our full interview — and celebrate our full 2022 class! 

Today we’re spotlighting 14-year-old Steven Hoffen, who attends the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, New York. 

A pre-pandemic visit to Sindyanna of Galilee, a nonprofit in Israel where Jewish and Arab women work together to foster social change and cultivate hydroponic gardens, inspired Steven to produce a short documentary telling the story of their efforts.

“What really caught my attention was Hadas [Lahav], who was a Jewish [woman] cooperating with Hanaan [Zoabi], who’s an Arab woman,” he said. “And so that really got my interest in all of their projects.”

Steven was especially interested in Sindayanna’s hydroponics, a form of vertical farming that doesn’t require soil or specific climate conditions. As Steven describes it, climate change has caused drier conditions and reduced availability of fertile land in Israel.

Inspired by a David Attenborough nature documentary his family watched on Netflix, Steven produced a documentary, “Growing Peace in the Middle East.” The film was recognized at numerous film festivals and prompted Hoffen to launch a nonprofit, Growing Peace, which is dedicated to using hydroponics “as a medium to educate, empower and help those in need.”

He also raised money to build a hydroponics system for a food bank in Israel that is primarily for Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers. 

“[Hadas] said that since my film has been [shown] in different film festivals, 20 more women have joined the hydroponics project,” Steven said. “That really just made me happy.”

See our full interview — and celebrate our full 2022 class!

—Video edited by James Fields and produced by Emmeline Zhao

Lydia has life-threatening allergies and suffers from severe anxiety, which causes her hair and nails to fall out. “So much of her life feels out of her control, but instead of letting these things overwhelm her or define her, she uses them as fuel for inventions,” said her nominator and mother, Covey Denton, a K-8 STEM specialty teacher.

One example: Lydia created what she calls a “Halcyon Bracelet” to help with body-focused repetitive behaviors, which plagued her during the COVID quarantine. She’s also invented a “Beat the Heat Car Seat” that can tell when a child has been left in a car, and initiates a call to emergency services if the temperature in the vehicle becomes dangerously hot.

The teen also works to reduce e-waste, and co-founded Regame Inc., a nonprofit that collects, repairs and redistributes used gaming systems and tablets to keep them from piling up in landfills. 

Above and beyond her creations and innovations, Denton also continues to speak to school groups and programs for girls to promote greater female interest and representation in STEM.

Watch our full interview — and celebrate our full 2022 class!

—Video edited by James Fields and produced by Emmeline Zhao