As a result of COVID-19, various forms of education and teaching are moving online. However, the notion of an online STEM camp is still in its beginnings, and there is little relevant research and experience in this context. At the beginning of April 2021, the research team launched an online STEM charity camp with the theme of "Shen Nong…

STEM integration has become a popular concept not only in the context of education practices but also as a way of learning. The integration of the STEM domains is evident in students' learning experiences when engaging in STEM activities. However, there is a lack of instruments for evaluating students' levels of self-efficacy in these activities.…

The Next Generation Science Standards support understanding of the nature of science as it is practiced and experienced in the real world through interconnected concepts to be imbedded within scientific practices and crosscutting concepts. This study explored how fourth and fifth grade elementary students' views of nature of science change when…

An important, but as yet unresolved pedagogical question is whether discovery-oriented or direct instruction methods lead to greater learning and transfer. We address this issue in a study with 101 fourth and fifth grade students that contrasts two distinct instructional methods. One is a blend of discovery and direct instruction called…

The new science education reform documents call for integration of engineering into K-12 science classes. Engineering design and practices are new to most science teachers, meaning that implementing effective engineering instruction is likely to be challenging. This quasi-experimental study explored the influence of teacher-developed, engineering…

This research explores learning in science museums through the most common activity in a science museum--interaction with exhibits. The goal of this study was to characterize the learning behaviors exhibited by students as they engage with interactive exhibits in order to draw insight regarding the design of the exhibits. In order to do so, we…

Formative assessment strategies are used to direct instruction by establishing where learners' understanding is, how it is developing, informing teachers and students alike as to how they might get to their next set of goals of conceptual understanding. For the science classroom, one rich source of formative assessment data about scientific…

This study adopted a quasi-experimental design with follow-up interview to develop a computer-based two-tier assessment (CBA) regarding the science topic of electric circuits and to evaluate the diagnostic power of the assessment. Three assessment formats (i.e., paper-and-pencil, static computer-based, and dynamic computer-based tests) using…

Rooted in science education and science communication studies, this study examines 4th and 5th grade students' perceptions of science information sources (SIS) and their use in communicating science to students. It combines situated learning theory with uses and gratifications theory in a qualitative phenomenological analysis. Data were gathered…

Despite the abundance of research in Modeling-based Learning (MbL) in science education, to date there is only limited research on MbL practices among K-6 novice modelers. More specifically, there is no information on how young/novice modelers' modeling enactments look so that researchers and educators have an idea of what should be expected from…

Enactment of scientific inquiry in classroom has attracted a great attention of science educators around the world. In this study, we examined two competent teachers' (one Grade 9 chemistry teacher and one Grade 4 science teacher) enactment of scientific inquiry in selected teaching units to reveal the characteristics of enacted inquiry at…

The study provides evidence concerning elementary school children's ability to conduct a scientific investigation. Two hundred and fifty sixth-grade students and 248 fourth-grade students were administered a test, and based on their performance, they were classified into high-ability and low-ability students. The sample of this study was…

This study investigated the impact of technology-based advance organizers (TBAOs) on the academic performance of 240 4th grade English learners (ELs) participating in a science class in School in the Park (SITP), a museum-school collaboration. While SITP provides a rich, hands-on learning environment, ELs face significant linguistic challenges in…

This study examined to what extent inquiry-based instruction supported with real-time graphing technology improves fourth grader's ability to interpret graphs as representations of physical science concepts such as motion and temperature. This study also examined whether there is any difference between inquiry-based instruction supported with…

Early exposure to science may have a lifelong effect on children's attitudes towards science and their motivation to learn science in later life. Out-of-class environments can play a significant role in creating favourable attitudes, while contributing to conceptual learning. Educational science theatre is one form of an out-of-class environment,…