Making Waves with Radio is a suite of museum activities, apps, and camp curricula for engaging educators, youth, and public audiences about radio technologies.
Project Inspiration
Energy waves operating at radio frequencies surround us at all times. Engineers design devices and systems to harness this energy and provide wireless communications that allow us to send data and messages across the world at the speed of light. That’s why we can use cell phones, make contactless payments, monitor weather conditions, and control air traffic.
Radio technologies are undergoing rapid technological changes and are highly relevant to our advancing, 21st-century society. Still, many people are unfamiliar with how radio carries our information and how we can participate in its development, governance, and use.
At BSCS Science Learning, we are working with informal educators to change that.
Informal educators working in museums, out-of-school programs, and other informal settings across the nation are uniquely positioned to engage and educate public and youth audiences about complex topics. And with the right tools and resources, these educators can make a significant impact.
About the Project
The Making Waves with Radio project aims to promote awareness and understanding of radio frequency technologies and wireless technologies across informal learning environments.
BSCS is partnering with STEM professionals across academic and informal education to create a suite of resources, including digital apps, craft-based activities, and mobile and online professional learning. These resources will be inclusive, accessible, and adaptable to engage youth and the public about radio frequency communications.
BSCS is co-designing each of these resources with our partners: Georgia Tech, the Children’s Creativity Museum, Museum of Life and Science, Sciencenter, Teknikio, Global Alliance of Community Science Workshops, and NISE Network museum partners.
The project features a rigorous and multipronged research and development approach that builds on prior studies about Learning sciences to advance a learning-design framework for nimble, mobile, informal education while incorporating the best aspects of hands-on learning. We are testing two related hypotheses:
- A mobile strategy can be effective for supporting just-in-time, informal education of a highly technical, scientific topic.
- A mobile suite of resources, including professional learning, can be used to raise greater awareness and teach informal educators, youth, and the general public about radio frequency communications.
Materials from this project are informed by a front-end evaluation study of educators and public audiences; formative testing and co-design sessions at partner and community sites; and a summative evaluation to be conducted at museums, science festivals, summer camps, and community science workshops. Data sources include pre- and post-surveys, interviews, and focus groups with a wide array of educators and learners.
All materials and reports will be released under an open-source license and will be free to use.
Related Resources
Making Waves: Teaching Radio to Youth and the Public (https://bscs.org/news/making-waves-teaching-radio-to-youth-and-the-public/)
Keeping Voices in the Room: Values Clarification in Codesign for Equitable Science and Technology Education (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cura.12529)
BSCS Science Learning has developed a nationally-recognized program for teacher learning called STeLLA®, Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis. K-12 science teachers who want to implement research-based curriculum, improve their teaching, or navigate next generation science all have something to gain from this proven program. And so do their students. STeLLA is based on a 17-year line of research and development at BSCS. It has demonstrated impacts on both teacher and student learning above and beyond any impacts from a traditional science teacher professional learning program.
STeLLA’s impact is significant across contexts. It works in preservice and inservice settings for elementary, middle, and high school teachers.
So what’s next? We’re translating research into practice by creating broadly accessible versions of the program.
STeLLA is now available online and will soon be available in hybrid format. We’re currently working to expand STeLLA to different grade levels and science disciplines.
How STeLLA Works
STeLLA helps teachers motivate students to learn science. Specifically, it supports teachers in learning to use effective teaching strategies through a powerful video-based lesson analysis approach. Strategies include engaging student thinking and organizing instruction in a way that connects science ideas. Teachers learn to use these strategies by analyzing classroom videos, and sharing their thinking in facilitated sessions with other teachers. The STeLLA program takes place in-person, online, or in a hybrid format over the course of one school year (typically 90 hours), during which teachers apply what they’re learning in their own classrooms.
A Program Based on Research
Over the last 17 years, STeLLA has demonstrated impacts on both teacher and student learning above and beyond any impacts from a traditional science teacher professional learning program.
See our growing line of research at-a-glance: Development of STeLLA
2021
STeLLA Programs Now Available
BSCS now offers broadly accessible versions of STeLLA. Middle school teachers can register for STeLLA for A Medical Mystery, a fully online program that supports teachers in the enactment of an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit. Elementary teachers can register for STeLLA Online, a fully online program that supports teachers in the enactment of Water Cycle and Earth’s Changing Surface units.
2019
STeLLA Scale Up and Sustainability
BSCS is partnering with leaders and science educators throughout Tennessee and Kentucky to help address a national need for high quality science teacher professional learning. With the largest research grant in the organization’s history, BSCS will test, refine, and scale up its STeLLA model with the goal of making a new hybrid (online and in-person) version broadly available. During this five-year project, BSCS will work with 4th and 5th grade teachers primarily from high needs, rural districts and schools. Regional leaders including PIMSER (the Eastern Kentucky University Partnership Institute for Math and Science Education Reform), the Tennessee Aquarium, and Instruction Partners, will help ensure the new STeLLA model is aligned to state science standards and the impact is sustainable long-term. Meanwhile, BSCS is exploring strategies to provide equitable access to STeLLA across the country.
2019
STeLLA for A Medical Mystery
BSCS developed a fully-online STeLLA course to support middle school teachers in the enactment of a 3D body systems curriculum unit: A Medical Mystery. This NGSS-aligned unit, developed in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting, immerses students in an online environment that challenges them to use scientific reasoning skills and argumentation. For eight weeks, students investigate and ultimately solve, "What's Wrong with M'Kenna?" Field-test teachers participated in 11 weeks of STeLLA professional learning to enhance their enactment of the unit. The ultimate goal is to make STeLLA for A Medical Mystery broadly accessible to middle school teachers across the country.
2018
STeLLA Online
A decade ago, BSCS introduced STeLLA to 144 teachers and 2,800 students across Colorado’s Front Range. BSCS conducted a rigorous experimental study of this entirely in-person professional learning program. As a result, both teacher and student learning improved significantly. Since then BSCS has wondered: would an entirely online version of the STeLLA CO program be similarly impactful? That’s what BSCS is exploring and evaluating today during its STeLLA Online program. The ultimate goal is to support more teachers than ever before by offering STeLLA in an online format that is convenient, accessible, and effective.
STeLLA CO2
BSCS is partnering with University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; and University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. This is the first STeLLA project designed to collaborate with university faculty and cooperating teachers educating preservice middle and high school science teachers. The program has the potential to impact one-third of all new secondary science educators certified in Colorado annually. Research is being conducted to develop a new understanding of the benefits and challenges associated with bringing STeLLA to this new context. And ultimately, research will explore STeLLA’s effectiveness on first-year practice outcomes for preservice secondary science teachers. Learn more here.
2015
STeLLA High School
BSCS partnered with Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky to deliver a version of the STeLLA program to one-third of the district’s high school biology teachers. Louisville is the first region in the United States to benefit from research on STeLLA’s effectiveness at the high school biology level. The PD program took place throughout the 2017–2018 school year. Following a successful intervention, BSCS is spearheading leadership development work to deliver STeLLA at a broader and sustainable, district-wide level.
2015
Minnesota STeLLA
BSCS partnered with Minneapolis Public Schools, St. Paul Public Schools, and the University of Minnesota to bring STeLLA to a broad audience across the state of Minnesota accessed through online resources. This was the first opportunity for BSCS to expand STeLLA beyond elementary school and to incorporate engineering design in alignment with Minnesota’s new academic standards in science. The resulting STeLLA program covered STEM teaching and learning across elementary, middle, and high schools in Minnesota. BSCS has expanded the impact of this state-wide work by building leadership capacity among STeLLA-prepared teachers.
2013
RESPeCT
BSCS partnered with California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and a high-needs, urban district in California to test a dissemination model of the intensive STeLLA program. The ultimate goal was for STeLLA to successfully reach and impact every elementary school teacher and their students in the high-needs, urban district, where more than 65% of students are English language learners. BSCS created model units and professional learning materials covering grades K-6 and conducted leadership development programs to prepare the university science faculty and PUSD elementary school teachers to lead STeLLA programs. Research is being conducted to identify the effectiveness of a STeLLA program delivered by trained school district and teacher leaders on both elementary teacher professional learning and student outcomes. Preliminary results are promising. An initial impact study revealed statistically significant improvements in student outcomes that are comparable to results in BSCS-led STeLLA programs.
2012
ViSTA Plus
BSCS partnered with the University of New Mexico and the University of Houston-Victoria on an intensive STeLLA project designed to prepare preservice elementary school science teachers. A much broader and more interactive version of the original ViSTA, this program proved to be a resounding success, demonstrating improvements in teachers’ science content understanding, scientific reasoning skills, and most significantly, an extraordinary advancement in outcomes among these teachers’ students. In their first year of teaching, ViSTA Plus participants performed two standard deviations higher in effectively improving science learning outcomes for students than their university peers who did not participate in the ViSTA Plus program. These findings suggest that the STeLLA approach is effective at preparing new teachers to have immediate and positive impact on student learning.
2011
EMAT
BSCS developed a free online course to help high school science teachers frame complex energy concepts in a relevant and compelling way for students. The STeLLA course covers six units—Coal, Nuclear, Wind, Geothermal, Biofuels, and Solar Energy—and includes 34 engaging classroom videos, 30 content animations, and 20 interactive learning experiences. While originally designed for teachers, EMAT is also a beneficial resource for teacher educators and district PD leaders. Research findings show EMAT to be effective at enhancing teachers’ content knowledge and their ability to reveal, support, and challenge student thinking.
2009
STeLLA CO
BSCS partnered with school districts along Colorado’s Front Range in a randomized-controlled experiment involving 144 teachers and more than 2,800 students. BSCS compared outcomes for 4th and 5th grade teachers in the STeLLA program with outcomes for teachers who participated in a more traditional science teacher PD program focused only on content deepening. The students of teachers in both groups learned as a result of their teachers' participation in PD. However, there was a substantial difference in the learning of students whose teachers were in the STeLLA group compared with those in the comparison group. The difference in scores is equivalent to 23 percentile points. Test results also showed STeLLA students were able to answer questions involving more-complex scientific reasoning.
2004
ViSTA
BSCS explored the value of a STeLLA-inspired program for preservice elementary science teachers by developing and studying the impact of online, videocase-based modules designed as tools to support teacher education courses. As a result, 30 participating university instructors and their students, the preservice teachers, significantly increased their science content knowledge and ability to analyze video-recorded classroom lessons for powerful instruction practices. Though a small-scale study, ViSTA’s results were promising and inspired future investigation on the effectiveness of science teacher preparation.
2003
STeLLA I
Researcher Kathy Roth laid the foundation for the signature line of STeLLA research that continues at BSCS today. Roth’s team at LessonLab Research Institute partnered with California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in a study involving 32 upper elementary school teachers in California. Researchers compared outcomes for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade teachers in the STeLLA program with outcomes for teachers who participated in a more traditional science teacher professional learning (PL) program focused only on content deepening. Despite a relatively small sample size, the STeLLA study provided strong evidence that elementary teachers can improve their science instruction and deepen their science content knowledge in ways that directly impact students’ learning by participating in a videocase-based, analysis-of-practice program.
Hire Us
High quality science education is more important than ever. Teachers must prepare students to succeed in a 21st century society, where scientific reasoning and critical thinking skills are essential. To prepare teachers to achieve this goal, BSCS is working to bring the STeLLA approach to teachers nationwide through partnerships with schools, districts, teacher educators, and funders. Learn more.
Place-Based Learning for Elementary Science at Scale (PeBLES2) supports educators in making science learning experiences meaningful for their students—by connecting to local phenomena, communities, and cultures.
Project Inspiration
What do today’s science learners find interesting and relevant?
This is a question we consistently wrestle with at BSCS Science Learning—particularly when we are developing instructional materials programs for broad audiences nationwide. Our goal is to create materials that engage, inspire, and prepare all learners to use science effectively throughout their lives. And to do that, we must anchor the materials in compelling, real-world phenomena.
But what is compelling—for all learners? Realistically, there is not one phenomenon that will resonate with everyone in exactly the same way. Our world is made up of individuals with different backgrounds, cultures, and everyday lived experiences that shape their perspectives and interests. Still, we feel strongly about reaching all learners, especially those from underserved communities.
At BSCS, we want to support educators in tailoring science learning experiences for their specific contexts—so that all kids get to learn science through the lens of what really matters to them. We’ve partnered with the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA) to do just that.
About the Project
In the PeBLES2 project, we are working with MMSA to support equitable access to place-based science learning opportunities. This entails collaborating with upper elementary educators to make science learning meaningful for students—by connecting to local phenomena, communities, and cultures.
BSCS is leading the development of phenomena-driven units for grades 3–5. These units are designed for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and are grounded in phenomena that can be adapted for various local contexts. MMSA is guiding teachers in incorporating locally or culturally relevant phenomena into these units through a two-year enactment study.
We’re currently exploring how teachers adapt units over multiple years as well as the impact of this intervention on teacher self-efficacy and agency in science teaching and students’ perceptions of relevance.
2020-2022
BSCS develops 4th grade unit, MMSA leads unit pilot, BSCS revises unit.
2023-2024
MMSA leads professional learning for 50 4th grade teachers. Participating teachers adapt and teach units over the course of two years.
2024
BSCS revises units and MMSA revises professional learning, based on teacher feedback and research findings, for public release.
What’s Next
A tested and revised 4th grade Earth Science unit and accompanying professional learning materials will be freely available by December 2024. This unit focuses on weathering erosion and deposition.
OpenSciEd
The OpenSciEd initiative was launched by a consortium of funders led by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to address a critical need in science education: the need for high quality instructional materials that are standards-aligned and practical for broad implementation. In its first phase, OpenSciEd produced a comprehensive, three-year middle school science program.
OpenSciEd Developers Consortium
OpenSciEd instructional materials and accompanying resources for teacher professional development were created and field tested by a consortium of five nationally-recognized educational research and development organizations with the support of a broad network of leaders in science education.
The Consortium included BSCS Science Learning, Boston College, the Dana Center at The University of Texas-Austin, Digital Promise Global, and Northwestern University. These organizations and a network of expert individuals collaborated on all areas of work, under the direction of a steering committee made of educational leaders from ten OpenSciEd partner states.
BSCS was responsible for the leadership and coordination of the Consortium, whose work was organized across specialized centers.
Center: Materials Development
Leads: BSCS & Northwestern
Purpose: Develop and revise science instructional materials for grades 6-8.
Center: Professional Learning
Leads: Boston College
Purpose: Design and develop professional learning resources to support teachers before and during use of OpenSciEd instructional materials.
Center: Data Collection and Analysis
Leads: Digital Promise & Dana Center
Purpose: Design data collection protocol for formative evaluation of field tests, development of instruments, coding and analysis of data collected during field tests, and reporting to developers, partner states, and OpenSciEd organization.
Center: Field Test Implementation
Leads: Dana Center
Purpose: Plan and coordinate the field test professional development and field test data collection.
Work of Consortium
The Consortium’s goal was to create high quality instructional materials that are designed for next generation science and practical for teachers to implement in a diverse range of classroom contexts nationwide.
As a first step toward this goal, The Consortium created program design specifications and a three-year scope and sequence. These foundational documents helped guide the Consortium in developing the full middle school science program—which includes student materials, teacher guides, and resources for teacher professional development including classroom videos. The resulting program implements the entire set of NGSS for grades 6-8 and meets the review criteria for Achieve’s EQuIP rubric.
This was a highly collaborative project, and the Consortium was committed to working closely with classroom teachers, specialists, and education leaders in the design and implementation of all materials. Each unit underwent an 18-month development process that included professional learning, robust field tests, revisions, and external reviews.
Professional Learning
The Consortium has designed professional learning around goals to promote the shifts in science standards. Teachers learn how to support productive science discussions and coherence in student learning, for example, as they navigate effective OpenSciEd unit instruction. After internally designing and delivering professional learning institutes for the first sets of units, the Consortium prepared science education leaders across the ten partner states to facilitate institutes moving forward.
Robust Field Tests
The Consortium field tested all units, measuring success through both student and teacher surveys. For example, do students feel they are able to contribute their own ideas? Are teachers able to use their students’ questions to drive learning? This survey data, which was largely positive across the ten partner states, informed unit revisions and the focus of future professional learning institutes. Hundreds of teachers and thousands of students across all ten partner states participated in the field testing process.
Revisions and External Reviews
The Consortium revised all units based on data from the field test and external reviews, including an EQuIP review by Achieve.
The first three units were released in August 2019, with three additional units released every six months thereafter. The complete middle school program was completed and released in 2022. As of February 2023, the program has earned “All-green” ratings from EdReports.
January 2022
The complete OpenSciEd middle school science program for grades 6-8 is released.
Summer 2019 – Winter 2022
Unit development process—which includes professional learning, robust field testing, revisions, and external reviews—continues, with subsequent rounds of units publicly released every six months. Educators across the ten partner states facilitate the professional learning during this timeframe.
August 2019
First three instructional materials units receive high ratings on the EQuIP rubric from Achieve’s Peer Review Panel and are publicly released.
January 2019
The Developers Consortium is selected to conduct the complete development of the OpenSciEd middle school science program.
September 2018
Carnegie Corporation is joined by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Schusterman Foundation, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in issuing a request for proposals to conduct the complete development of the OpenSciEd middle school science program.
June 2018
Consortium provides professional learning and launches field test with educators in ten states for first three prototype units.
January 2018
Consortium creates a three-year scope and sequence and begins developing the first three instructional materials units.
November 2017
Carnegie Corporation of New York launches OpenSciEd initiative, recruits ten partner states, and contracts with the members of the Developers Consortium to create a scope and sequence, design specifications, and prototype units to lay the groundwork for the OpenSciEd middle school science program.
Plants are all around us. They are essential to our existence. Yet despite their ubiquity, how many science teachers truly understand plant biology and know how to effectively teach it to their students?
Digging Deeper, a BSCS Science Learning research and development project, has been investigating this question for the past four years. Building on the success of PlantingScience, Digging Deeper adds a robust professional learning model that engages teachers and scientists as collaborators in teaching and facilitating real-world science experiences for students.
Until now, the impact of bringing teachers and scientists together to learn, reflect on, and implement meaningful science experiences for students has been unexplored. Results of Digging Deeper will help validate methods and protocols that not only serve to eradicate “plant blindness” and prepare future scientists for plant biology challenges facing the planet but are also relevant to developing teacher and student expertise in inquiry-based science in any science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) discipline.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) identifies three equally important dimensions to learning science: science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. This focus on 3D learning has created a critical need for assessments that can measure students’ ability to use these three dimensions together to make sense of real-world phenomena.
BSCS Science Learning is currently continuing a line of research started at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)* to directly address this need. In our ASPECt-3D project, we will develop and validate scenario-based assessment tasks to measure students’ ability to use the three dimensions to make sense of energy-related phenomena. The assessment tasks will consist of multiple-choice and constructed-response items aligned to elementary, middle, and high school NGSS standards. Our assessment study will include a diverse range of teachers and students in grades 4-12 from urban, rural, and suburban locations across the United States.
As a result of this project, we will produce sets of NGSS-aligned assessments for measuring students’ 3D understanding of energy. We will also develop supporting materials for teachers, including the unpacking of the performance expectations, summaries of student misconceptions and difficulties, scoring rubrics, psychometric properties of the assessments, and guidelines for the use of the assessments and interpretation of results. Additionally, we will use our findings to create a professional learning workshop to help support assessment developers and classroom teachers in creating their own three-dimensional assessments. All products will be made available online for elementary, middle, and high school grade levels.
*ASPECt-3D builds on a previously funded IES project (R305A120138) focused mainly on assessing students’ understanding of science content. The researchers developed three vertically equated, multiple-choice instruments to assess students’ progress on the energy concept.
Middle school science teachers are always searching for professional learning (PL) opportunities and classroom curricula that are NGSS aligned. But time is limited, and high quality NGSS-aligned materials are scarce. That’s why BSCS Science Learning’s Three-Dimensional Teaching and Learning project (3-D Middle School Science), now known as A Medical Mystery, is valuable.
Since 2015, 3-D Middle School Science has been developing and testing digital curriculum materials and associated curriculum-based PL. For teachers, this project provides PL focused on how to implement (1) an NGSS-aligned unit and (2) high-leverage science teaching strategies through video-based lesson analysis. These STeLLA® strategies help teachers reveal, support, and challenge student thinking while maintaining a coherent science content storyline. In conjunction with the PL element, teachers are supported in an interactive online environment and through online synchronous discussions with a facilitator and colleagues.
Students in 3-D Middle School Science classrooms are immersed in an online environment that aids their understanding of complex concepts. A body systems unit challenges them to explore and ultimately solve a medical mystery: “What’s Wrong with M’Kenna?” Over the course of several lessons, students investigate how and why M’Kenna is constantly sick, unable to keep her food down, and losing weight. They use scientific reasoning skills and argumentation to identify the digestive system as the problematic organ system—and then engage with a series of interactive experiences, simulations, and animations to observe and analyze the differences between M’Kenna’s digestive system and a healthy person’s digestive system.
Ultimately, students solve the mystery and learn important lessons about how the features of specialized cells enable body systems to function, and they use that understanding to explain all of M’Kenna’s symptoms based on how body systems interact. More importantly, they learn to use the inquiry-based practices of scientists to construct their own understanding of complex phenomena.
A Medical Mystery is available in a free, stand-alone website.