Ahead of the September 2026 Professional Development Provider Institute, we spoke with Institute leader Jody Bintz about the impact of high-quality leadership development. In our conversation, Jody highlights how the institute helps leaders move beyond being “experts with every answer” to becoming facilitators who empower teachers and students alike. Read the full Q&A to see how your district can join this community of science education leaders.
For those not familiar with our Professional Development Provider Institute, what is the purpose behind the program?
Who supports the people doing the supporting? Most professional learning leaders spend all their time supporting others, leaving very little room for their own growth. Our PDPI changes that. It is a space designed specifically for leaders to strengthen their leadership capacity and practice alongside colleagues who share a vision and face the same challenges.
The PDPI has always been rooted in next-generation science, but we have shifted our focus toward curriculum-based professional learning, helping leaders get the best possible instructional materials for their local context into the hands of teachers prepared to use them. In this way, we turn the vision of NRC’s Framework into a reality for teachers and students alike.
You often share how much you love working with education leaders as ‘change agents’ in their school or district. How does that connection inspire your leadership of these Institutes?
Connecting with these change agents inspires me because I see so much potential for systemic change and individual growth. My leadership is grounded in the perspective of someone who has been in their shoes. I began my career as a high school science teacher and teacher leader before moving into a regional science and school improvement role. My experience drives me to ensure our Institutes offer leaders the needed space to learn. That includes opportunities to be reflective, hear other’s perspectives, or consider new approaches to designing and leading professional learning.
What is the most common ‘aha moment’ you see from veteran science professional learning leaders during these four days?
The biggest ‘aha’ moment usually happens when leaders realize that great professional learning isn’t just something you ‘deliver’ to teachers—it’s something they actually have to experience themselves.
We teach them a design process where the instruction itself mirrors exactly what we want to see happening in a science classroom. It’s all about creating a space where everyone—whether it’s the students, the teachers, or the district leaders—can make their thinking visible. They get to really grapple with tough concepts and come out the other side with a much deeper understanding. It’s less about being talked “at” and more about doing the work together.
But I should note that the most critical shift is not about a single ‘aha’ moment, but rather about learning over time.
Many of us begin our PL leader career thinking about individual workshops and what it means to plan and lead a discrete event. That makes sense because that’s what we experienced during our own teaching careers.
Through the PDPI, PL leaders learn to design and lead full programs that promote coherent, transformative learning that sticks. It’s a bigger lift, and honestly, it requires a mix of advocacy, creativity, and quality. You have to advocate for the time and funding science needs; you have to be creative to meet your goals within those constraints; and the quality has to be so high that teachers are not only showing up, but they’re actually coming back and asking for more.
What is the ‘secret sauce’ for building a support system that ensures long-term impact?
I think the ‘secret sauce’ is really about partnership. The best possible support system for teachers has to integrate external, research-based expertise with the deep, contextual knowledge that only local district leaders possess.
Too often, when a district adopts a new science program, they fall into the trap of treating professional learning like a one-time ‘product orientation’—just a technical walkthrough of the curriculum. While that kind of quick, pragmatic training feels helpful in the short term, it usually only touches the surface.
Our approach goes much deeper. We focus on building what I call ‘implementation muscle.’ We want to ensure districts aren’t just launching a curriculum, but sustaining it. Real transformation happens when we move past basic ‘training’ and invest in authentic, curriculum-based learning. We offer educators the structured time they need to actually experience the materials as science learners themselves. That’s how they build the confidence to keep growing as they implement.
Leaders play a critical role in ensuring all parts of the system are aligned to support teachers in making the shifts in their practice called for by the NGSS and HQIM. At one end of the spectrum district leaders ensure that the expectations set-forth in evaluation systems are consistent with student-centered science teaching and learning. At the other end of the spectrum district leaders ensure that teachers have the resources they need for the day-to-day lift with their students.
Ultimately, when science feels like a list of disconnected facts, students disengage. But when instructional practices shift from ‘learning about’ a topic to ‘figuring out’ a phenomenon, everything changes. Leaders who know how to support this shift are able to exemplify the vision and develop the culture that allows teachers to connect learning and engage students. That is the investment that truly moves the needle.
At BSCS we often consider the impact we have made in science education. What kind of impact has the PDPI had on schools and districts?
Since we launched in 2013, the PDPI has really grown nationally. We’ve hosted 23 individual Institutes and worked with over 400 science education leaders from New York to Hawaii and various districts in between.
The feedback has been incredibly validating. I remember one particular cohort of teachers; they didn’t initially see themselves as leaders, yet 95% of them recommended the experience to others. But beyond the numbers, what I’m most proud of is that our participants share that they leave the Institute with learned skills and strategies that are applicable and doable in practice.
And because we specialize in long-term capacity building, much of our impact is also measured in our rich district partnerships. For example, we’ve had a decade-long relationship with a mid-sized district serving about 40,000 students in the southeast. They started small, piloting a single team with us. But once they saw how we could help them design professional learning that was coherent and transformative, they scaled up. We eventually became their primary partner in laying the foundation for selecting and implementing high-quality instructional materials.
We also work closely with large urban districts. One major district in the Midwest, for example, joined us in 2013 with just their science directors. Over time, they brought their entire leadership team into the fold. Our partnership continues today where our joint efforts are now focused on the ‘last mile’—customizing high-quality materials to fit their specific state standards and local context.
We also partner with regional and educational non-profit organizations to scale our reach. We recently spent three years working with 60 leaders across eight different districts hosted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was powerful to see these participants gain the skills, confidence and enthusiasm to continue to advocate for science education in their district.
Who is the audience for these Institutes?
These Institutes are designed for anyone who wants to lean in and strengthen their leadership practice. We’ve really designed them to be inclusive of the entire ecosystem of science education leaders from teachers to district, regional, or state staff, to university faculty.
We’ve had Institutes that included teachers stepping into new leadership roles for the first time who were sitting with veteran leaders looking for better ways to build and support their teams. We also work with university faculty who are preparing the next generation of teachers.
How does BSCS support participants after they leave Colorado? Is there a community of practice or follow-up coaching available?
The Institute is the beginning of a relationship, not a one-off event. Beyond the sessions, we provide leaders with access to our team and resources. Moreover, we foster a network of peers across the country. For districts looking for deeper transformation, we often discuss hiring BSCS for custom, long-term support. These services include coaching, professional learning programs, and consulting.
Looking ahead, what’s next for PDPI?
The next Institute is all about three-dimensional, phenomenon-based teaching and learning with a focus on analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations, and engaging in argument from evidence. We will be thinking together about leading change over time and building implementation muscle!
Registration is open to everyone. While this is the second Institute in the series, participation in the first Institute is not required.
What’s on the horizon at BSCS?
Our team will be headed to Texas soon! We’ll be leading a series of Institutes both in-district and across the state. We’d love to chat with other leaders who are interested in building strong science programs in their district. Drop us a line–let’s make it happen.
About Jody Bintz
Jody Bintz, MA, Director, Strategic Partnerships and Leadership & Capacity-Building at BSCS Science Learning, has dedicated over two decades to improving science teaching and learning through leadership development and teacher professional learning.
Before joining BSCS, Jody served as an instructional services consultant in a regional service agency in Iowa, focusing on school improvement and science. Today, she leads national efforts to implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) by fostering communities of practice with district, regional, and state leaders Her research-driven approach has directly impacted leader practice, teacher practice, and student achievement in diverse districts, from urban centers to rural communities across the country. Jody earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from the University of Northern Iowa and her Master of Arts degree in Science Education from University of Northern Iowa. Read more about Jody and her work.
Dear friends,
This October, our entire staff came together, in person, for the first time in 992 days. For more than half of us, that meant getting on a plane and traveling into Colorado Springs, our headquarters. This Home Week gathering was a time for reflection, reconnection, and celebration.
As we kicked off Home Week, we acknowledged the toll that the pandemic has taken on our communities, our families, and our work. In those 992 days, we celebrated the birth of babies (who are now preschoolers), we watched as children grew to teenagers, and we supported young adults leaving our homes into an uncertain world. We missed important time with our extended families and friends, and we canceled much needed vacations. We each experienced immense losses that will be felt for generations.
In those 992 days, we also had moments of joy as we spent more time at home. We did puzzles, went on walks, and some of us adopted new furry friends. We supported each other and the teachers in our lives as we did school from home. We spent so much time on Zoom that the phrase “you’re muted” became a silly moment.
In those 992 days, we launched several new programs for science educators and students. We felt motivated to double down on our commitment to advancing science education to redress injustice as we watched Black, Asian, and Indigenous communities stand up and speak up for social justice. We looked inward and evaluated our organizational culture, which ultimately led us down a path to restructuring our organization to better support the needs of our people. And along the way, we welcomed over 20 new staff members to the BSCS family – all of whom share our values and a dedication to our mission!
As we gathered for Home Week, we all agreed – 992 days is a long time. Too long. So we fully embraced the opportunity to reconnect, dig deeper into our work, go adventuring outdoors, laugh hard, and engage in a highly spirited trivia competition.
It brought me so much joy to spend quality time with my colleagues and celebrate all of our wins and learnings over the last 992 days. And I couldn’t be happier knowing that our next Home Week is just around the corner.
From our BSCS family to yours, happy holidays!
Molly
Within BSCS, Cindy Gay is known as the champion of “cool science.” Her cool science sessions have been a highlight at staff meetings since 2017. And over the years, she’s sparked our curiosity with lessons on everything from watermelon snow (Chlamydomonas nivalis) and climate change to Beatrix Potter (yes, the author).
There’s a pattern to these sessions. They all include great science, an interesting story, and a connection to history, art, food, or other common phenomena that everyone can relate to somehow.
Cindy has a unique way of engaging and inspiring audiences while teaching. And that’s what makes her such an invaluable science educator—within and far beyond our organization.
During her time at BSCS, Cindy has led professional learning experiences for thousands of science leaders and teachers. She has also contributed to the development of several instructional materials programs, including our brand new high school biology course, BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life.
We love Cindy. Science educators and students across the country love Cindy. And so it didn’t surprise us at all to learn that the Boettcher Foundation also happens to love Cindy.
The Foundation has named Cindy one of two 2022 Alumni Recognition Award recipients. Out of nearly 3,000 alumni, Cindy stands out as someone who embodies the Foundation’s ethos of service, leadership, and giving back to others.
“We talk about the ripple effect a lot at Boettcher and how one person can have an outsized impact on their communities,” says Chris Lowell, Communications Specialist at the Boettcher Foundation. “Cindy Gay is a great example of how a single individual can have a transformational impact. Ensuring more students have access to an equitable science education is directly preparing the next generation with knowledge that will only become more important in the 21st century. Boettcher Foundation sincerely thanks her for her work.”
In the spirit of continuing to give back, the Foundation has awarded Cindy $1,000 to direct to a nonprofit of her choice. She chose us—which really means she chose science educators and learners. Cindy has allocated the $1,000 to BSCS’s Access Fund, designed to bring our proven programs to underserved districts and schools across the country.
We believe we can speak for the larger BSCS community when we say how proud we are to work alongside Cindy. She embodies our values—community, curiosity, collaboration, growth, social justice, and impact—in every way. And we are so grateful for her.
Read more about this award and Cindy’s story.
Dr. Nancy Hopkins-Evans recently joined BSCS Science Learning as Associate Director for Program Impact. This is a new position, created to lead our efforts to increase the reach of BSCS’s programs and resources—particularly among underserved populations.
As Nancy takes on this new challenge, she reflects on the way science education has impacted her own experiences and identity.
Read her story below.
The pandemic and racial unrest were the backdrop when I was invited to serve as a committee member for the Call to Action for Science Education, a consensus report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). During this time, a diverse group of leaders from different education sectors spent six to eight months reviewing research, seeking ideas from educators, and engaging in robust discussions about the report. It was an inspiring and eye-opening experience for me, a reminder of the work that remained and a wake-up call for me to consider how I could re-engage given my expertise and experiences as an African-American woman with multiple science degrees.
The tag line from this report—Better, More Equitable Science Education—has become a constant reminder of how my personal and professional journeys are reflected in this short and powerful phrase.
I am a first-generation college graduate who completed two advanced degrees, terminating in a PhD in biological chemistry. Throughout two postdoctoral experiences, I was one of few, if not the only, African-American and/or female professionals. I am the product of the science education system that is referenced in the Call to Action for Science Education, and I have spent my entire career working within this same system, from the university to K-12 schools to state education agencies.
I find myself excited, encouraged, disappointed, and angry as I think about the changes that have and have not taken place in science education.
As an elementary and middle school student, my interest in science was rooted in curiosity and the misguided notion that I could explore, experiment, and discover ideas about science all by myself. This was likely borne of images of the mad scientist, mostly male and White, in a lab wearing a white coat with lots of test tubes and a Bunsen burner as his only company. That idea fit with my natural introversion, which at that age I did not understand and was unable to articulate. My early love of science was rooted in some misconceptions about how scientists worked, with limited examples of diverse scientists. However, this lack of diversity did not deter my interest and pursuit of multiple degrees in science. And, my persistence in a discipline and community that rarely reflected or embraced my lived experiences informed my career choices and trajectory.
Deciding to major in chemistry as an undergraduate was an outgrowth of my ten-year-old self’s declaration that I was going to be a chemist. Of course, I had little to no knowledge of what this career entailed. I was influenced by parents who purchased for me a microscope and chemistry set without question and a high school chemistry teacher who made chemistry fun and interesting. Truthfully, I believe I had a level of intrinsic motivation that I am unable to explain to this day.
There are a couple of things about my undergraduate education that had a great impact on me. I attended a small liberal arts women’s college where all the chemistry faculty were women with doctorate degrees in chemistry. This was remarkable. Even today, the numbers of women faculty in chemistry departments do not reflect our population distribution nationally or in college enrollment. My senior research project was another defining experience. It was how I discovered the social nature of science, and how I learned that doing science results in more questions than answers. I was hooked and on my way to pursuing two advanced degrees in chemistry and biological chemistry … with many more lessons about diversity, access, and opportunity to come.
Two graduate degrees, two postdoctoral experiences, and subsequent jobs at collegiate, K-12, and nonprofit institutions have each provided me with insights that paved the way for me to embrace this new role and challenge as BSCS’s Associate Director for Program Impact.
Here are a few lessons learned over more than 25 years of education and work:
- Scholarships and fellowships provide opportunity and access to degree attainment, but support to become a valued and respected member of that community is needed to ensure professional growth and success.
- Science is assumed to be objective. That makes it difficult to challenge and interrogate the social nature of its practice, which involves human decision making and biases reflected in who does science, who teaches it, and what is researched and studied.
- The science education community is small. It must make greater, intentional efforts to expand who is included in key discussions and ensure women and people of color are in leadership positions.
- The science education community must find ways to partner with organizations and educators that currently support literacy, reading, and mathematics given the continued focus of time and resources in these content areas.
- Science remains a fundamental pillar of our collective humanity. The explicit pursuit and inclusion of a community that reflects this humanity is a worthy and necessary endeavor.
It is difficult for me to separate my personal experiences from my professional experiences—but I have come to realize that this separation is unnecessary.
I plan to leverage the full breadth and depth of these experiences to create impact alongside my new colleagues at BSCS Science Learning. This fills me with the same quiet expectation and anticipation I had as a ten-year-old wannabe chemist. However, I am a few years older and I am quite impatient.
LET’S GO!
Dr. Lindsey Mohan, BSCS Director of Instructional Materials Development, shares insight on two major program launches on the horizon.
BSCS was founded more than 60 years ago to design and develop innovative instructional materials. We continue with that work today. Since our founding, BSCS materials have been designed to support student curiosity and student-driven investigation. We believe that the most successful learning experiences are ones in which students fully engage in the inquiry process and find value in what they are learning about.
The release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) gave us an opportunity to reimagine what inquiry learning could look like at the nexus of disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts. For the past few years, our teams have been collaborating with other curriculum designers, teachers, and experts to produce two new instructional materials programs that not only embody the NGSS but also build upon research-based approaches to supporting equitable learning in classrooms.
We are excited to share BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life, our new, full-year high school biology program, and OpenSciEd Middle School, a three-year, open-access middle school science program. These programs are designed to support a classroom culture that elevates students’ voices, ideas, and experiences in all their forms. They contain learning experiences that aim to empower students to ask scientific questions, pursue those questions, and contribute as valued members of a classroom community. Our intention is for these programs to support larger efforts to transform the teaching and learning in science.
At the end of February 2022, the development work on these brand new programs will be completed. We are excited to enter a new phase in which our efforts will focus on sharing and disseminating these programs as widely as possible.
BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life
Jean Flanagan, a BSCS Science Educator who led the materials development, shared, “As a development team, we identified areas where key science concepts overlap with the types of decisions that students might have agency in. We then designed activities that would help students and teachers see these connections and work together to figure out how they might take action in their local context. Ultimately, it was important to us to develop a program that prepares all students from all backgrounds for life in the 21st century.”
The BSCS Biology program is also the first of many programs to come that is designed using BSCS’s new instructional model: Anchored Inquiry Learning. In this approach to instruction, student learning is anchored in the context of explaining phenomena and/or designing solutions to problems. Learning is driven by students’ questions as they conduct investigations to develop more-sophisticated models and explanations over time. Implementation of Anchored Inquiry Learning is supported by a set of routines that are used in different combinations in different types of lessons. The routines serve as scaffolds that allow students to engage in increasingly sophisticated inquiry over time.
“Teachers and district leaders are excited about the collaborative classroom culture emerging from Anchored Inquiry Learning,” shared Cindy Gay, BSCS Science Educator and co-lead on the project. “They report high engagement because students are grappling with issues that matter to them, their families, and their communities. Teachers have noted their students sharing their learning with their families and making connections to issues beyond the course. Further, built-in supports contribute to teachers’ professional learning in both NGSS content and pedagogy.”
OpenSciEd Middle School
For the past four years, BSCS has been at the center of a monumental effort. In 2018, a group of national funders invited us to take the lead in a consortium of five organizations and dozens of individuals to produce a high-quality, open access science program for the NGSS that could be implemented at a national scale. It’s called the OpenSciEd Middle School program. It required significant investment, time, and collaboration across funders, educational designers and researchers, and state partners–along with a brave group of classroom teachers and their students willing to take a chance on a very new way of teaching and learning science. Our role was to lead the design and development of the instructional materials and accompanying professional development programs.
Audrey Mohan, a BSCS Senior Research Scientist who led the OpenSciEd materials development team, shared, “Our vision was to create accessible, engaging, and coherent units for students and their teachers. Throughout the development, we took time to survey hundreds of field-test teachers and students to help design and revise these units. By bringing all of these voices and experiences to the table, we were able to accomplish this ambitious goal of designing a high-quality, three-year program, free to anyone.”
OpenSciEd Middle School now provides 18 middle school units that have been recognized through peer review as “high quality NGSS design” units. These materials are completely free to educators and schools around the world.
After teaching high school biology for 30+ years, Cindy Gay joined BSCS in 2016 as a Science Educator. She currently leads teacher professional learning and instructional materials work, and is the Principal Investigator for the project Connecting Our Youth to ‘Āina Through Investigations of Place. This is a story about her experience learning from kilo alongside the wonderful people in Hawaii.
All my life, my most influential mentors in art, science, and education have pressed me to look. Look carefully. Across scales and over time. Look again. More deeply. Look yet again. When I was introduced to the Loko ea fishpond ecosystem and one of her caretakers, Sayo Costantino, Kupuohi Education Program Director, I knew I had found mentors from whom I would learn much when they immediately invited me to look. And look again.
I arrived at the gates of Loko ea on the North Shore of O’ahu with my colleague Emily and six middle school science teachers from the moku (district) for the first day of our co-design conference. The conference marked the start of a NOAA-funded B-WET project to develop a 7th grade ecosystems unit exploring the intersection of traditional and scientific ways of knowing and incorporating both the NGSS and Nā Hopena A’o outcomes (Hawaiian cultural standards).
Sayo met us at the gates and we were invited to oli (chant) E HŌ Mai before entering Loko ea. This ancient Hawaiian oli is a powerful practice that creates deep resonance and vibration within the body, used as a way to clear space to call forth wisdom. As we entered Loko ea, I was struck not only by her beauty but by a sense of calm punctuated only by the sounds of bird calls and wind through the trees. I realized I had driven by her many times over the years—even eaten dinner in the restaurant in front of her gates—and never observed her presence. I was not looking.
After introductions, Sayo invited us to get to know Loko ea through kilo. Sayo shared that kilo refers to a Hawaiian approach of observing the environment and resources by listening to the subtleties of place to help guide decisions for management and pono (balance, prosperity) practices. Individually, we slowly moved around her fishponds observing living and nonliving, from lani (sky), ma uka (towards the mountains), and ma kai (towards the ocean) to small Samoan crabs feasting on algae at the edges of her ponds. Large kākū (barracuda) slipped silently past pua ‘ama (young mullet). As we came together and shared our kilos, our list was long and diverse, just like the Loko ea ecosystem.
Throughout the co-design of the unit, we continued our kilo by examining and reexamining the goals of the project to develop a common vision for the unit’s phenomenon and storyline. An important goal was to foster student understanding of ecosystem interactions through both traditional and scientific ways of knowing. During development of the unit, Sayo helped me look and look again at how traditional knowledge of fishponds was represented throughout the unit. Because my own understanding of ecosystems was first developed through scientific ways of knowing, I followed that pattern in writing student handouts, providing science ideas before traditional ideas about the role of abiotic factors in ecosystems. Sayo gently invited me to look again at the handouts to observe that presenting scientific ideas before traditional ideas was not only an inaccurate chronological portrayal, but it also implied traditional ways of knowing as secondary to scientific ways of knowing. Looking more deeply at my own implicit biases helped me elevate traditional ways of knowing throughout the unit.
Our partnership with Sayo and Loko ea produced a unit more robust than envisioned in the original proposal. Students begin the unit with their own kilo of Loko ea. At multiple photo stations, they document changes in Loko ea resulting from management practices designed to restore the ecosystem. Using the FieldScope platform students gather and analyze data from Loko ea’s waters to use as evidence in arguments for management strategies. They participate in stewardship activities to remove invasive California grass. Sayo has offered Loko ea as a host site for hoikas (public sharing of knowledge) for the unit’s culminating task: present an argument for a management strategy for Loko ea so we can sustainably feed people and the ecosystem is healthy and pono.
I am grateful to Sayo and Loko ea for helping me begin to learn Nā kilo ‘āina (traditional Hawaiian observation approaches). They represent the strengthening of community watchers and observers who understand the needs of community (people and place) and provide direction to ensure the ‘āina (land) is able to sustain us into the future. I am excited that our unit will help seventh grade students begin to learn about the importance of place through their own kilo.
About the Unit
The Restoring Ea Middle School Science Unit is a place-based, three-dimensional, and phenomenon-focused unit specifically designed for seventh grade teachers and students in central O’ahu. It is now freely available.
Dr. Sherry Hsi joined BSCS Science Learning last fall as a Principal Scientist. She is a distinguished researcher in informal learning environments, engineering education, and educational technology—areas that are important to BSCS’s mission and will allow us to expand our impact on science learning.
Hsi is currently leading the Making Waves* project. Read her article below for insight on this work.
Radio frequencies enable us to use our cell phones every day to communicate to people around the world. Radio frequencies are also enabling our wireless laptops, remote-control car locks, Bluetooth air pods, and Internet-of-Things devices to function. In society at large, radio is used for air traffic control, spacecraft communications, and astronomical research. Because there is more and more demand for utilizing the radio spectrum, the crowded airspace around us is getting even more crowded with radio signals.
As a national resource, how does society decide who owns and responsibly manages our airspace of invisible yet important radio frequency communications?
A team at BSCS Science Learning launched the Making Waves project in fall 2020 to improve public awareness, science understanding, and societal impacts of radio frequency communications and wireless technologies. Our multidisciplinary team is developing a suite of mobile professional learning resources for informal educators to support learning in museums and youth programs.
“Five big ideas” about radio frequency communications are guiding the development of a suite of informal learning resources. We are drawing concept sketches of floor demonstrations, mobile apps, and professional learning supports while concurrently developing an equity-oriented, culturally responsive co-design process for instructional materials development. Data gathered from co-design sessions with different groups of informal educators as well as from interviews and a front-end survey with youth, families, educators, and the public will ensure that we include the voices of learners and educators across the communities these resources will support.
With science centers and museums carefully reopening to the public during the second year of COVID-19, our teams are eager to get our prototypes into the hands of users for testing. The invention and continuous innovation of radio frequency communications are a science and engineering marvel. Because these communication technologies fundamentally shape our lives and communities, we want to support others in effectively teaching and learning about them.
Learning about Radio Frequency Communication
In science class, students commonly learn that air is a mixture of different gases. However, viewed from an engineering perspective, air is not only a gas but a medium and the space around us where we find the electromagnetic spectrum. We are immersed in invisible radio waves that inhabit, spread, reflect, and bounce around like multiple virtual Ping-Pong balls, around buildings, up to orbiting satellites, around the world and back thanks to technological innovation.
On the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes microwaves, visible light, and x-rays, radio waves have the longest wavelength and as a result can travel long distances with the lowest energy. Cell phones and other wireless mobile devices use these waves to carry our information from one place to another. Electric charges are accelerated back and forth along a physical wire using a system of a power source, antennas, and some electronics to create a standing waveform. By manipulating the wave’s amplitude, wavelength, and frequency, a cell phone encodes, encrypts, and sends data, like my voice, airborne from Berkeley to Colorado Springs. Simultaneously, my phone is receiving and decoding signals, allowing me to hear a colleague’s voice (often along with a funny digital picture of a recent meal or pet).
There are no crossed wires in mobile communications! This is not a coincidence but an incredible feat of design and engineering involving planning, ingenuity, and cooperation to build a national and international telecommunications system.
*The Making Waves project is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal Science Learning (AISL) and Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program. Partners include the NISE Network (nisenet.org), Georgia Institute of Technology, Children’s Creativity Museum (San Francisco, CA), Knight-Williams Communications, Sciencenter (Ithaca, NY), Museum of Nature and Science (Durham, NC), The Concord Consortium, UC Santa Cruz Girls in Engineering & MESA program, and the Global Alliance for Community Science Workshops (Watsonville, CA).
Meet Holly Hereau, a BSCS Science Educator focused on instructional materials development. Before joining the team, she spent 14 years teaching high school and community college science. She was recently named a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) recipient for her outstanding work inside the classroom. PAEMST is the highest award given by the United States Government to kindergarten through 12th grade teachers of mathematics and science, including computer science.
What drives you as an educator, both inside and outside the classroom?
Until relatively recently, I probably would have given the same “when the students get that ‘aha’ moment” answer that most teachers say when asked this question. I think my answer is still that… but it means something different now than what it would have before. The ‘aha’ moment now for me is when students realize they have the power to figure things out. It’s not just getting that tough concept, or getting a good grade, but it’s the confidence that they can get all kinds of hard things by asking questions and investigating.
How did you make an impact as a teacher?
I facilitated projects that gave students agency, as well as the opportunity to connect with their place by planning environmental stewardship action projects, engaging in citizen science, and presenting their work to the larger community. The science experiences I was able to provide for students positioned them to see that the entire class was an important part of the ideas we were putting together — and that their own ideas were unique and valuable. My classroom was always a safe place for students; they knew I cared about them and would go to bat for them. I practiced empathy. I listened to student ideas and responded in ways that showed I was listening carefully to understand what they were thinking so we could build from that. While the “big” things like “detracking” science in our building may not continue to have an impact now that I’m gone, my interactions with students will hopefully stay with them and inform how they interact with the world.
How has your teaching experience shaped your approach to instructional materials development at BSCS?
Since I started doing work with NGSS designed materials and storylines, I started to see students who didn’t think they were good at science (or good at school even) realize they actually WERE good at science, and they were really good at figuring stuff out. I had several students enroll in AP Biology and AP Environmental Science after taking my Biology class who had never taken any honors or AP classes before. When asked about it, one student said it’s “because of the way we learn in here. We get to answer our own questions. I never thought I was good at science before. I wish all of my science teachers would have taught like this.” (if only we knew then what we know now!!) On the flip side, I also had 4.0 students who were “good at school” start to relax about their grades and focus on what and how they were learning. I felt like I could spike the football when an AP Bio student (who previously asked me about their grades every other day as a Biology student the previous year) was helping a new-to-our-school student who was frozen when asked to create an initial model to show what happens to a sandwich when we eat it. “Oh it’s OK, you’re not really supposed to know the answer right now. Just put down what you think. We’re making these models so we can figure out what we don’t know.” Those experiences don’t necessarily speak to my skill as a teacher, but to the quality of the materials I had access to. Using high quality materials (with an understanding of how and why) is the extended professional learning necessary to REALLY understand what phenomenon/problem based learning FEELS like, and I want all teachers to have access to that experience.
As I am writing instructional materials at BSCS—whether it is for middle or high school science—I constantly think of what it felt like as a teacher to realize how big this shift was. I think about the huge potential for all students to engage in and be interested in science in a way that I really hadn’t seen as a teacher before.
Times are tough. What advice do you have for teachers today?
Stop letting the stress of the “thousand little cuts” get to you. You know what is best for students. Do that. This year will be tough, and everyone has a different hard situation. Don’t let content dictate the way you interact with students. Rushing through a lot of material is not good for learning or for happiness. If a student gets to college without learning the phases of mitosis, it’s not the end of the world. Make sure students feel safe, and that they are learning about things they care about.
What most excites you about the future of science education?
I am so excited about the materials we are developing and the idea that so many students will experience science learning in this way. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens with the OpenSciEd project in the future—for High School because that is the grade level I taught most, but also for elementary teachers and students. For too long, science has gotten pushed aside for math and reading—and there wasn’t much of a fight because there aren’t as many elementary teachers that are science specialists. I think having access to these materials removes part of the barrier to kids getting science. I’m excited to see how we can highlight math and literacy in those lessons to help convince teachers and districts that math and literacy learning can be supported and enhanced by DOING science!
By: Dr. Chris Wilson, BSCS Director of Research
As DRK-12 researchers conducting empirical studies of interventions in science education, the findings from our studies are important to multiple audiences. While the dissemination plan might be one of the last sections we write in our proposals, and one of the last pieces we consider during the timeline of a project, it is probably the most important activity we engage in. I’ll always remember the advice my wife’s PhD advisor gave her during her studies on adolescence and animal behavior: “If you’re not publishing, you’re not doing science, you’re just watching hamsters mating in a basement.” The former presumably more justifiable than the latter.
At BSCS Science Learning we’re finding that the results from our research studies are important to an increasingly broad range of audiences. In the past we might have begun projects with the expectation that in the final year we’d be starting the often-endless process of publishing papers in research journals, and presenting findings at national research conferences. Remember those? In more recent years, as the evidence base for the efficacy of instructional materials or professional development programs has become more established, we’ve become more involved in scaling up these effective interventions. Successful scale-up requires that all elements of a program are communicated effectively to decision makers at multiple levels, such as teachers, principals, district science leads, and state science supervisors. That includes the structure of the program, the learning theory behind the program, and importantly, research on its impact. Demonstrated evidence of effectiveness, particularly on student achievement, is an increasingly important consideration for decision-makers tasked with choosing between adopting different interventions, and in investing sparse district resources.
Needless to say, research findings need to be presented differently for different audiences. Most science education researchers shudder a little when presented with hierarchical linear models, never mind those who work closer to the classroom. Presenting a series of Greek letters with multiple subscripts rarely indicates that one is concerned with the findings being accessible to a wide range of audiences. Graphing data to show differences in means between groups can make findings infinitely more digestible. The same goes for measures of statistical significance or effect sizes, which can be quite abstract. Instead of p-values and Hedges’-g, we often strive to demonstrate impacts in more meaningful units, such as…
This blog was written by Dr. Chris Wilson, BSCS director of research, for the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE) July 2020 Newsletter.
Meet Rachel Buckley, a 7th grade science teacher at Knox Trail Middle School in Spencer, Massachusetts. As a field test participant, she played an invaluable role in helping BSCS Science Learning launch our new Invitations to Inquiry with FieldScope. These Inquiries are designed to help middle and high school students work with citizen science data from projects hosted on FieldScope.
Why did you become a teacher, and where are you now?
I always knew I was going to be a teacher. In first grade, my teacher told my parents that she thought I would end up teaching, but they already knew that because I spent my free time playing school with my younger sister. The road to science teacher was less obvious, because I didn’t have a lot of great science opportunities in high school. It seemed boring and dry to me. That changed in college when I found some awesome professors, and now I try to infuse my love and excitement for science into my 7th grade classroom in Spencer, Massachusetts.
How did you become familiar with BSCS Science Learning?
I have a tendency to sign up for every science professional development email list I can find. I had been looking into OpenSciEd for my school and I believe an email later came with the opportunity to work with BSCS Science Learning, and I am very glad that I did!
Tell us about your experience teaching the Invitations to Inquiry. Any highlights or “AHA” moments? How were your students’ experiences working with data?
The part of the NGSS practice Analyzing and Interpreting Data that talks about large data sets has always been one of the hardest things for me to teach. Using the data in the Invitations to Inquiry lessons made this easy for me and the students. At first they looked at the amount of data with wide eyes but once we went through how to actually use the data, it became much easier. By the end the students were able to manipulate the tables to find specific information that a week before they would have thought impossible.
Which Inquiry are you most excited to try next and why?
I teach watersheds and human impacts on our water cycle, so I would love to try the healthy watershed inquiry! I also have standards about ecosystems and invasive species, so I am looking forward to Frog Symphony and Frog Eat Frog World!
What would you say to a teacher who is thinking about exploring Invitations to Inquiry with middle or high school students?
I would say do it! The lessons are well written, easy to follow and engaging for the students. They are real world examples with actual data which makes it real for the students. The lessons take difficult concepts and present them in meaningful, accessible and engaging ways.
What is one educational resource or tool that you love and cannot live without?
I love Google Classroom. For me, it is a super easy way for kids to stay organized and have all they need in one spot. It also makes it convenient for students to collaborate on work or share things with me!
What excites you most about the future of science education?
Our students. The kids we are teaching now are one day soon going to be the ones out there teaching others about science. As long as we can help get them to buy into scientific literacy, then the entire world will be a better place.