Teaching the Biological Consequences of Alcohol Abuse through an Online Game: Impacts among Secondary Students

A multimedia game was designed to serve as a dual-purpose intervention that aligned with National Science Content Standards, while also conveying knowledge about the consequences of alcohol consumption for a secondary school audience. A tertiary goal was to positively impact adolescents' attitudes toward science through career role-play experiences within the game. In a pretest/delayed posttest design, middle and high school students, both male and female, demonstrated significant gains on measures of content knowledge and attitudes toward science. The best predictors of these outcomes were the players' ratings of the game's usability and satisfaction with the game. The outcomes suggest that game interventions can successfully teach standards-based science content, target age-appropriate health messages, and impact students' attitudes toward science.

Evaluation of Journey to El Yunque: Final Report

This report describes the design, implementation and outcomes of the initial version of the NSF-funded Journey to El Yunque curriculum, released in 2005. As formative evaluators, the role of SRI International was to document the development of the curriculum and to collect empirical evidence on the impact of the intervention on student achievement. The evaluation answers four research questions: How well does the Journey to El Yunque curriculum and accompanying assessments align with the National Science Education Standards for content and inquiry? How do teachers rate the effectiveness of the professional development workshop in teaching them to use the Journey to El Yunque curriculum and assessment materials? How do teachers implement the Journey to El Yunque curriculum? To what extent does the Journey to El Yunque curriculum increase students’ understanding ofecology and scientific inquiry abilities? The evaluators concluded that Journey to El Yunque is a well-designed curriculum and assessment replacement unit that addresses important science content and inquiry skills. The curriculum and assessments are aligned to life science content standards and key ecological concepts, and materials cover a broad range of these standards and concepts. Journey to El Yunque students scored significantly higher on the posttest than students learning ecology from traditional means with effect size 0.20.

Overview of National and State Standards in Science

Standards in science and other subjects are a recent phenomenon in education, with most having been developed within the past 15 years. Science content standards now exist in 49 of 50 states and the District of Columbia (lowa has not developed its own standards). In some states a great deal of controversy surrounded initial adoption of content standards; in others controversy ensued when standards were revisited or revised (mandated by many states every 5-7 years). Here a brief history and overview of the science content standards movement in the United States are given along with insights into the forces that caused adoption to be contentious in some states, and the important part that professional scientists and engineers might play in shaping those standards. Roles for the ocean sciences in enhancing science learning and teaching through state standards are also considered.

Development of a Science Achievement Evaluation Instrument for a School Garden Program

School gardens show promise as a tool for developing science process skills through real-world investigations. However, little research data exist attesting to their actual effectiveness in enhancing students' science achievement. The purpose of this study was to develop three cognitive test instruments for assessing science achievement gain of third, fourth, and fifth grade students using a garden curriculum. The development of the test instruments occurred in three phases: 1) an initial set of test instruments which served as a prototype for length, scope, and format; 2) an adapted set of test instruments which were piloted; and 3) a final set of test instruments which were used for the assessment of the school gardening curriculum. The final Cronbach's alpha reliability for the final set of test questions was 0.82, indicating an acceptable level of internal consistency. Content validity of the test instruments developed for this study was established based on the science content standards specified in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for each grade level along with the gardening curriculum, as well as the Science Scope and Sequence documents for Temple, Texas Independent School District (ISD). Construct validity was established for the testing instruments by soliciting help from various curriculum experts from the Temple ISD.