Gender Differences in Interest and Knowledge Acquisition: The United States, Taiwan, and Japan

The relationship between interest and knowledge was investigated in a representative sample of 11th grade students from cultures that differ in the strength of their gender-role stereotypes and their endorsement of effort-based versus interest-based learning. Among 11th graders from the United States ( N = 1052), Taiwan ( N = 1475), and Japan ( N = 1119), boys preferred science, math, and sports, whereas girls preferred language arts, music, and art. General information scores were comparable across the three locations; however, boys consistently outscored girls. Gender and interest in science independently predicted general information scores, whereas gender and interest in math independently predicted mathematics scores. Cultural variations in the strength of the relationship between gender, interest, and scores indicate that specific socialization practices can minimize or exaggerate these gender differences.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45629/1/11199_2004_Article_454958.pd

Correlates of Employment Among Welfare Recipients: Do Psychological Characteristics and Attitudes Matter?

This study examines whether and how a wide range of potential barriers to work,including psychological characteristics and attitudes, are associated with current employment in a recent sample of welfare recipients in Michigan ( N = 672 ). Psychological factors include measures of depressive symptoms, work attitudes, and perceived risks associated with leaving welfare. Over and above demographic, economic, and contextual factors, positive psychological characteristics and attitudes were found to be moderately associated with currently being employed. Implications for welfare-to-work programs and policy are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44056/1/10464_2004_Article_343149.pd

Seeing Students Learn Science

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), first released in 2013, are K-12 science education standards that were developed to take advantage of students' innate curiosity and enable them to "learn science by doing science." Along with new standards comes a need to update how students' learning is assessed. Teachers and administrators who are interested in the NGSS (or who are already using them) may find Seeing Students Learn Science helpful in integrating assessments into their science curricula. This 2017 report from the National Academies Press, authored by Alexandra Beatty and Heidi Schweingruber, provides examples of assessment formats and ways to incorporate them into classroom activities, as well as suggestions for interpreting and using the assessment information. This report also offers "ideas and questions educators can use to reflect on what they can adapt right away and what they can work toward more gradually." Those interested can read the 124-page report online or download it as a PDF for free at the above link; it is also available to purchase in hard copy or as an eBook

NASA's Elementary and Secondary Education Program: Review and Critique

The federal role in precollege science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is receiving increasing attention in light of the need to support public understanding of science and to develop a strong scientific and technical workforce in a competitive global economy. Federal science agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), are being looked to as a resource for enhancing precollege STEM education and bringing more young people to scientific and technical careers. For NASA and other federal science agencies, concerns about workforce and public understanding of science also have an immediate local dimension. The agency faces an aerospace workforce skewed toward those close to retirement and job recruitment competition for those with science and engineering degrees. In addition, public support for the agency s missions stems in part from public understanding of the importance of the agency s contributions in science, engineering, and space exploration

Discipline-based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering

The United States faces a great imperative to improve undergraduate science and engineering education. Preparing a diverse technical workforce and science-literate citizenry will require significant changes to undergraduate science and engineering education. These changes include supporting an emerging, interdisciplinary research enterprise that combines the expertise of scientists and engineers with methods and theories that explain learning. This enterprise, discipline-based education research (DBER), investigates learning and teaching in a discipline from a perspective that reflects the discipline’s priorities, worldview, knowledge, and practices. Informed by and complementary to research on learning and cognition, DBER already has generated insights that can be used to better prepare students to understand and address current and future societal challenges. Recognizing DBER’s emergence as a vital area of scholarship and its potential to improve undergraduate science and engineering education, the National Science Foundation requested that the National Research Council convene the Committee on the Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research to conduct a synthesis study of DBER. Looking across physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, the geosciences, and astronomy, the committee’s charge was to • synthesize empirical research on undergraduate teaching and learning in the sciences, • examine the extent to which this research currently influences undergraduate science instruction, and • describe the intellectual and material resources that are required to further develop DBER

Isotope ratios of H, C, and O in CO2 and H2O of the Martian atmosphere

Stable isotope ratios of H, C, and O are powerful indicators of a wide variety of planetary geophysical processes, and for Mars they reveal the record of loss of its atmosphere and subsequent interactions with its surface such as carbonate formation. We report in situ measurements of the isotopic ratios of D/H and O-18/O-16 in water and C-13/C-12, O-18/O-16, O-17/O-16, and (CO)-C-13-O-18/(CO)-C-12-O-16 in carbon dioxide, made in the martian atmosphere at Gale Crater from the Curiosity rover using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)'s tunable laser spectrometer (TLS). Comparison between our measurements in the modern atmosphere and those of martian meteorites such as ALH 84001 implies that the martian reservoirs of CO2 and H2O were largely established similar to 4 billion years ago, but that atmospheric loss or surface interaction may be still ongoing