María González-Howard, professor of curriculum and instruction, has received a $749,227 grant from the National Science Foundation to improve how elementary school students experience science. The four-year project addresses a critical question: How can science curricula be adapted to accommodate the different ways that children communicate as they make sense of the world?
González-Howard and her team will first identify current needs in elementary school classrooms. Working with educators, they will then co-design a suite of tools to adapt open-source, standards-aligned science curricula for third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students. These new tools will include professional learning modules for teachers that emphasize helping students think, reason and learn like scientists.
