Project Profile

This project aims to serve the national interest by providing national leadership in science education pre-K through adulthood within informal and formal settings (K-16).  The overarching goal is to advance efforts to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.  Through consensus studies, workshops, and other public meetings, coupled with innovative approaches to communication and stakeholder engagement, the Board on Science Education leverages NSF's investments in research to draw out relevant guidance and communicate it to a broad audience. This work is designed to bridge the gap between research and practice, and to identify the most pressing challenges for policy, practice, and research. These efforts aim to improve the agenda for STEM education research, the value of such research, and its translation into guidelines for educational practice and policy. The activities of the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine seek to: improve the knowledge base for science education by charting the frontiers for research on science education; identify critical issues in science education policy and practice and provide evidence-based strategies for addressing them; narrow the gap between science education research and practice by translating research into evidence-based guidelines for practice and disseminating them; and develop the intersection of science and science education by building an interdisciplinary community of scholars whose expertise can be brought to bear on current issues in research, policy and practice. The Board on Science Education plays a leadership role in providing evidence-based guidance for policy and practice that synthesizes across multiple lines of research. In addition, the board identifies areas where evidence is missing or weak, thereby laying out the road map for future research. This project is supported through the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) and the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) Programs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.