This brief report provides an example of SCALE "backroom support." The analysis compares two elementary science curricula under consideration for use by DPS, and provides findings and recommendations to the district.

Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Association for the Education of teachers of Science, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

This study intended to determine which science, engineering, and math (SEM) majors during which years in their undergraduate education and from which academic performance levels are most interested in K-12 teaching. Results may aid policymakers and practitioners in making most effective use of this tradition undergraduate candidate pool when designing K-12 science and math teacher recruitment programs.

This paper was also presented by Chris Schunn at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 11-15, 2005, in Montrèal, Québec, Canada.

This paper contrasted performance overall and by gender, ethnicity, and SES for middle school students learning science through traditional scripted inquiry versus a design-based, systems approach, over a 4-week period using authentic engineering design methods. The contrast study took place in the 8th grade of an urban, public school district, with the systems approach implemented in 26 science classes and the scripted inquiry approach implemented in a contrast group of 20 science classes. The results suggest that a systems design approach for teaching science concepts has superior performance in terms of knowledge gain achievements in core science concepts, engagement, and retention when compared with a guided inquiry approach.