This project develops and tests a learning progression for modeling that spans the elementary and middle school grades (Grades 1-6). Modeling instruction will be organized around concepts in life sciences that cumulate to a strong conceptual understanding of micro- and macro-evolution. PIs and the National Science Research Center work directly with participating teachers to support their content knowledge and their appropriation of modeling approaches to science instruction. Research will focus on both the development of students’ biological concepts and their modeling practices.

Modeling is central to the epistemology of science, but modeling perspectives are rare in school science and have not been cultivated as a specialized form of thinking with developmental roots that need to be deliberately supported and extended from early grades onward. The PIs seek to build on a twelve-year program of research on the development of model-based reasoning to construct frameworks, student curriculum, professional development, and assessments that support a modeling approach to teaching and learning in the life sciences, oriented toward the end point of a deep conceptual understanding of micro- and macro-evolution. Unlike mathematics, science education in the early grades is not taught in ways likely to foster accumulation of scientific knowledge, skills, and reasoning. The broad, shallow, and modular nature of the early science curriculum mitigates against student conceptual understanding, teacher mastery of the content, and well-aligned assessment. If teaching and learning were instead organized around research-based understanding of the development of student knowledge, teaching, research, and assessment could build more systematically toward the forms of learning and performance valued later in schooling.

Outcomes of the project include both products and findings. Products will be (a) four related conceptual papers that detail the conceptual framework of the learning progression, (b) well-piloted versions of modeling activities for students in Grades 1-6 (published on a website), (c) modeling extensions for existing Science and Technology for Children units, and (d) an assessment system to track the development of students’ science concepts and modeling. Findings will report student learning over two years across grades 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6, providing preliminary tests of the modeling progression. This research will be conducted in two districts with underserved children, one urban and primarily African American, one rural and primarily Hispanic. Therefore, the work will demonstrate how even students in struggling schools can master difficult science concepts and engage in complex forms of scientific reasoning.