Teachers, administrators, and students universally agree that modeling and visualization are essential aspects of scientific literacy. Yet students often find simulations and visualizations difficult to understand and epistemologically complex. To meet this challenge, we surveyed teachers in our partner schools to identify science topics that perple students, align with standards, and can benefit from powerful visualizations and simulations.

 

We selected two topics for each middle school discipline: life science, physical science, and earth science, and two topics for each high school discipline: biology, chemistry, and physics. To measure baseline knowledge of the topics, we designed benchmark assessments that measure integrated understanding and administered them in participating schools. We then formed 12 multidisciplinary partnerships to design inquiry activities for each of the 12 topics. The partnerships reviewed student performance on the TELS benchmark assessments and designed activities intended to help students develop more integrated understanding about the TELS topics.