Science & Technology Education Group

STEG associate Claire Haworth (Institute of Psychiatry) was recently awarded a PhD for her study of the contributions of both nature (genes) and nurture (environments) on performance in school science.
Claire¹s study was based on the Twins Early Development Study, a large population-representative study of twins in the UK. One striking finding was that environmental influences on science performance become increasingly important in secondary school. Claire is keen to identify what these increasingly important environmental influences are and she has been awarded an MRC/ESRC interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellowship to investigate environmental influences on school performance, including their interaction with genetic influences. By investigating these environmental influences in a genetically-sensitive design, such as a twin sample, Claire will be able to control for genetic influence, and identify truly environmental mediators of performance.
 
See Claire's profile on the IoP website.

Junqing Zhai, a PhD student working with Justin Dillon and Jill Hohenstein, won the “ISEC-Springer Best Paper Award 2009” at the recent International Science Education Conference, organised by the Singapore Ministry of Education and the National Institute of Education. Junqing was presented with his award by Bernadette Ohmer from Springer.
 

Professor Jonathan Osborne has started his new position at Stanford University as the inaugural holder of the California Science Professorship in the School of Education. Jonathan is still employed by King’s to work on the ESRC-funded science careers and aspirations project which will run until December 2013.

STEG staff and colleagues from the University of York and the Institute of Education in London are pictured above at the end of a 24-hour writing workshop. The team are working on the 2nd edition of Good Practice in Science Teaching which will be published later in the year by Open University Press.

Congratulations to Saundra Wever Frerichs who has been recommended for the award of PhD. Saundra’s thesis was entitled ‘The role of museums in the on-going continuing professional development of teachers’

Professor Justin Dillon and Melissa Glackin have been awarded £34,462 by the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust to support Border Crossings, an extension of the Thinking Beyond the Urban Classroom Project.

Congratulations to Maria Evagorou who has won the 2008 'Outstanding Graduate Student Research Paper' award from the Science Teaching and Learning Special Interest Group. Maria's paper (co-authored with Jonathan Osborne) is entitled 'Identifying features of young students' construction of arguments in the science  classroom'. Maria will receive a plaque and a cheque for $250 which will be presented during the AERA Annual Meeting in New York.

Professor Jonathan Osborne and Professor Louise Archer have been awarded £950,000 by the ESRC to examine student aspirations and career choices. The study, which will run from January 2009 until December 2013, will include a four year longitudinal study with a random stratified cohort of children from the age of 10 to 14.

See here for older STEG news stories.

King's is part of the London Challenge for world-class science education. You can read more about the challenge  at: www.londonsciencechallenge.org.uk.