Career: cognitive and affective pathways of children's ecological science learning

The National Science Foundation Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings awarded Swarthmore College $704,571 on September 1, 2026, under the STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) to investigate how children ages 3–12 learn about nature and ecosystems through daily experiences and adult guidance.

The project integrates cognitive and affective research mechanisms across disciplines to examine developmental pathways in ecological science learning. The recipient will employ descriptive, experimental, and field study approaches to understand how children build conceptual knowledge about ecosystems and how that learning changes across childhood. The work includes close collaboration with educators to design and test evidence-based STEM education strategies that more effectively teach children about nature. The research aims to provide educators with practical teaching approaches, support comprehension growth across early and middle childhood, and prepare young learners for future STEM careers by building foundational knowledge about how ecosystems work and affect people.

Performance occurs at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, with a period of performance from September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2031.

Abstract

Some children in the U.S. Grow up relatively disconnected from nature, with fewer opportunities to learn about nature and ecosystems in their daily lives. This distancing from nature, especially during childhood, could be detrimental to the flourishing of future generations, in part because of the significant positive effects of access to natural environments on lifelong mental and physical health. Thus, the goal of this project is to understand how children ages 3-12 learn about nature and ecosystems in their daily lives, both through their own experiences and from adults. This understanding is important to (1) provide educators with more effective evidence-based strategies for teaching children about nature, (2) support growing comprehension across childhood, and (3) prepare young learners for future stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers. For example, knowledge of how ecosystems work and impact people may help future stem workers develop innovative technologies that promote greater energy independence and improve disaster preparedness. This project uses several different scientific methods and new technologies, and bridges multiple fields of research, to shed light on both how children build this knowledge, and how best to support their growing understanding across childhood. This includes working closely with educators to design and test stem education strategies that more effectively teach children about nature. The project addresses the understudied phenomenon of developmental change in pathways of ecological science learning by integrating theories of cognitive and affective mechanisms from distinct fields and contributing to the empirical knowledge base using a variety of experimental designs. IT employs descriptive, experimental, and field study approaches to understand the mechanisms of conceptual change underlying children?s learning and build more effective stem education strategies. The first phase of the research project examines whether and how different sources of input in children?s daily lives, including direct experiences with nature and information provided by adults, relate to differences in their understanding of nature and ecosystems. The second phase builds on phase one insights regarding input sources most strongly associated with variations in children?s nature understanding. Children's direct experiences with nature and the inputs they receive from adults will be experimentally controlled, varied, and any effects of the variations will be documented in daily life settings. The third phase of the research project entails investigator collaboration with community partners to bring effective phase two strategies out of the controlled/test environment and into practice to teach children about nature and ecosystems. During phase three, two separate field studies, in urban and suburban communities, focus on different age groups that are key targets for nature education programs: preschool-aged and elementary school-aged children. The project is expected to both yield scientific findings about how children learn about nature and ecosystems, and evidence-based strategies (curricula and other educational resources) to help children learn about and build their understanding of nature and ecosystems. The research is also expected engage undergraduate students throughout the research process at the investigator?s institution, a small liberal arts college with no graduate program. This career award is funded by the stem k-12 program, which supports fundamental, applied, and translational research on stem learning in both formal k-12 education and informal learning environments.?IT is CO-funded by the advancing informal stem learning (aisl) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of stem learning in informal environments. This includes providing everyone with multiple pathways for accessing and engaging in stem learning experiences. 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.- subawards are not planned for this award.