The Science Education Department at CSULB is one of the largest Science Education Departments in the country. Housed in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, we work closely with our CNSM colleagues and our College of Education colleagues in addition to collaborating with each other. Faculty members often work together on grants & projects, articles and other scholarly activities.
The Department teaches courses to Liberal Studies majors as well as elementary and secondary science credential students. We teach over 800 students per year in our Science Capstone and Science Methods courses. Additionally, we also offer a Professional Development/Teaching Techniques course to science graduate student teaching associates to support excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level.
Our graduate program, a MS in Science Education has pathways and options for practicing elementary teachers and secondary teachers and informal science educators. Applications for the Master’s Program are accepted each spring.
Our faculty is also growing! With College and campus-wide support we are increasing in size. Currently we have nine full-time tenure-track faculty, three of whom are joint appointment tenure-track faculty members who reside part-time in either Physics or Geological Science or Liberal Studies departments, one Emeritus faculty member, one full-time and 11 part-time lecturers who teach sections of our science capstone or elementary science methods courses. Our research spans from early childhood to post-secondary science settings and touches on themes including assessment, science-based integrated teaching, inquiry-based teaching and learning, science learning environments, the impact of teacher beliefs on the teaching of science, alternate and misconceptions in science learning, technology-enhanced science teaching, science learning in informal settings, role of caring in teaching and learning science, using literature circles to support nature of science learning, and post-secondary science reform in physics and earth science.
Additionally, the Science Education Department is also host to several large educational projects. We house the National Center for Early Childhood Science Education and in that capacity we offer yearly summer institutes to train early childhood teachers and early childhood leaders in the teaching of science to young children. These summer institutes are led by Dr. William C. Ritz and are offered through the Head Start on Science Program. We have a newly funded California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) grant to support the science professional development of K-2 teachers. Susan Gomez Zwiep and Bill Straits are coordinating that project. Jim Kisiel has grants to support his work with science learning in informal settings (zoos, aquariums, museums). Laura Henriques is Principal Investigator on several NSF-funded projects which support future teachers, partnering with other CSU campuses, Cerritos College, Long Beach Unified and Whittier Union High School Districts, striving to support of quality teacher preparation and professional development in PreK-postsecondary science teaching and learning in the greater Long Beach area. Other projects in which we are actively participating can be viewed on our Grants and Projects page.
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