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Research Projects

We've been doing R&D in educational technology for 30 years, long before the first iPhone or touchscreen tablet made digital technology and networked devices ubiquitous. From pilot tests to large-scale implementations, our projects aim to ignite large-scale improvements in teaching and learning through technology.

Search all of our Projects below:

Precipitating Change

Precipitating Change

Promoting students' ability to apply integrated science, math, and computational thinking in weather events.

Experiencing models of severe weather events allows students to monitor live radar screens and collect data as virtual thunderstorms pass through the classroom. Students will apply computational thinking skills as they create, evaluate, and combine forecast models.

Grade Level:

Precipitating Change with Alaskan Schools

Precipitating Change with Alaskan Schools

Supporting Earth science learning from both Indigenous knowledge and Western-style inquiry

Positioning middle school students in a culturally congruent epistemological stance (student-as-anthropologist), allowing them to build Earth science learning from both Indigenous knowledge as well as Western-style inquiry.

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Creating Internet-of-Things systems to make scientific inquiry more engaging and accessible.

InSPECT is integrating novel technologies and computational thinking practices into curricular activities that allow high school students to undertake authentic and independent science investigations in biology.

Grade Level:

Showing 19 Active Projects

AI Education Across the Curriculum

AI Education Across the Curriculum

Integrating language-based AI across the curriculum to create diverse pathways to AI-rich careers

In collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University, we are designing and researching curriculum modules for secondary math, English language arts, and history to incorporate AI education across the curriculum.

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Artificial Intelligence Education for Virtual Schools

Artificial Intelligence Education for Virtual Schools

Developing AI literacy in middle school and high school students by integrating AI learning in math classes for virtual schools

In collaboration with the University of Florida, Texas Tech University, WestEd, and Florida Virtual School, this project is developing and researching a supplemental program for students to explore AI concepts in connection with their math course.

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Automated Scoring for Argumentation

Automated Scoring for Argumentation

Promoting understanding of Earth's complex systems and supporting scientific argumentation practices.

In collaboration with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), we’re using an automated scoring engine to assess students' written responses in real time and provide immediate feedback within two Earth science curriculum modules.

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BigData

Developing cutting-edge process analytics for K-12 engineering design research.

We're developing sophisticated process analytics to make sense of the large quantity of student data associated with complex, open-ended engineering design tasks.

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Bio4Community

Co-designing a curriculum unit with minoritized youth and teachers around a community health issue

In collaboration with Rutgers University, UNC Greensboro, and middle school students and teachers in New Brunswick, New Jersey, we are investigating the development and implementation of life science materials that support local, consequential learning.

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Boreal Forest Fires

Boreal Forest Fires

Exploring the impacts of more frequent and intense wildfires in boreal forests due to climate change

In collaboration with scientists at the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Montana, we are developing a boreal forest fire simulation that allows students to explore the effects of climate change on wildfires in this important ecosystem.

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Informal Learning

Building Models

Building Models

Supporting model construction and revision based on disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts.

Michigan State University and the Concord Consortium are collaborating to examine how to support secondary school students in constructing and revising models based on disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts to explain scientific phenomena.

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Change Makers

Crowdsolving the energy challenge through cyber-enabled out-of-school citizen science programs.

We're developing and researching out-of-school citizen science and engineering programs that enable secondary students to tackle energy problems in their own homes, schools, and towns using low- or zero-cost technologies.

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Informal Learning

CODAP

CODAP is a free web-based data tool designed as a platform for developers and as an application for students in grades 6–14.

Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP) provides an easy-to-use web-based data analysis platform that can be incorporated across the curriculum to help students summarize, visualize, and interpret data, advancing their skills to use data as evidence to support a claim.

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Informal Learning

Computational Thinking in High School Biology

Computational Thinking in High School Biology

Fostering Computational Thinking Through Neural Engineering Activities in High School Biology Classes

In collaboration with the University of Connecticut, we’re designing activities for high school biology students that engage them in computational thinking as they learn how to use electrical signals from their brains to control virtual and real mechanical devices.

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Computing with R for Mathematical Modeling

Computing with R for Mathematical Modeling

Infusing computational thinking into math classrooms with R programming language

CodeR4MATH aims to infuse computational thinking into math classrooms through a web-based learning platform that integrates R computing resources, math modeling activities, automated assessment and tutoring, and teacher professional development resources.

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Connected Biology

Connected Biology

Linking genetics and evolution to increase sophistication of student understanding over time.

This collaborative effort between Michigan State University and the Concord Consortium is developing and researching a connected set of technology-enhanced three-dimensional lessons for high school biology that are aligned with NGSS performance expectations.

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Contextualizing Data Education via Project-Based Learning

Contextualizing Data Education via Project-Based Learning

Integrating rich data experiences into interdisciplinary project-based learning

In collaboration with EL Education and researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, DataPBL aims to co-design two data-enhanced interdisciplinary modules with middle school teachers and research student agency and positive identities related to data.

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Data in Space and Time

Data in Space and Time

Supporting learners in understanding and analyzing spatiotemporal data

In collaboration with James Madison University and Northwestern University, we are investigating how learners make sense of spatiotemporal data and how technology-based affordances can support learners in understanding and analyzing spatiotemporal data.

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Data Science Games

Data Science Games

Win a data science game by visualizing the data to see what’s going on, improve your strategy, and level up.

All data science game scenarios follow a similar design: students take context-specific actions in the game. They store their data, organize it, analyze it, and visualize it in the surrounding CODAP environment.

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Data Science Learning for Middle School-aged Girls in Informal Gaming Clubs

Data Science Learning for Middle School-aged Girls in Informal Gaming Clubs

Promoting girls’ data science learning and interests through informal gaming

We're developing informal data science learning experiences for middle school-aged girls, using an online, multiplayer game designed to support girls' identity-aligned work with data and promote their interest in data-rich futures.

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Digital Inscriptions

Digital Inscriptions

Exploring how digital collaborative environments help students develop and communicate mathematical understandings

The Concord Consortium and Michigan State University are developing and researching a digital curriculum platform to help middle school students deepen and make visible their understanding of mathematics through collaboration.

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Digital Inscriptions 2

Digital Inscriptions 2

Using problem-based learning analytics to investigate the development of mathematical concepts

With Michigan State University, we are extending a collaborative digital learning environment that embeds the Connected Mathematics Project materials, and using learning analytics to study individual and collaborative problem-based mathematics engagement and learning over time.

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Education for Infrastructure Transformation

Education for Infrastructure Transformation

Inspiring and preparing high school students for meeting the challenge of building tomorrow's infrastructure.

We're developing two innovative technologies-the Smart High School and the Virtual Solar World with associated curriculum units to turn high school campuses and GIS systems into engineering laboratories with unlimited opportunities for learning and exploration.

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Evolution Readiness

Evolution Readiness

Teaching Darwin's model of natural selection using computer-based models depicting interacting organisms and their environments.

Using computer-based, manipulable models of interacting organisms and their environments, fourth grade students learn Darwin's model of natural selection as the process primarily responsible for evolution.

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GeniConnect

Engaging middle school afterschool students in a dragon genetics game and partnering them with biotechnology mentors.

GeniConnect is developing and researching a coherent series of student experiences involving game-based learning, industry mentoring, and hands-on laboratory work in biotechnology and genetics.

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Informal Learning

GeniGUIDE

Improving student learning of genetics content by developing and researching a layered learner guidance system.

Embedded in our Geniverse genetics software, GUIDE’s hybrid system partners an intelligent tutoring system with the pedagogical expertise of the classroom teacher and existing classroom networks of peer support.

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Explore heredity and genetics by breeding and studying virtual dragons.

Geniverse brings genetics to life with game-like challenges and an engaging narrative. Students use a virtual model species (drakes) to explore the fundamental mechanisms of heredity and genetic diseases and then get a taste of careers in genetics.

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Informal Learning

GEODE

Transforming geoscience education with interactive models for exploring plate tectonics

GEODE aims to transform geoscience teaching and learning using interactive, geodynamic models designed to explore how plate movements are responsible for most features on Earth’s surface.

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GeoHazard: Modeling Natural Hazards and Assessing Risks

GeoHazard: Modeling Natural Hazards and Assessing Risks

Exploring natural hazards and extreme events, the predictability and physical impact of these events, and the risk to human lives

Exploring natural hazards and extreme events, the predictability and physical impact of these events, and the risk to human lives.

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Graph Literacy

Increasing students' ability to identify the important features of a wide variety of graphs and relate those features to the context of the graph.

Graph literacy is the ability to identify important features of graphs and relate those features to the context of the graphs. Graph literacy is emphasized in both the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and the Next Generation Science Standards.

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GRASP

Investigating how middle school students use body movement to build deeper reasoning about critical science concepts.

GRASP (Gesture Augmented Simulations for Supporting Explanations) studies the role that motions of the body play in forming explanations of scientific phenomena. We’re conducting studies with middle school students, gathering data to apply to enhancing educational tools.

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High-Adventure Science

High-Adventure Science

Bringing several unanswered questions in Earth, space, and environmental science to science classrooms.

We're bringing the excitement of scientific discovery to students by letting them explore pressing unanswered questions in Earth, space, and environmental science using the same methods that practicing scientists use.

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Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry

Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry

Engaging students in STEM activities through modeling, computational thinking, and real-time data acquisition.

Students should engage in practices that are essential for learning STEM through both inquiry and design. This comprehensive project assists teachers in preparing diverse students for careers in STEM by engaging them in exciting, inquiry-based science activities.

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Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry for Yup’ik Students

Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry for Yup’ik Students

Culturally relevant curriculum employing technology tools for Native American and Alaska Native children

Two new projects focused on grades 3-5 and 6-8 are supporting Yup’ik students in Hooper Bay, AK. We are engaging community partners, teachers, and students in adapting Concord Consortium STEM units by including local phenomena and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) features.

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InquirySpace

Helping students learn science the way scientists do, using inquiry-based learning

InquirySpace gives students tools, guidance, and ideas that greatly expand the range and sophistication of meaningful open-ended science investigations.

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Creating Internet-of-Things systems to make scientific inquiry more engaging and accessible.

InSPECT is integrating novel technologies and computational thinking practices into curricular activities that allow high school students to undertake authentic and independent science investigations in biology.

Grade Level:

Interactions

Discover the unseen world of atomic-level interactions and energy transformations.

Computer-based models and simulations as well as physical models help students visualize and develop an understanding of the principles that govern interactions at very small scales.

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Learning Everywhere

Learning Everywhere

Exploring how cutting-edge technologies and novel materials can be designed for learning across different settings

Learning Everywhere explores how cutting-edge technologies and novel materials can be designed to study and better support engaging conceptual, collaborative, and tangible learning across different contexts and settings.

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Informal Learning

Linking Complex Systems

Linking Complex Systems

Merging agent-based modeling and system diagramming to create a new linked hybrid modeling environment.

We're enabling new modes of experimentation and fostering levels of learner reasoning about complex systems and systems dynamics that are not currently possible by merging MIT's StarLogo and the Concord Consortium's SageModeler.

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Mathematical Modeling with M2Studio

Mathematical Modeling with M2Studio

Cultivating mathematical modeling competencies among secondary students through dynamically linked representations

We’re scaffolding students as they engage in mathematical modeling with the M2Studio learning environment that integrates and extends CODAP and SageModeler, and provides a canvas for student agency and creativity.

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Mobile Online Studio

Mobile Online Studio

Supporting secondary students’ Earth science knowledge and front-end engineering design skills

With the University at Buffalo and the University of Michigan, we are designing a platform for collaborative front-end engineering design, incorporating a virtual design mentor, and assisting teachers and students to divergently explore design concepts.

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MothEd

Engaging elementary and middle school learners in collaborative, learner-centered research projects on local moth ecology.

Michigan State University and the Concord Consortium are collaborating on MothEd to design, implement, and test curricular materials and educator supports that give elementary and middle school learners agency in decision-making while they explore the ecology of local moths.

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Multilevel Computational Modeling

Multilevel Computational Modeling

Engaging high school students in computational thinking while developing and testing system models

The Concord Consortium and Michigan State University are collaborating to research technological, curricular, and pedagogical scaffolds needed to support students and teachers in developing computational thinking in the context of system modeling.

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Narrative Modeling with StoryQ

Narrative Modeling with StoryQ

Integrating mathematics, language arts, and computing to create pathways to artificial intelligence careers.

Using AI and literacy-based approaches, StoryQ is creating inclusive learning experiences and preparing diverse youth for the future.

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Next Generation Science Assessment

Next Generation Science Assessment

Technology-enhanced assessments that address middle school physical and life science NGSS Performance Expectations.

Assessments for several NGSS Performance Expectations in middle school physical and life sciences, featuring videos and simulations, authentic and engaging scenarios, interactive tools for modeling, and scaffolds and supports.

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Next Step Learning

Next Step Learning

Translating innovative technology experiences into science learning and career awareness.

Preparing students with the essential science knowledge and engineering skills that empower them to solve energy problems in their own homes with cutting-edge technologies such as infrared imaging and computer simulations.

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Paper Mechatronics

Paper Mechatronics

Developing new ways to advance engineering education through computationally enhanced children's papercrafts.

With the CraftTech Lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco, we are studying adaptive expertise in youth as they design with a new genre of learning materials, software, and design tools called paper mechatronics.

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Informal Learning

Precipitating Change

Precipitating Change

Promoting students' ability to apply integrated science, math, and computational thinking in weather events.

Experiencing models of severe weather events allows students to monitor live radar screens and collect data as virtual thunderstorms pass through the classroom. Students will apply computational thinking skills as they create, evaluate, and combine forecast models.

Grade Level:

Precipitating Change with Alaskan Schools

Precipitating Change with Alaskan Schools

Supporting Earth science learning from both Indigenous knowledge and Western-style inquiry

Positioning middle school students in a culturally congruent epistemological stance (student-as-anthropologist), allowing them to build Earth science learning from both Indigenous knowledge as well as Western-style inquiry.

Grade Level:

Sensing Science through Modeling Matter

Sensing Science through Modeling Matter

Building conceptual understanding of matter and its changes in kindergarten students.

Developing and researching a curriculum involving the use of dynamic technology-based visualizations and model-based inquiry to support early science learning of concepts involving matter and its changes.

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SimBuilding

An accessible and fun 3D simulation game to teach building science with data-driven inquiry embedded in gameplay.

SimBuilding is an interactive, intelligent environment in which learners are immersed in scenarios that mimic situations they would encounter in real workplaces. Personalized tutoring is provided based on analyzing learner behavior.

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SmartCAD

SmartCAD automatically generates formative feedback to guide students through complex engineering design.

SmartCAD, a computer-aided design system with embedded computational engines, analyzes student design artifacts on a scientific basis and provides automatic formative feedback in numbers, graphs, and visualizations to guide student design processes on an ongoing basis.

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SmartGraphs

SmartGraphs are "smart" because they provide scaffolds and hints to students who need help understanding a graph.

Creating and disseminating “SmartGraphs,” digital objects that “know” about themselves and that provide scaffolding to students to help them learn about graphs and the concepts graphs convey, in mathematics, science, and other subjects.

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Supporting Reasoning with Multidimensional Datasets

Supporting Reasoning with Multidimensional Datasets

Developing technologies that leverage student intuitions about complex data

Multidimensional Data aims to explore how students reason with hierarchical (multidimensional) datasets and how they might be aided in their reasoning. Drawing on our research findings, we will iteratively develop technologies to support students in representing data structures.

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Teacher Networks

Teacher Networks

Building collaborative tools in an online environment for teachers to plan and reflect on student mathematical learning

We’re combining a digital teacher collaborative environment with an existing digital problem-based mathematics curriculum for students to inform research and development about digital teacher and student collaborative environments.

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Teaching Environmental Sustainability: MMW

Teaching Environmental Sustainability: MMW

Using a systems approach to problem solving through modeling and hands-on activities based on local watershed data.

Providing students and teachers with access to scientifically valid and easy-to-use watershed tools to accurately examine their own neighborhoods, to define local environmental problems or challenges, and to develop solutions to improve their environment.

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Teaching Teamwork

Teaching Teamwork

Measuring how effectively electronics students work in teams.

Collaboration is a critically important skill in the 21st century STEM workforce. We're using cutting-edge technology in new ways to support and measure collaboration.

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TecRocks

Exploring the connection between the rock cycle and plate tectonics

TecRocks allows students to investigate the evolution of rock sequences created under different tectonic conditions.

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Transitioning to Remote Science Teaching & Learning

Transitioning to Remote Science Teaching & Learning

Engaging teachers in professional learning for three-dimensional teaching with system models

The Concord Consortium and Michigan State University are collaborating to offer remote professional learning to high school teachers to engage their students in three-dimensional learning using SageModeler for system modeling and computational thinking.

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Visualizing Geohazards and Risk with Code (GeoCode)

Visualizing Geohazards and Risk with Code (GeoCode)

Integrating science practices and computational thinking practices in the study of geohazards for secondary students

Engaging students in the study of geohazards through integrating computational thinking with science practices. Students will be able to transform real-world GPS data into visualizations and formulate scientific arguments about predicting impacts and assessing risks.

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Water SCIENCE

Hands-on water quality activities that foster awareness of careers in environmental conservation and engineering.

Middle school students complete hands-on science and engineering activities and learn about careers in environmental conservation and engineering while investigating their community’s local water resources.

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WATERS

Increasing student interest in STEM careers while building environmental awareness about watersheds

The Watershed Awareness using Technology and Environmental Research for Sustainability project project teaches a systems approach to problem solving through hands-on, inquiry-based learning activities based on real national and local data to explore local watershed issues.

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YouthQuake

Engaging urban students in computational geology around potential earthquake risks and impacts on their community

In partnership with EarthScope, the University of South Florida, and the San Joaquin School District, this project fosters the development of computational geoscience identities and career awareness in urban youth using an earthquake risks and impacts curriculum.

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