Evaluation Insights is a new column about program evaluation that will help readers build their capacity as program evaluators.

Mobile instructional spaces such as retrofit buses, customized trucks or trailers, and repurposed shipping containers are innovative, unique venues for teaching and learning. STEM-focused mobile instructional spaces have emerged as vehicles for providing students and teachers with high-quality integrated STEM learning experiences that emphasize professional practices and 21st-century skills alongside a range of STEM content. In this article, we describe three best practices (creating a shared culture, fostering agency, and offering multiple pathways for engagement) for operating a STEM-focused mobile instructional space with K–12 students and teachers. We developed these best practices based on our own extensive work with two STEM-focused mobile instructional spaces, the BioBus and the MakerTruck. These practices have the potential to inform the work of formal and informal STEM educators who also operate mobile instructional spaces. Next steps for cementing the unique role STEM-focused mobile instructional spaces play in bridging the gap between in-school and out-of-school learning are discussed.

A material commonly known as Flubber, with properties that are excellent for teaching about glaciers, has been widely used in geosciences education. Yet, the original recipe contains borax, which has health risks that should be avoided. A new recipe is shared containing low-cost, readily available ingredients that produces a reformulated Flubber with properties similar to the original without the associated health risks.

Through the Sediment, Ice, & Learning on the Tanana (SILT) project, a team of university scientists engaged two middle school student groups in testing innovative environmental research technologies to measure sediment flowing underneath river ice. The culturally responsive, place-based pilot program tests these technologies as a strategy to increase students’ science interest and science self-efficacy. Over a series of three workshops, 39 students built and deployed low-cost turbidity sensors to measure sediment flowing underneath river ice and designed model payload attachment systems to attach the sensors to drones for measuring sediment fluxes during spring river ice breakup. Students’ changes in science interest and self-efficacy were measured using both a true pre- and post-program survey and a retrospective pre-program survey.

The Learning Team at The Florida Aquarium in Tampa received funding in 2014 to create and conduct a long-term outdoor learning experience for Hillsborough County, Florida, fifth-grade students. The program was designed with four parts to optimize students’ experiences in their local watershed, including both classroom and field activities. This study examined learning gains and trends in student attitudes related to watershed topics. Via pre- and post-assessment, data suggests that students increased their knowledge through this program, and their atti-tudes became more positive about being able to effect change regarding climate change but not as much when it came to their confidence that they could make an impact on their local waterways. This study provides a strong example of how an informal learning environment can improve knowledge and attitudes of elementary students through an outdoor experience.

Solar eclipses are a rare phenomenon that everyone should have the opportunity to explore in depth. This article describes two programs developed by a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach center with the goal of bringing the excitement of eclipses to all learners. The STEM outreach center collaborated with local schools to provide a learning opportunity about eclipses in the weeks leading up to the October 14, 2023, annular solar eclipse, and with a local library to provide a free public viewing event for the eclipse. Students and community members engaged in various activities including modeling lunar phases and eclipses, learning about why and how often eclipses happen in a mobile planetarium, exploring magnetism and sunspots with the use of a solar telescope, and measuring and graphing light intensity and ultraviolet radiation throughout the solar eclipse. Post-event evaluations and anecdotal evidence indicate that participants could make connections on a variety of topics including how sunspots occur; why eclipses are predictable; and the differences between annular, total, and partial eclipses. The article also includes adaptations for classroom teachers and other STEM outreach centers to use the ideas presented here for the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse.

From the outside, it may not have seemed like a big deal, but transitioning the NSTA journals to an external publisher was a complex process. Of course it was worth it. New features such as DOI numbers, the ability to download and print PDFs of articles, and citation statistics (to name a few) as well as the increased functionality and added support for all stages of the publishing process truly mean that CSL has leveled up. Thank you to everyone—authors, reviewers, readers, and NSTA—for all you have done to grow CSL from its first issue in 2016 to a full-fledged member of NSTA’s suite of journals. So what’s next? We have a slate of compelling issues for the rest of 2024.