UM Directory

Projects

Co-PI, Advancing Earth Science Instruction Across High School Biology, Chemistry, and Physics in Baltimore City Public Schools (EarthX), 2022-2026

EarthX is an NSF-funded Discovery Research K-12 research-practice partnership project. Our collaboration among school district teachers and administrators, scientists, and education researchers is bringing Earth science and compelling environmental phenomena into high school biology, chemistry, and physics courses in Baltimore.

Evaluator, Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry for Yup’ik Students, Grades 3-5, 2021-2026

This Department of Education-funded Native American and Alaska Native Children in School Program project partners Hooper Bay Charter School teachers, community members, and educational designers to create dual-language, place-based STEM education resources for students and teachers in the Alaskan Native Hooper Bay community.

Evaluator, Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP), 2022-2025

NEBP is a NASA-funded SciAct project that broadens participation among STEM learners. NEBP immerses teams of students from a wide range of higher education institutions, including Minority Serving Institutions and Tribal Colleges, in an innovative NASA-mission-like adventure in data acquisition and analysis through scientific ballooning during the 2023 and 2024 eclipses.

Evaluator, Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC), 2020-2025

Montana Space Grant Consortium is a NASA-funded, Montana State University-led program that collaborates with colleges and universities across the state to strengthen education in Montana in NASA-related fields. MSGC offers a variety of innovative and experiential student and faculty STEM engagement and funding opportunities.

Evaluator, Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry for Yup’ik Students, Grades 6-8, 2021-2024

This Department of Education-funded Alaska Native Education Program project partners Hooper Bay Charter School teachers, community members, and educational designers to create dual-language, place-based STEM education resources for students and teachers in the Alaskan Native Hooper Bay community.

Co-PI, ResilienceMT: Building Resilience in Montana’s Rural and Tribal Communities, 2021-2024

ResilienceMT is a NOAA-funded project collaborating with community partners from the Aaniiih and Nakoda Tribes, the Amskapi Piikani (Blackfeet) Tribe, and the Bitterroot Valley. The project aims to build community resilience to wildfires, drought, flooding, and extreme heat through collaborative activities including a traveling climate resilience museum exhibition, community climate forums, and a climate leadership course.

Co-PI, Precipitating Change With Alaskan and Hawaiian Schools: Supporting Earth Science Learning From Both Indigenous and Western-Style Inquiry, 2021-2024

This NSF-funded Discovery Research K-12 project brings together partners from Alaskan and Hawaiian Native communities, multiple universities, and Concord Consortium. We are exploring approaches to design, test, and refine multi-perspective middle school instruction addressing coasts and coastal change.

Evaluator, Making Across Montana: Engaging K-12 Teachers and Students in Rural and Tribal Communities with Making and Tinkering, 2020-2023

This Institute of Museum and Library Services-funded project is developing, testing, and sharing a replicable and sustainable approach for making and tinkering engagement in rural and Tribal communities.

Evaluator, UM BRIDGES: Bridging Divides Across the Food, Energy, and Water Nexus, 2016-2022

UM BRIDGES was a University of Montana National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) project that prepared a network of STEM graduate students to contribute to more sustainable and secure food, energy, and water systems in a range of careers.

Co-PI, Comp Hydro: Research on Effects of Integrating Computational Science and Model Building in Water Systems Teaching and Learning, 2015-2021

Comp Hydro was an NSF-funded STEM+C project focused on supporting high school science teachers and their students in developing scientific and computational literacy concerning socioscientific issues situated in hydrologic systems (e.g., groundwater contamination).

Co-PI, Sustaining Rigorous and Responsive Teaching Based on Carbon: Transformations in Matter and Energy (Carbon TIME), 2014-2021

Carbon TIME was an NSF-funded STEM+C project that included publicly available teaching units, assessments, teacher professional development, and teacher networks based in local education agencies. Still available NGSS-aligned resources focus on processes (e.g., photosynthesis, cellular respiration, combustion) that transform matter and energy at multiple scales.

Evaluator, All Under One Roof: A Museum-Library-Food Bank Collaboration to Feed Bodies, Minds, and Community, 2017-2019

This Institute of Museum and Library Services-funded project partnered Missoula Food Bank & Community Center, the Missoula Public Library, and spectrUM Discovery Area in building and sustaining EmPower Place, a museum-like children’s learning space within the Missoula Foodbank & Community Center.

PI, Montana Groundwater Academy, 2014-2017

This EPA-funded project brought together a diverse set of partners to build a groundwater education field site and support Montana high school teachers and students in field investigations to develop knowledge of groundwater system structures, processes, and issues (e.g., contamination).

PI, Reasoning Tools for Understanding Water Systems, 2010-2014

This NSF-funded Discovery Research K-12 project partnered multiple institutions of higher education with middle school teachers in Arizona and Montana to design, test, and refine learning progression-based tools to support students’ hydrologic systems literacy.

Program Development Manager and Science Education Specialist, Big Sky Science Partnership (BSSP), 2007-2013

BSSP was an NSF-funded Math Science Partnership that partnered K-8 schools, Tribal communities, and institutions of higher education to strengthen culturally responsive elementary science education with teachers from the Flathead, Northern Cheyenne, and Crow Reservations, and Missoula.

Field of Study

Citizenship Education, Education Program Evaluation, Environmental Education, Environmental Science Literacy, K-12 Teacher Professional Development, Learning Progressions, Science Education, Water Education

Publications

Covitt, B. A., Gunckel, K. L., Berkowitz, A., Woessner, W. W., & Moore, J. 2024. Employing a Groundwater Contamination Learning Experience to Build Proficiency in Computational Modeling for Socioscientific Literacy. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 33(2), 228-250.

Covitt, B. A., de los Santos, E. X., Lin, Q., Morrison Thomas, C., & Anderson, C. W. 2024. Instructional practices in secondary science: How teachers achieve local and standards‐based success. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 61(1), 170-202.

Gunckel, K. L., Covitt, B. A., & Bianchini, J. A. 2024. Key Components of Learning Progression-Based Educative Curriculum Materials Designed to Support Teachers and Their Diverse Students. In Handbook of Research on Science Learning Progressions (pp. 315-331). Routledge.

Covitt, B. A., & Anderson, C. W. 2022. Untangling trustworthiness and uncertainty in science: Implications for science education. Science & Education, 31(5), 1155-1180.

Gunckel, K. L., Covitt, B. A., Berkowitz, A. R., Caplan, B., & Moore, J. C. 2022. Computational thinking for using models of water flow in environmental systems: Intertwining three dimensions in a learning progression. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 59(7), 1169-1203.

Gunckel, K. L., Covitt, B. A., Love, G., Cooper-Wagoner, J. A., & Moreno, D. 2022. Unplugged to Plugged In. The Science Teacher, 89(3), 46-51.

Caplan, B., Covitt, B., Love, G., Berkowitz, A. R., Gunckel, K. L., McClure, C., & Moore, J. C. 2021. Using computational thinking and modeling to build water and watershed literacy. Connected science learning, 3(2), 12318685.

Covitt, B. A., Parker, J. M., Kohn, C., Lee, M., Lin, Q., & Anderson, C. W. 2020. Understanding and responding to challenges students face when engaging in carbon cycle pool-and-flux reasoning. The Journal of Environmental Education, 52(2), 98-117.

Covitt, B.A., Mortimer, V., Wethington, N., & Wolfram, N. 2019. Design elements from a rural multi-organization collaborative: The Bitterroot Valley learning ecosystem. Connected Science Learning, 12.

Pressler, Y., Hunter-Laszlo, M., Bucko, S., Covitt, B., Urban, S., Benton, C., Bartholomew, M., Morrisaon, A., Foster, E. Parker, S., Cotrufo, M., & Moore, J. 2019. Teaching Authentic Soil and Plant Science in Middle School Classrooms with a Biochar Case Study. American Biology Teacher, 81(4), 256-268.

Anderson, C.W., de los Santos, E., Bodbyl Roels, S., Covitt, B., Edwards, K., Hancock, J., Lin, Q., Morrison Thomas, C., Penuel, W., Welch, M. 2018. Desigining educational systems to support enactment of Next Generation Science Standards. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(7), 1026-1052.

Covitt, B., Podrasky, A., Fassnacht, D., Paquette, R., & Woessner, W. 2018. Delving below the surface with the Montana Groundwater Academy. Connected Science Learning, 1(5).

Covitt, B., Gunckel, K., Caplan, B., & Syswerda, S. 2018. Teachers’ Use of Learning Progression-Based Formative Assessment in Water Instruction. Applied Measurement in Education, 31(2), 128-142.

Covitt, B., & Anderson, C. 2018. Assessing Scientific Genres of Argument, Explanation and Prediction. In Bailey, A., Maher, C., & Wilkinson, L. (Eds.), Language, Literacy and Learning in the STEM Disciplines: How Language Counts for English Learners (pp. 206-230). New York: Routledge.

Gunckel, K. L., Covitt, B. A., & Salinas, I. 2018. Learning progressions as tools for supporting teacher content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge about water in environmental systems. Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

Covitt, B., Dauer, J., & Anderson, C. 2017. The role of practices in scientific literacy. In Schwarz, C., Passmore, C., & Reiser, B. (Eds.), Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices (pp. 59-83). Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

Covitt, B., Friend, D., Windell, C., & Baldwin, J. 2015. A Scientific Modeling Sequence for Teaching Earth Seasons. Journal of Geoscience Education, 63(1), 7-17.

Salinas, I., Covitt, B. A., & Gunckel, K. L. 2013. Sustancias en el agua: progresiones de aprendizaje para diseñar intervenciones curriculares. Educación química, 24(4), 391-398.

Covitt, B., Harris, C., & Anderson, C. 2013. Evaluating Scientific Arguments with Slow Thinking. Science Scope, 37(3), 44-52.

Gunckel, K.L., Covitt, B.A., Salinas, I., & Anderson, C.W. 2012. A learning progression for water in socio-ecological systems. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 49(7), 843-868.

Gunckel, K. L., Mohan, L., Covitt, B. A., & Anderson, C. W. 2012. Addressing challenges in developing learning progressions for environmental science literacy. In A. Alonzo & A. W. Gotwals (Eds.), Learning Progressions in Science. Boston, MA: Sense Publishers.

Zint, M., Covitt, B., & Dowd, P. 2011. Insights from an evaluability assessment of the US Forest Service More Kids in the Woods Initiative. Journal of Environmental Education, 42(4), 255-271.

Zint, M., Dowd, P., & Covitt, B. 2011. Enhancing environmental educators’ evaluation competencies: insights from an examination of the effectiveness of the My Environmental Education Evaluation Resources Assistant (MEERA) website. Environmental Education Research, 17(4), 471-497.

Covitt, B., Gunckel, K. & Anderson, C. 2009. Students’ developing understanding of water in environmental systems. Journal of Environmental Education, 40(3), 37-51.

Weizman, A., Covitt, B., Koehler, M., Lundeberg, M., Oslund, J., Low, M., Eberhardt, J., & Urban-Lurain, M. 2008. Measuring teachers’ learning from a problem-based learning approach to professional development in Science Education.  Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 2(5), 29-60.

Schwarz, C., Gunckel, K., Smith, E., Covitt, B., Bae, M., Enfield, M., & Tsurusaki, B.  2008. Helping elementary preservice teachers learn to use curriculum materials for effective science teaching.  Science Education, 92(2), 345-377.

Covitt, B.  2006.  Self-determination and student perceptions in environmental service-learning.  Applied Environmental Education and Communication, 5(3), 171-181.

Covitt, B., Gomez-Schmidt, C., & Zint, M.  2005.  An evaluation of the risk education module Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Risk.  Journal of Environmental Education, 36(2), 3-13.

Covitt, B.  2002.  Motivating environmentally responsible behavior through service-learning.  In S. Billig and A. Furco (Eds.).  Advances in Service-Learning Research (Vol. 2).  Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Professional Experience

Across varied collaborative efforts, I center relationships, respect, equity, ethics, responsiveness, inclusivity, and high-quality research and evaluation products. I have served as PI, Co-PI, or evaluator on numerous federally funded grants (from Dept. of Ed, EPA, IMLS, NASA, NOAA, NSF, USDA) and other foundation-funded projects. Efforts address science and environmental education research and program evaluation; science literacy; design-based implementation research; research-practice partnerships; curriculum, program, and professional development; urban education systems; and partnerships with Indigenous communities.