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Elementary science education, particularly in the 4th and 5th grades, is essential for setting the foundation for lifelong science learning, fostering critical thinking, and preparing students for success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This stage is especially critical for students with disabilities, as achievement gaps between them and their peers emerge during elementary school. Despite this importance, little is known about how science is taught in elementary classrooms during these critical years, particularly for students with disabilities. To address this gap, we surveyed teachers from a nationally representative sample of U.S. schools to examine elementary science education, including instructional practices, allocation of time, and the inclusion and support of students with disabilities. Our findings reveal that limited instructional time is allocated to science, with significant variability across classrooms. The amount of time dedicated to science instruction was significantly influenced by external factors, such as whether science was a tested subject. Students with disabilities often face additional barriers, including being pulled out of science instruction for special education services, resulting in missed opportunities to engage in science. These findings highlight the need to address opportunity gaps in science instruction to ensure all students have meaningful access to quality science education. 

This descriptive brief paper is an abbreviated report about a larger autoethnographic study written by the first author as a post-doctoral research associate working in educative making as part of an NSF grant for which the goal is to attract a diverse population to the career path of mechatronics. Teleworking from home under shelter-in-place orders, she employed the methodology of reflexive embodied autoethnography with applied sensibilities to investigate the cultural experience of her two semesters as a participant observer who built a new university Makerspace in the USA and supported its use by undergraduate science education preservice teachers. Sans the underlying personal experience narrative of the larger study, this account encapsulates its findings with regards to conceptual, physical, and cultural characteristics of the Makerspace and the teaching and learning therein. This report concludes with considerations for the design, utility, and culture of fabrication laboratories which support deep engagement. This account may inform the work of informal and formal science education and educative making learning communities which strive for transformative learning. (Funding - NSF Grant 1842342.) 

In this descriptive brief paper three science education university faculty and a postdoctoral researcher share the difference between the delivery, execution, and assessment of the same educative making learning opportunities assigned to science education preservice teachers first in face-to-face undergraduate courses taught before the COVID-19 pandemic, and then in an online version of the same courses. This presentation may inform the work of constituents of science and teacher education and maker learning communities who want to employ best practices as they modify curriculum for virtual delivery. (Funding-NSF Grant 1842342.)