Category: News

Congratulations to Haya Ben Simon on the Jacobs Excellence Scholarship

We are delighted to congratulate Haya Ben Simon on being awarded the Jacobs Excellence Scholarship (2026).

This prestigious scholarship recognizes academic excellence and outstanding promise, and reflects Haya’s dedication, scholarly achievements, and meaningful contributions to research. We are proud of her accomplishment and wish her continued success in her academic journey.

Congratulations to Gal Stern on the NARST 2026 International Travel Award

We are delighted to congratulate Gal Stern on being selected to receive a NARST 2026 International Travel Award, supporting her travel to the NARST2026 Annual International Conference.

At the conference, Gal will present her accepted oral paper:
Stern, G. & Tsybulsky, D. (2026). From collecting to designing: Integrating AI into digital curation for personalized science education.
NARST 2026 Conference, Seattle, USA, April 2026.

 We are proud of her achievement and look forward to her presentation at NARST 2026.

Just published – Our New Article in Smart Learning Environments

I’m delighted to share that our article, “Critical Ignoring Reimagined: Insights from STEM Digital Curation on Wikimedia Platforms,” has been published in Smart Learning Environments.

Led by Shani Evenstein Sigalov, this study revisits the concept of critical ignoring and extends it through an in-depth qualitative analysis of experienced Wikimedians engaged in STEM digital curation on Wikipedia and Wikidata. The findings show how the original strategies of critical ignoring (self-nudging, lateral reading, and “don’t feed the trolls”) are enacted and sustained in real-world, collaborative knowledge production.

Importantly, the study identifies additional motivational and contextual dimensions that support critical ignoring over time, highlighting its role as a sustained, socially embedded practice rather than a momentary evaluation skill.

👉 Read the article here:

Evenstein Sigalov, S. & Tsybulsky, D. (2026). Critical ignoring reimagined: Insights from STEM digital curation on Wikimedia platforms. Smart Learning Environments, 13:4, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-026-00432-6

🎥 You can also watch a short AI-generated video overview here: 

 

 

Just published in Springer – Our New Book Chapter

We are excited to share that our new book chapter has been published!

The chapter examines the educational goals that natural history museum staff associate with climate change exhibitions and analyzes how different aspects of nature of science are integrated into exhibition content. By focusing on museum professionals’ perspectives alongside an analysis of the exhibitions themselves, the study highlights the pedagogical potential of natural history museums as authentic learning environments that can complement formal biology and climate change education.
📘 The chapter is available here:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-05346-6_7

Pshenichny-Mamo, A., Demarse, M., Hunter, R.H. & Tsybulsky, D. (2026). Exploring the educational potential of climate change exhibitions in natural history museums. In C. Bruguière, M. Hammann & O. Morin (Eds.), Shaping the Future of Biological Education Research. Contributions from Biology Education Research (pp. 87-101). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-05346-6_7

🌙 Sleep Citizen Science Project in Our Lab

  • 🎶 Do different types of music influence sleep?
  • 🌡️ How does temperature affect sleep patterns?
  • 📊 And what happens when sleep is disrupted — how does the body recover?

These questions emerged from an inquiry process led by eighth-grade students as part of a Sleep Citizen Science project. The students analyzed their own sleep data alongside data from adolescents across Israel, identified patterns and potential relationships, and formulated research hypotheses.

They then moved to an additional scientific practice: a controlled biological experiment. Through analysis, the students identified patterns, variability, and potential relationships, and on this basis formulated hypotheses that they sought to examine through an additional scientific practice—a controlled biological experiment. Fruit flies serve as a model organism for the study of human sleep due to similarities in the genes responsible for the biological clock. The students visited our fly laboratory at the Technion, separated males from females, placed flies into capillary tubes, and then into a dedicated monitoring system that tracks activity levels and enables the identification of periods of sleep and wakefulness.

The flies were subjected to different treatments in accordance with the research questions: some were maintained at different temperatures, others were exposed to classical music or trance music or to varying sound intensities, and in some cases, sleep was deliberately disrupted. In addition, the students prepared fly food and, for an additional experiment, cooked diets with varying protein-to-carbohydrate ratios.

We are currently awaiting the monitoring results, and in the coming weeks, the students will conduct an in-depth analysis of the collected data. Based on these analyses, they will construct models to explain, represent, and describe the phenomena they investigated.

 

Just Published — Our Latest Article in Science and Education

We are excited to share that our paper, “The Intersection Between Social-Institutional Aspects of the Nature of Science and Social Justice in Natural History Museum Exhibitions,” has just been published in Science & Education! In this study, we examined how natural history museum exhibitions communicate both how science works and who is recognized within it. Through an analysis of signage from the Changing Face of Science series at the Field Museum (Chicago), we developed a seven-category framework that reveals how exhibitions can spotlight diverse identities in science, while also exposing gaps related to structural, historical, and epistemic justice. Our findings show that museums have significant potential not only to broaden representation, but also to foster more inclusive and critically engaged understandings of science. A heartfelt thank-you to our museum partners, colleagues, and reviewers for their support throughout this journey.

Pshenichny-Mamo, A., Lodge, W. & Tsybulsky, D. (2025). The intersection between the nature of science and social justice in natural history museum exhibitions. Just Published — Our Latest Article in Science & Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-025-00708-2

Just published – Our Chapter in the Handbook of Personalized Learning

We are excited to share that our new book chapter has been published!

This chapter offers a research-based perspective on how Digital Curation can serve as a powerful pedagogical framework that advances Personalized Learning in science education. By engaging learners in selecting, evaluating, organizing, and interpreting digital information, Digital Curation fosters learner agency, deepens scientific understanding, and supports flexible, individualized learning pathways.

Stern, G., Dayan, E. & Tsybulsky, D. (2025). Leveraging digital curation for personalized learning. In M. Bernacki, C. Walkington, A. Emery, L. Zhang (Eds.), Handbook of Personalized Learning. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032719467-16.  Link.

 

Happy to Welcome the Leaders of the Biology Teachers’ Communities to Our Lab

We were excited to host a special meeting for the leaders of the Biology Teachers’ Communities in our lab!
The meeting brought together a dedicated group of educators committed to strengthening and enriching biology teaching across Israel.

🔬 The session featured innovative laboratory experiments led by the Laboratory Center at Bar-Ilan University, giving participants hands-on experience with fresh experimental techniques and ideas.

🌱 Supporting and empowering biology teachers is at the heart of what we do — because advancing science education starts with a strong, inspired teaching community.