About EDC
EDC's Center for Science Education is one of many centers within EDC. For almost 50 years, Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), has been a pioneer, building bridges among research, policy, and practice. Our award-winning programs and products, developed in collaboration with partners around the globe, consistently advance learning and healthy development for individuals of all ages. Today, EDC manages 350 projects in 60 countries. Our work strengthens nearly every facet of society, including early child development, K–12 education, health promotion, workforce preparation, community development, learning technologies, basic and adult education, institutional reform, medical ethics, and social justice.
EDC’s Approach
Projects at EDC address critical challenges around the world in education, health, technology, and human rights. While the issues we address are diverse, all that we do is united by our conviction that learning is the liberating force in human development. Our more than 750 staff members are committed to education that builds knowledge and skills, makes possible a deeper understanding of the world, and engages learners as active, problem-solving participants.
How Do We Inspire Sustainable Change Around the World?
We bridge research and practice.
EDC’s innovative solutions combine the creativity and rigors of research with the realities of practical experience. Each project grows out of current knowledge in the field, and each new tool or approach is informed by extensive pilot-testing and evaluation.
We pursue comprehensive solutions.
We have learned that our work cannot succeed in isolation. It does not work, for example, to confront substance abuse or violence without addressing their causes, or to focus on academic skills while ignoring children’s health and the conditions of the communities in which they live. The problems we are working on are systemic and complex. We strive to focus simultaneously on the individual pieces of the puzzle and the puzzle as a whole.
We collaborate.
Starting with our first physics curriculum, PSSC Physics, EDC has specialized in fostering collaboration among people with diverse skills and viewpoints. We believe that people working effectively in groups are often capable of greater vision and creativity than individuals working alone. Internally, EDC is a community of scientists and mathematicians, health professionals and health educators, teachers, administrators, and community organizers, artists, writers, and researchers. Externally, we build collaborations across countries, cultures, generations, classes, and professions.
We focus on questions that matter in people's lives.
At EDC, we believe that learning begins with questions: a teacher wanting to know a new way to solve a mathematics problem; a doctor wondering how to ease the transition for the family of a dying patient; a teenager wanting to know why school matters in life and career; a principal searching for better ways to meet the needs of students with disabilities; a mother considering whether to breastfeed. Over the decades, EDC’s projects have helped people raise and explore questions of importance in their lives and develop responses that address their strengths, needs, and concerns.
