AAAS’s Project 2061 has been awarded a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop new tools for finding out how students build their knowledge of energy concepts over time and for helping teachers diagnose their students’ learning difficulties.

Acknowledging the importance of energy education for today’s students, the department’s Institute of Education Sciences gave high marks to the new study, which is one of only 26 funded this year through the competitive education research grants program.