Quantum physics for fifth graders? One research team thinks so.

Quantum mechanics is one of the most challenging topics a physics student can encounter. So why is a team of researchers from George Mason University in Virginia working to bring quantum physics topics into elementary school classrooms?

“We’re at the beginning of the second quantum revolution,” says Nancy Holincheck, assistant professor in GMU’s College of Education and Human Development and lead investigator of the Quantum is Elementary project. The first revolution included the invention of the transistor, which now powers nearly every modern electronic device. “It’s hard to imagine where we might go … but it seems very likely that understanding quantum concepts will give students an advantage,” she says.

The team’s work with young students comes at a time of great interest in quantum science. Many innovations, like quantum computers, are still largely unrealized, but nations around the world are investing billions of dollars into quantum technology and the educated workforce it requires. And the United Nations recently proclaimed 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, an education and awareness campaign for the burgeoning field, and a campaign for which APS strongly advocated.

Programs geared toward elementary school children are in their infancy. But for Holincheck, “quantum is an opportunity to help students develop complex thinking skills,” like probabilistic thinking, she says. Students generally understand deterministic thinking: If I drop my pencil, it will fall to the ground. But in quantum physics, it’s impossible to exactly define the position of particles, like the atoms that comprise a pencil, at a precise time. Instead, physicists use probability distribution functions — probabilistic thinking.

The team’s Quantum is Elementary project, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, is designed around a set of key research questions. What knowledge base do elementary school teachers need to feel comfortable teaching quantum concepts and to design curricula for diverse learners? What knowledge base do students need to learn those concepts, and how do students make sense of quantum science as they learn?

To answer these questions, the GMU research team selected 10 teachers out of a pool of applicants from local elementary schools to participate in a multi-year project. “We didn’t anticipate so much interest,” she says, but it allowed the team to prioritize teachers at Title I schools — schools that receive federal funding because they tend to have more students from low-income backgrounds. The researchers also offered teachers a stipend for participation.

“We had teachers with a pretty solid understanding of science, and even some understanding of quantum, and then we had people who were excited but knew nothing about quantum,” says Holincheck. Last spring, the researchers had the participants complete a quantum physics bootcamp to ensure everyone in the cohort had at least the same fundamental understanding of quantum topics.

Next, the researchers sorted the teachers into teams, and each team worked to develop a lesson that could introduce a fundamental aspect of quantum science, like superposition or entanglement. Starting in 2025, the teachers will pilot the lessons in their classrooms. The GMU team will capture data from these pilots to inform their research.

One of the teachers supporting the project is Marin Moore, a fifth grade teacher at the Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia. Like many elementary teachers, Moore, who majored in economics during college, is responsible for teaching every subject in her students’ curriculum — including science.

Moore considers herself “a huge science nerd,” in part because her father is a plasma physicist. But for many educators, teaching science lessons is daunting. “The fifth grade science curriculum gets very content-heavy,” she says, and the required content is set by Virginia’s science standards, which don’t include quantum physics. This is a challenge for teachers who want to incorporate additional topics, like the frontiers of science, into their classrooms.

Quantum physics “allows students to explore something they haven’t seen before … and they can just be curious,” Moore says. “The opportunity for children to learn about something that scientists like Albert Einstein or Robert Oppenheimer, who had gone through all their schooling, were still trying to figure out, lets students know there’s room for them in science too.”

For the research project, Moore’s team developed a set of mini-lessons designed to teach text structures — how writers present ideas to their readers, like sharing thoughts in chronological order or comparing concepts. The teacher team used AI to write sample texts for the lessons, which are formally a part of her students’ language arts curriculum, but they explicitly chose quantum physics as the topic set. It’s a two-in-one approach, giving Moore the chance to bring quantum concepts into her classroom, even though it’s not part of the prescribed science standards.

Ahead of the formal classroom pilot, Moore has already tried out the sample texts with her own fifth graders. “They’ll have to read the texts a few times” and help each other understand, she says, but it’s been exciting to see that they’re doing so voluntarily. “They want to understand it,” she says.

Holincheck says the GMU team’s research project grew out of foundational work by the National Q-12 Education Partnership, another National Science Foundation project, which is compiling resources and teaching tools for elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. The project identified a clear need for teachers “to bring quantum into K-12 in new ways,” she says.

“There’s a beauty, a wonder to science, that often doesn’t make it into the way we teach it,” largely because of the emphasis on standardized testing and prescribed curricula, she says. Most students who learn quantum concepts do so in high school courses that require advanced math, so most kids miss out.

That’s why Holincheck designed her team’s study not only to support elementary science teachers, but also to develop new quantum physics lessons tailored specifically to elementary students — lessons like those developed in Moore’s project. Other teacher teams in the cohort have developed lessons based on exercises on the possible effects of measurement, quantum encryption, and quantum superposition. For example, the team used the concept of superposition — where a particle can exist in all possible positions, or realities, until it is measured — as a metaphor to encourage students to think about the complexity of their own emotions. After all, a person can experience more than one emotion at once.

The research is very new. But for Holincheck, early lessons like these are important not only for quantum education, but for students’ broader interest in science.

“Elementary experiences … have a lasting impact on how students see themselves, their identity,” Holincheck says. “If we want to change what STEM looks like, to make sure it’s accessible and relevant to students across races and ethnicities, and linguistic and disability levels, we can’t wait until high school.”