Research has revealed that a small percentage of weekly instructional time in the elementary grades is dedicated to teaching science. Additionally, elementary educators receive limited preparation to teach science concepts compared to math or literacy skills. Therefore, this study examined if utilizing poetry to teach science concepts had a…

Over the last three decades, many studies have been conducted to identify students' preconceptions on various science topics. It is time now for a synthetic study of preconceptions to enhance our understanding of students' everyday cognition and to benefit our effort in developing effective instructional inventions for conceptual change. Through a…

Linguistics, as one of the cognitive sciences, has much to offer the teaching of basic science, i.e., the teaching of how to ask and investigate interesting questions. Linguistics is particularly well-suited for teaching about the process of "doing" science because the methodology appropriate to the study of language from a generative…

Describes the Bajema strategy for teaching meiosis and how it is used in the general genetics course at Ball State University and can be used to identify students who have misconceptions of meiosis that can interfere with their learning the basics of Mendelian inheritance. (Contains 11 references.) (MDH)

The integration of mathematics and science is a recommended pedagogical strategy made by major reform-based documents. The goal is to enhance learner understandings by recognizing the relationships between the two disciplines. Documented attempts to systematically enact this initiative in teacher preparation remain uncommon. As a result, an…

Describes the reasoning patterns characteristic of the abstract thinking required for higher levels of school science. Discusses control and exclusion of variables, ratio and proportion, conservation involving models, compensation and equilibrium, correlation, probability, combinatorial thinking, coordination of frames of reference, and…

Reports results of the Second International Science Study concerning achievement in physics of U.S. high school students. Makes comparisons between students of 13 other countries and U.S. students, between first- and second-year U.S. physics students, and between U.S. students tested in the mid-1980s and those tested in 1970. (MDH)

Reports a study designed to compare science and nonscience Indonesian high school students' (n=400) energy-related knowledge and their attitudes toward energy conservation. Results indicated that (1) students in general have unfavorable attitudes toward energy conservation, and (2) nonscience students are less knowledgeable about energy-related…