Describes how discrepant events in science can be used to stimulate and motivate the use of thinking skills in learning scientific concepts. (ZWH)

Presents information on using analogies in science instruction. Describes the Teaching-with-Analogies Model. Presents an example for homeostasis. (PR)

Describes thought-provoking activities with the Cartesian Diver system. Presents student answers explaining the phenomena. (PR)

Presents research findings related to students' intuitive ideas about the concepts of chance to inform teachers how students form their concepts of probability and statistics. Discusses adolescents' conceptions of uncertainty, judgmental heuristics in making estimates of event likelihood, the conjunction fallacy, the outcome approach, attempts to…

Describes an award-winning bulletin board for introducing a unit on reptiles. This interactive bulletin board contains fun facts and counters common misconceptions about reptiles. Twelve true-false statements are hidden behind pull-up flaps. Four pictures ask students to identify the difference between often-confused animals. (PR)

Explains reasons why students have misconceptions concerning pendulum swings. Presents a series of 10 pendulum task cards to provide middle-school students with a solid mental scaffolding upon which to build their knowledge of kinetic energy and pendulums. (PR)

Describes an activity using a large balloon to help children understand that, even though the horizon appears to be flat, the Earth is, indeed, round. Uses a toy ship to reinforce evidence from the first part of the activity. Stresses the importance of confronting naive theories at an early age. (CW)

Examined is the situation in which pupils invent mathematics on their own and teachers' reactions to this situation. The assimilation of students' original ideas into correct mathematical concepts is discussed. (CW)

Reviews the logic underlying mathematical induction and presents 10 tasks designed to help students develop a conceptual framework for mathematical induction. (Contains 20 references.) (MDH)

Describes an interview-a-scientist assignment for preservice elementary teachers. Preservice teachers realized that scientists frequently repeat experimental work, that science is not neat and tidy, and that science requires patience and perseverance. (PR)

Maintains that having students estimate the size and width of a class waste paper can (placed on a desk) is a simple and effective way of illustrating perceptual distortion. Tests show that people will consistently overestimate the height of the can, allowing for a useful discussion on sensory distortion. (MJP)

Describes teaching strategies, including science activities, for challenging students' misconceptions about turtles and helping limited-English-proficiency students enhance their language proficiency. (PR)

Describes a Russian approach of using literature to make physics instruction more interesting and attractive to students. (PR)

Discusses traditional school demonstrations and experiments in hydrotropism. Explains that these experiments seem to "prove" hydrotropism, but yet most botanists reject hydrotropism. Teachers continue to teach the concept because it is logical and the experiments are simple. (PR)

Discusses the two overgeneralizations "multiplications makes bigger" and "division makes smaller" in the context of solving word problems involving rational numbers less than one. Presents activities to help students make sense of multiplication and division in these situations. (MDH)