Pre-laboratory tasks are a best practice for preparing students for learning in the laboratory. Virtual labs, which use virtual reality to place students in an emulation of a physical laboratory where they have the capacity to manipulate equipment and materials as approximations of scientific practice, are emerging as an alternative to the…

Space science education is an area of emerging importance in the 21st Century. Missions sponsored by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and programs facilitated through the NASA Space Science Education Consortium (NSSEC) offer unique opportunities to foster learner interest in space science as well as the broader field…

A common problem in many schools is the lack of equipment and materials in their science laboratories due to both limited budget available to the school and high maintenance cost of the lab. The latest technological advancements provide great opportunities for schools to go over the budget and cost issues by using 3D virtual learning environments…

The 21st century student learns and communicates in the virtual world. In order to meet the individual instructional needs of the students, virtual science laboratories should be researched to accomplish the goal. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a virtual chemistry laboratory in enhancing students' conceptual understanding as a…

The Scratch programming language is an introductory programming language for students. It is also a visual concurrent programming language, where multiple threads are executed simultaneously. Synchronization in concurrent languages is a complex task for novices to understand. Our research is focused on strategies and methods applied by novice…

Students in 4 Canadian high school physics classes completed instructional sequences in two key physics topics related to motion--Straight Line Motion and Newton's First Law. Different sequences of laboratory investigation, teacher explanation (lecture) and the use of computer-based scientific visualizations (animations and simulations) were…

Science educators and school administrators are reexamining the educational value of animal dissection in the nation's schools and are focusing on simulation as an instructional alternative. One implication of the debate is that simulations can lead to equivalent learning to hands-on dissection. The second implication is whether dissection is…

The notion of problem-based physics laboratories enhanced by computer technology has been coined "studio physics" (Wilson, 1994) and has been practised at various institutions for some time (Cummings, Marx, Thornton, & Kuhl, 1999; Williams, MacLatchy, Backman, & Retson, 1997). In recent years, new technology tools have been available to supplement…

The life sciences, in particular molecular genetics, have become a pivotal area of research and innovation, and at the same time are amongst the most controversially discussed in today's society. Despite this discussion, the demand for life science expertise increases rapidly, creating a growing need for life science education in particular and…