The nodules on the roots of soybeans provide N that the plant uses for growth and development. The goal of this study is to observe if the number of nodules on the taproot, volume of nodules on the taproot, the total number of nodules, or the number of nodules on the secondary roots in the early growth stages of soybeans have a significant…

Sequence stratigraphic and Wheeler diagram interpretations require a strong combination of conceptual understanding and diagram reasoning skills. Students are generally exposed to the foundational concepts within sequence stratigraphy (relative sea level, eustasy, base level, and accommodation) in a variety of courses along their degree path,…

This qualitative study used a deep ecology lens and the New Environmental Paradigm to investigate anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in 30 secondary school environment club students from three schools in Victoria, Australia. The work repositions the deep ecology philosophy as a posthumanist/relational ideology, providing novel perspectives based on…

The ability to accurately reason using three-dimensional visualizations is vital to success in STEM disciplines, particularly the geosciences. One impediment to learning from visualizations is spatially-based misconceptions. Such errors can arise from a range of sources (e.g., prior beliefs, inaccurate application of analogy, and visual…

This paper reports on the effect of architectural design of a workplace on the creativity of its users. A technical services company relocated from a conventional office building to one designed according to Maharishi Vastu (MVA), a natural system of architecture based on alignment with the energy fields of the sun and the earth. The company's…

Individuals use information selectively, in ways that support group beliefs or one's psychological needs--this is motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning is revealed in correlations between (1) opinions/knowledge and (2) individual cognitive preferences, such as need for closure, belief in a just world, and authoritarianism. We ask whether…

Science teacher's self-efficacy has been at the center of many investigations on students' achievement in science, teacher burnout, and teacher performance. While overly studied, this construct has not been examined with scientific literacy in depth. Thus, this study aims to identify the influence of science teacher's scientific literacy on their…

This study investigated the relationship between gifted students' academic self-concept (ASC) and academic achievement (AC) in earth science with internationally representative high-school students from the third International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO) held in Taiwan in 2009. The results of regression analysis indicated that IESO students' ASC…

The dramatic decline in youth interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) during adolescence, both in the USA and internationally, has been a phenomenon of societal concern for several decades. The Synergies project was launched to help deal with this issue. In this paper, we report findings from the first two years of our…

In the area of science education research, studies have attempted to investigate conceptions of learning, approaches to learning, and self-efficacy, mainly focusing on science in general or on specific subjects such as biology, physics, and chemistry. However, few empirical studies have probed students' earth science learning. This study aimed to…

Eighteen primary teachers across three conditions (Representational Fluency, Representational Agency, Comparison) received two days of training around an inquiry unit on plate tectonics replete with representations. The Representational Agency group also received training around the semiotic and material affordances of representations while the…

Despite the relevance of nature of science and scientific models in science education, studies reveal that students do not possess adequate views regarding these topics. Bearing in mind that both teachers' views and knowledge strongly influence students' educational experiences, the main scope of this study was to evaluate Portuguese prospective…

Using data from the 2011 (Chinese) Student Academic Achievement Evaluation, we examined whether within-school socioeconomic gaps in science achievement exist across science subjects, how consistent they are, and whether there are relationships between school average science achievement and within-school socioeconomic gaps in science achievement.…

Spatial thinking skills are critical to success in many subdisciplines of the geosciences. We tested students' spatial skills in geoscience courses at three institutions (a public research university, a comprehensive university, and a liberal arts college, all in the midwest) over a two-year period. We administered standard psychometric tests of…

Every sphere of life has been revolutionised by science. Thus, science understanding is an increasingly precious resource throughout the world. Despite the widely recognised need for better science education, the percentage of school students studying science is particularly low, and the numbers of students pursuing science continue to decline…