This small study reveals the value of story writing as a pedagogical technique in environmental education. The qualitative research conducted in 2020 examines 14 Indian children's place-ecological meaning as expressed in the story books they authored. Thematic analysis of the story books, interviews, journals, creative writing assignments &…

In this research, the self-reported fear and disgust toward animals of preservice biology teachers and their willingness to incorporate live animals into their teaching were assessed with a questionnaire. An entire generation of pre-service biology teachers (N = 128) participated in this research. The results show that students are mostly afraid…

This study aimed to develop secondary school seventh-grade students' awareness of natural habitats and the interactions among living things, as well as reveal their views on the problems encountered. The study was designed as a case study, a qualitative perspective and conducted with 64 students from a private school during the 2017-2018 academic…

Simulation and modeling activities, a key point of computational thinking, are currently not being integrated into the science classroom. This paper describes a new visual programming tool entitled the Simulation Creation Toolkit. The Simulation Creation Toolkit is a high level pattern-based phenomenological approach to bringing rapid simulation…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze how middle schoolers developed a critical awareness of language while participating in a curricular unit informed by systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This unit was developed to understanding and taking action to protect a local bat population in the context of school reforms shaping teaching and learning…

Scientific issues like the behavior of wild and domesticated animals can serve as a motivation to learn programming concepts. Instead of following a systematic introduction, the students directly dive into programming and start immediately with their projects. In this constructionist approach the educational challenge for the teacher is to provide…

The setting: the science classroom. The characters: you and your students. The scene: Your students acting out scientific discoveries, modeling a frog's life cycle, mimicking the transition from liquid to solid. This is "dramatic science", a teaching approach that uses acting techniques to explore and develop young children's ideas about…

This paper reports on the findings of a case study that investigated the interaction of the agendas and practices of students, teachers, and zoo educators during a class field trip to a zoo. The study reports on findings of the analysis of two case classes of students and their perceptions of their learning experiences during the field trip. The…

When the award-winning journalist Eric Schlosser's groundbreaking book "Fast Food Nation" was published for adults, many called for his insights and research to be shared with young readers. And, when "Fast Food Nation" gained popularity as a fictional, yet factual motion picture, the buzz continued. Children, after all, are the fast-food…

The author, an elementary school teacher, describes a way of incorporating an inquiry approach to teaching by refining a crayfish unit originally found in an ESS (Elementary Science Study) module. She used a "coupled-inquiry" approach, a combination of guided-inquiry and open-inquiry, with an application used for assessment purposes. In five or…

This final guide in the series is designed to assist in one's role of helper for youth interested in the dog project. These learn-by-doing activities can be adapted for families, classrooms, dog project meetings, after school programs, camps or other settings. In this Helper's Guide, one will find helpful information about characteristics of…