Students are required to develop essential 21st-century skills, such as critical thinking and biological literacy, to effectively navigate challenges in the globalization era. It is known that the results of PISA 2022 and several studies show that these skills in students are still very low. However, traditional learning models often fail to…

Synthetic biology is a field that leverages design, biology, engineering, and computation to genetically engineer organisms to make usable products such as sustainably manufactured textiles, biodegradable chemicals, and personalized medicine. Despite increases in access, we know little about what younger learners know and think about these modern…

This study investigates the extent to which ecological awareness is integrated into the middle school curricula (Grades 6-8) in Turkey. Utilizing a qualitative research approach, content analysis was conducted on 13 compulsory courses from the 2022-2023 academic year. The analysis involved thematic coding and frequency distribution of 171…

A structural/cross-sectional micro-analytic perspective prevails in the Socio-constructivist research of peer knowledge construction. This paper proposes an alternative micro-sequential approach that focuses on the transitions between events during the activity. From this micro-sequential perspective, the study aimed to (a) explore the…

We used mixed methods to identify middle school students' conceptions and misconceptions of energy in the domain of health and fitness. We selected a total of 24 middle schools from six school districts in a Southeastern state of the U. S. through stratified sampling. Students were first given a standardized knowledge test to establish their…

Productive struggle is a process in which students expend effort to grapple with perplexing problems and make sense of something that is not immediately apparent and beyond their current level of understanding and capacity. The experience encourages students to reflect on and restructure their existing knowledge toward a new understanding of…

The article presents the results of an exploratory-qualitative study about children´s conceptions of ecology in relation to media messages. The objective of the study has been to identify the role of ecologism and environmental campaigns on ecology conceptions of 105 6th grade children, age 10-12, from an educational institution in Bogota,…

Research on active learning that emphasises question formulation activities has received less attention. This study was conducted to address the said gap identified in the literature by testing the thinking empowerment by questioning (TEQ) strategy on the level of conceptual understanding (CK) and critical thinking (CT) of students in Biology…

Educators have been leaving the field of education at a high rate each year with no signs of slowing down. Tennessee, as well as many other states across the country, have started the school year with unfilled positions due to so many vacancies. Previous researchers found educators left due to an overwhelming workload paired with an escalation in…

The aim of this study is to determine the students' misconceptions about the digestive system. In this quantitative research, the study group comprised totally 259 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students. The data were collected through a three-tier diagnostic test and analyzed in terms of scientific knowledge, the lucky guess, lack of…

The U.S. Education system is founded on a Eurocentric focus of curriculum, and students of color are not achieving as high as white students on the National Assessment for Education Progress in science. This research aims to repay the education debt owed to students of color by decolonizing science curriculum through the implementation of lessons…

Home-based biology experiments (HBEs) are practical learning activities that allow students to perform safe and relevant experiments at home. Motivated by the need to innovate teaching approaches in science education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this study was conducted to determine the effects of home-based biology experiments (HBEs) on their…

Conrad Hal Waddington (1905--1975) was an English biologist who was especially interested in the big (metaphysical) questions of life. His thinking has become part of the foundation of modern systems biology. This article applies his thinking to middle-years school biology curricula (for ages 11-16), to see if their approach to epistemic questions…

Mosquitoes are both a nuisance and public health threat. In recent decades, outbreaks of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika in Florida have raised awareness of the importance of domestic and peri-domestic container mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The synanthropic nature of these species, coupled with their preference for human…

It is widely acknowledged that understanding of science is key to becoming global citizens and to embrace technological advancements. Although research suggests that girl's performance in science has improved over the years, there are still concerns about the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)…