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Alred, Ashley R.; Doherty, Jennifer H.; Hartley, Laurel M.; Harris, Cornelia B.; Dauer, Jenny M. – International Journal of Science Education, 2019
An understanding of biological variation is important for understanding ecological interactions, ecosystem function, and species' response to environmental change. Biological variation is essential to species survival because natural selection acts upon the phenotypic variation within a population: the more varied the population's genetic…
Descriptors: Elementary School Students, Secondary School Students, Knowledge Level, Scientific Concepts
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Hernando, Miguel; Jung, Jaekeun – Science Teacher, 2020
Science is full of amazing facts, but at times it may be difficult to fully appreciate their significance without an understanding of the scientific practices that gave them meaning. The teaching of evolution may be an example of this situation; there are many interesting facts to consider, but it is equally important for students to learn where…
Descriptors: Science Education, Science Instruction, Evolution, Scientific Concepts
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Moreira, Patricia; Marzabal, Ainoa; Talanquer, Vicente – Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2019
The central goal of this research study was to characterise the different types of reasoning manifested by high school chemistry students when building initial written explanations of a natural phenomenon. In particular, our study participants were asked to explain why a mixture of water and alcohol works as an antifreeze. Data collected in the…
Descriptors: Logical Thinking, Chemistry, Science Instruction, Scientific Concepts
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Moreira, Patricia; Marzabal, Ainoa; Talanquer, Vicente – Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2019
Understanding how chemistry teachers' interventions shape the reasoning that students express after a lesson is critical to support prospective and in-service teachers as they work with students' ideas in the classroom. In this qualitative research study, we analysed changes in the reasoning expressed by 10th grade students in a Chilean school in…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Chemistry, Grade 10, Foreign Countries
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Newell, George E.; Misar, Katherine S. – Journal of Literacy Research, 2022
This study explores one teacher's instructional method for teaching life sciences using argumentation and argumentative writing rather than simple templates for writing claims and evidence. The microethnographic discourse analytic case study reported here included the teacher and 26 "advanced" eighth-grade students in a suburban middle…
Descriptors: Ethnography, Case Studies, Grade 8, Discourse Analysis
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O'Brien, Walter – Science Teacher, 2015
One of the most difficult challenges of incorporating literacy in the classroom--as called for by the "Common Core State Standards" (NGAC and CCSSO 2010)--is inspiring reluctant writers. Students are often unmotivated by essay assignments or having to write answers to open-ended questions. Some students may even view these as obstacles…
Descriptors: Chemistry, Science Instruction, Science Education, Molecular Structure
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Seah, Lay Hoon; Clarke, David; Hart, Christina – International Journal of Science Education, 2015
This study examines how a class of Grade 7 students employed linguistic resources to explain density differences. Drawing from the same data-set as a previous study by, we take a language perspective to investigate the challenges students face in learning the concept of density. Our study thus complements previous research on learning about…
Descriptors: Grade 7, Middle School Students, Scientific Concepts, Language Usage
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Bernacki, Matthew; Nokes-Malach, Timothy; Richey, J. Elizabeth; Belenky, Daniel M. – Educational Psychology, 2016
This study investigated the hypothesis that prompting students to self-assess their interest and understanding of science concepts and activities would increase their motivation in science classes. Students were randomly assigned to an experimental condition that wrote self-assessments of their competence and interest in science lessons or a…
Descriptors: Diaries, Student Motivation, Intervention, Self Evaluation (Individuals)
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Shultz, Ginger V.; Gere, Anne Ruggles – Journal of Chemical Education, 2015
Traditional methods for teaching the Lewis dot structure model emphasize rule-based learning and often neglect the purpose and function of the model. Thus, many students are unable to extend their understanding of molecular structures in new contexts. The assignment described here addresses this issue by asking students to read and write about the…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Chemistry, Teaching Methods, Scientists
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Donnelly, Dermot F.; Vitale, Jonathan M.; Linn, Marcia C. – Journal of Science Education and Technology, 2015
Middle school students struggle to explain thermodynamics concepts. In this study, to help students succeed, we use a natural language processing program to analyze their essays explaining the aspects of thermodynamics and provide guidance based on the automated score. The 346 sixth-grade students were assigned to either the critique condition…
Descriptors: Middle School Students, Grade 6, Secondary School Science, Thermodynamics
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Cole, Merryn; Wilhelm, Jennifer; Yang, Hongwei – International Journal of Science Education, 2015
Relationships between sixth grade students' moon journaling and students' spatial-scientific reasoning after implementation of an Earth/Space unit were examined. Teachers used the project-based Realistic Explorations in Astronomical Learning curriculum. We used a regression model to analyze the relationship between the students' Lunar Phases…
Descriptors: Grade 6, Astronomy, Science Education, Spatial Ability
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DeFauw, Danielle L.; Saad, Klodia – Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas, 2014
This article presents an authentic writing opportunity to help ninth-grade students use the writing process in a science classroom to write and illustrate picture books for fourth-grade students to demonstrate and share their understanding of a biology unit on cells. By creating a picture book, students experience the writing process, understand…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Grade 9, Writing Assignments, Writing Processes
Buschang, Rebecca Ellen – ProQuest LLC, 2012
This study evaluated the effects of a short-term professional development session. Forty volunteer high school biology teachers were randomly assigned to one of two professional development conditions: (a) developing deep content knowledge (i.e., control condition) or (b) evaluating student errors and understanding in writing samples (i.e.,…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Faculty Development, High Schools, Secondary School Teachers
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Papalexopoulos, Panagiotis F.; Vavougios, Dionisios; Vlachos, Filippos; Karapetsas, Argiris B. – Themes in Science and Technology Education, 2008
In this paper we studied the effectiveness of the writing criteria that are proposed to be applied during the construction of physics texts so that students with dyslexia do not confront reading difficulties with them. The effectiveness of the criteria has been assessed by the accomplishment of an investigation among students with and without…
Descriptors: Physics, Science Instruction, Dyslexia, Teaching Methods
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McDermott, Mark A.; Hand, Brian – Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2010
This study aims to add to the growing research related to the implementation of non-traditional writing tasks in classrooms to encourage science literacy. A secondary reanalysis methodology was employed to review student interviews collected as a part of several individual studies during a ten year research program. This method established an…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Scientific Literacy, Transcripts (Written Records), Coding