We provide an update on the "electrochemistry designette" in relation to its pedagogical effectiveness to students and experiential learning. We have previously proposed that the designette be applied as an assessment tool to measure the students' competence on electrochemical principles through a series of objective metrics. Based on…

This STEM research project asks middle school or high school students to work towards creating ecologically friendly packaging. Packaging that can be composted instead of thrown away and collected in landfills and oceans like plastics. This inquiry uses nanocellulose and focuses on water permeability. The fibers of nanocellulose can be dried to…

Teaching cosmology at the undergraduate or high school level requires simplifications and analogies, and inevitably brings the teacher into contact with at least one of the pedagogical interpretations of the expanding Universe. The by far most popular interpretation holds that galaxies in an expanding Universe are stationary, while space itself…

Students often hold misconceptions about insulation, largely because they put on clothes to keep themselves warm--at least in winter in the cooler regions of Australia. The following activity is designed to identify students' misconceptions about insulation and provide an engaging, evidence-based activity to help address these misconceptions using…

The author believes that science within a primary school is there to enable children to be interested in the world around them and to help them start to understand it, getting them interested in the very basics, and pointing out things around them that they had not considered, so that they can start asking the questions 'why' and 'how' and 'what'…

The vision of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) "requires a dramatic departure from approaches to teaching and learning science occurring today in most science classrooms K-12" (Reiser 2013, p. 2). In this article the authors emphasize the importance of examining student misconceptions and correcting them with sense-making…

The vision of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) "requires a dramatic departure from approaches to teaching and learning science occurring today in most science classrooms K-12" (Reiser 2013, p. 2). In this article the authors emphasize the importance of examining student misconceptions and correcting them with sense-making…

The Arnold Arboretum Field Study Program provides outdoor experiences for children in order to develop authentic firsthand knowledge of life sciences. The Arboretum welcomes approximately 3,200 children (preK-5) from greater Boston annually. During the program called Explorations with Head Start participants, the children visit three times…

Misconceptions about climate change are common, which suggests a need to effectively address the subject in the classroom. This article describes a project-based science activity in which students report on the physical basis, adaptations, and mitigation of this global problem, adapting the framework of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel…

In this fourth and fifth grade activity, students become comfortable with the concept that light-years are a measure of distance, not time, and discover how we are looking back in time when we look at stars. Since the enormous distances in space can make astronomical studies even more confusing, students explore the meaning of a light-year by…

Science education efforts have long emphasized inquiry, and inquiry and scientific practices are prominent in contemporary science education reform documents (NRC 1996; NGSS Lead States 2013). However, inquiry has not become commonplace in science teaching, in part because of misunderstandings regarding what it means and entails (Demir and Abell…

The electronic and molecular structure of the acylium cation ([CH[subscript 3]CO][superscript +], 1) receives varied treatment in undergraduate textbooks and online resources. The overall structure of 1 is typically represented as an equal combination of resonance structures containing C-O triple and double bonds, the latter structure occasionally…

Many elementary science teachers understand that the best way to enhance reasoning and thinking skills in their students is to have them engage in scientific negotiation. They know that teaching is not the simple transmission of information but a complex act that requires teachers to apply knowledge from multiple sources, including student…

Visualizing the three-dimensional distribution of stars within a constellation is highly challenging for both students and educators, but when carried out in an interactive collaborative way, it can create an ideal environment to explore common misconceptions about size and scale within astronomy. We present how the common tabletop activities…

A didactic sequence is proposed for the teaching of chemical equilibrium law. In this approach, we have avoided the kinetic derivation and the thermodynamic justification of the equilibrium constant. The equilibrium constant expression is established empirically by a trial-and-error approach. Additionally, students learn to use the criterion of…