Scientific insights can help us better understand ourselves, others, and the world we share. These insights can also radically challenge our sense of who we are, our place in the universe, and the very nature of the universe. When science communicators venture into this metaphysical terrain they quickly encounter dearly held religious beliefs.…

High quality science teaching builds pupils' curiosity and critical thinking, helping them to develop a coherent understanding of the world around them. Primary science teaching plays a crucial role in shaping pupils' attitudes toward the subject, nurturing participation that can support future pathways into science, technology, engineering, and…

In recent years, science education researchers have increasingly studied the ways in which students "make sense" of science. However, although researchers might all agree intuitively on what it looks like, the literature on sensemaking is theoretically fragmented. In this paper, we address this fragmentation by proposing a coherent…

Transfer of knowledge from one context to another is one of the paramount goals of education. Educators want their students to transfer what they are learning from one topic to the next, between courses, and into the "real world." However, it is also notoriously difficult to get students to successfully transfer concepts. This issue is…

If we could effectively engage students in general science curricula and lead them to recognize the everyday relevance of scientific concepts, we would significantly strengthen the understanding of science among our nation's future workforce. This article shows that increased levels of student cognition can be achieved through interactive taste…

Digital badges are graphical representations of an accomplishment. Open badges are a subset of digital badges, an image file in which additional data, metadata, are embedded. Not only will an open badge contain a description of the badge, the criteria, the issuer and issue date, but also, when appropriate, standards, tags, expiry date and…

Science communication and science education have the same overarching aim--to engage their audiences in science--and both disciplines face similar challenges in achieving this aim. Knowing how to effectively engage their "audiences" is fundamental to the success of both. Both disciplines have well-developed research fields identifying…

This special issue of "International Journal of Science Education" is based on the theme "Conceptual Metaphor and Embodied Cognition in Science Learning." The idea for this issue grew out of a symposium organized on this topic at the conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) in September 2013.…

This article provides an introduction for the special issue of the "Journal of Science Education and Technology" focused on science teaching and learning with models. The article provides initial framing for questions that guided the special issue. Additionally, based on our careful review of each of these articles, some discussion of…

This communication describes the virtual poster session of the Flipped Classroom online ConfChem conference that was hosted by the ACS CHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE) from May 9 to June 12, 2014. During the conference's online discussions, it became evident that multiple participants who were not presenting papers had been…

This article describes key facets of the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education (CASE), a curriculum that emerged in the United Kingdom, enabling teachers to accelerate the process of cognitive development so that more students could attain the higher-order thinking skills (formal operational thinking) required (Lecky, 2012). CASE, also…

Mario Bunge is one of the most prolific philosophers of our time. Over the past sixty years he has written extensively about semantics, ontology, epistemology, philosophy of science and ethics. Bunge has been interested in the philosophical and methodological implications of modern psychology and more specifically in the philosophies of the…

In this paper it is argued that virtual processes are dispensable fictions. The argument proceeds by a comparison with the phenomenon of quantum tunnelling. Building on an analysis of Levy-Leblond and Balibar, it is argued that, although the phenomenon known as quantum tunnelling certainly occurs and is at the basis of many paradigmatic quantum…

Science's inductive method required patient, humble and self-controlled behavior; Christian revelation demanded the same virtues. The discoveries of science and the truths of scripture would always harmonize as long as both men of science and men of faith conducted themselves in scrupulous accordance with their duty. So ran a central argument in…

Neuroimaging studies of episodic memory in young adults demonstrate greater functional neural activity in ventrolateral pFC and hippocampus during retrieval of relational information as compared with item information. We tested the hypothesis that healthy older adults--individuals who exhibit behavioral declines in relational memory--would show…