For the past 15 years, pine forests across the United States have experienced devastating mountain and southern pine beetle outbreaks (Rosner 2015). These outbreaks are not uncommon but have become increasingly severe. Due to the effects of global warming, pine beetles have been able to survive warmer winters in their native habitats, producing…

Thoughtful and intentional collaborations among small, community-curated museums, colleges, and schools have the potential to create transformative learning opportunities for all partners while also improving access to, and preservation of, museum collections. In this article, we describe the Digital Scholarship in Museum Partnerships (DSMP)…

The typical elementary classroom hosts a range of diverse students. Not only do students bring varying academic readiness levels, background experiences, interests, personalities, and learning preferences to the classroom, but some students also have physical disabilities that must be considered when designing science instruction. The formerly…

This article describes a unit in which students investigate total solar eclipses, such as the one coming August 21, from several perspectives. It incorporates mathematical thinking and aligns with the "Next Generation Science Standard." This article refers to physical, virtual, and mathematical modeling. Various models and perspectives…

With the increasing proliferation of multitasking and Internet-connected devices, security has reemerged as a fundamental design concern in information systems. The shift of IS curricula toward a largely organizational perspective of security leaves little room for focus on its foundation in systems architecture, the computational underpinnings of…

Systems Biology, one of the current approaches to the understanding of living things, aims to understand the behaviour of living systems through the creation of mathematical models that integrate the available knowledge of the system's component parts and the relations among them. Accordingly, model building should play a central part in any…

Over the past 20 years, the biological sciences have increasingly incorporated chemistry, physics, computer science, and mathematics to aid in the development and use of mathematical models. Such combined approaches have been used to address problems from protein structure-function relationships to the workings of complex biological systems.…

This article proposes a VHDL language course that establishes a strong correlation between the language statements and their use in circuit synthesis. Two course modules are described: a basic module that contains the essential concepts of the language, sufficient for students to describe medium complexity circuits, followed by a second module…

This work describes a new "Moodle" module developed to give support to the practical content of a basic computer organization course. This module goes beyond the mere hosting of resources and assignments. It makes use of an automatic checking and verification engine that works on the VHDL designs submitted by the students. The module automatically…

Google Earth (GE) is proving to be a valuable tool in the science classroom for understanding the environment and making responsible environmental decisions (Bodzin 2008). GE provides learners with a dynamic mapping experience using a simple interface with a limited range of functions. This interface makes geospatial analysis accessible and…

This article explores the benefits of the Internet to enhance history instruction for all learners. The authors describe a Web-based learning environment, the Virtual History Museum (VHM), that helps teachers create motivating, inquiry-based history units. VHM also allows teachers to build supports for learners with disabilities or other learning…

Students are well served by course simulations that employ active learning styles and student-driven interaction. For debate on political issues, particular public policies are quite effective in stimulating that discussion. We developed an in-class simulation of political debate on the issue of Social Security. We describe the simulation itself,…

Describes how successful teamwork, group decision making and valuable real-world experience resulted from an experiment between two universities to introduce a media buying simulation game into their media planning courses. Relates how students in teams took roles of either media buyers at advertising agencies or media sales representatives at…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

Describes a unit on advertising used in a ninth-grade English class. The class participated in a student-run simulation of an advertising agency. Working in teams, they created, presented, and used criteria to evaluate advertisements. (AM)