Incorporating an evidence-based approach in STEM education using data collection and analysis strategies when learning about science concepts enhances primary students' discipline knowledge and cognitive development. This paper reports on learning activities that use the nature of viscosity and the power of informal statistical inference to build…

One challenge associated with introducing systems thinking in chemistry classrooms is the increase in content complexity that students face when they engage in this type of approach. Placing core chemical ideas within larger systems has promise, as long as students are not overwhelmed by the added complexity. Although there are many potential…

Integrating sophisticated graphical analysis skills as they learn science is essential for K-12 students and emphasized in current standards. In this study, we iteratively designed a Graphing Integration Inventory (GII) over a three-year period, while also supporting students to develop their capabilities to use graphs to learn science content in…

This article describes how two teachers implemented a 5E lesson in a third-grade classroom where the students had been working with forces/motion and investigating things that move like pendulums, swing sets, and various toys. The lesson was included as part of a larger unit on motion. The desired outcome for this lesson was for students to…

Box-and-whisker plots or simply boxplots are powerful graphical representations that give an overview of a data set. In this work five different examples illustrate the applications of boxplots in food chemistry. The examples involve relative sweetness of sugars and sugar alcohols with respect to sucrose, the potassium content of fruits and…

This study uses graphs of conductivity measured by a microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) to promote students' macro, micro, and symbolic representations when learning about net ionic reactions (NIR). A total of 54 students, aged 14-15 years old participated in this research, and were randomly divided into an experimental group (N = 27) and a…

The results of PISA 2015 indicate that Taiwanese students have excellent mathematical and scientific knowledge but are weak in applying such knowledge and in conducting practical experiments in the laboratory. To support students conducting practical experiments in physics laboratories, a real-time data logging system and an online tool for…

Literature in "Physics Education" has shown that students encounter many difficulties in understanding wave propagation. Such difficulties lead to misconceptions also in understanding sound, often used as context to teach wave propagation. To address these issues, we present in this paper a module in which the students are engaged in…

We have recently developed a Graphs and Tracks model based on an earlier program by David Trowbridge, as shown in Fig. 1. Our model can show position, velocity, acceleration, and energy graphs and can be used for motion-to-graphs exercises. Users set the heights of the track segments, and the model displays the motion of the ball on the track…

At an early stage of learning quantum chemistry, undergraduate students usually encounter the concepts of the particle in a box, the harmonic oscillator, and then the particle on a sphere. Rotational levels of a diatomic molecule can be well approximated by the energy levels of the particle on a sphere. Wave functions for the particle in a…

We constantly encounter data--in the form of graphs--that convey information about weather, medicine, politics, finances, and nutrition. These graphs are intended to help us visualize data for easy interpretation; however, approximately 41% of adults in the United States have low graph literacy (Galesic and Garcia-Retamero 2011). In this article,…

Creating charts and graphs is all about visual abstraction: the process of representing aspects of data with imagery that can be interpreted by the reader. Children may need help making the link between the "real" and the image. This abstraction can be achieved using symbols, size, colour and position. Where the representation is close to what…

This study examined to what extent inquiry-based instruction supported with real-time graphing technology improves fourth grader's ability to interpret graphs as representations of physical science concepts such as motion and temperature. This study also examined whether there is any difference between inquiry-based instruction supported with…

The activities described here allow students to explore the concept of diffusion with the use of common equipment such as computers, webcams and analysis software. The procedure includes taking a series of digital pictures of a container of water with a webcam as a dye slowly diffuses. At known time points, measurements of the pixel densities…

As much as ever before, mathematics teachers are searching for ways to connect mathematics to real-life scenarios within STEM contexts. As students develop skill in proportional reasoning, they examine graphical representations of linear functions, learn to associate "slope" with "steepness" and rate of change, and develop…