Background: Achieving science literacy requires learning disciplinary knowledge, science practices, and development of sophisticated epistemological beliefs about the nature of science and science knowledge. Although sophisticated epistemological beliefs about science are important for attaining science literacy, students' beliefs are difficult to…

Inquiry learning is an educational approach in which learners actively construct knowledge and in which performing investigations and conducting experiments is central. To support learners in designing informative experiments we created a scaffold, the Experiment Design Tool (EDT), that provided learners with a step-by-step structure to select…

In classroom science laboratories, unlike a real science laboratory, the teacher can guide students away from potential dead ends and toward data that are most likely to result in accurate conclusions. Sometimes, though, allowing students to pursue dead ends and to collect "bad" data can provide especially rich learning opportunities.…

This article presents a lesson that was designed to explore the scientific descriptions of matter through both the intensive and extensive properties that students successfully added to their vocabulary. Students' examples demonstrated that there were places where their reasoning about matter faltered as related to how the material is the same…

The National Science Education Standards have highlighted the importance of active learning and reflection for contemporary scientific methods in K-12 classrooms, including the use of models. Computer modeling and visualization are tools that researchers employ in their scientific inquiry process, and often computer models are used in…

A WebQuest is an Internet-based and inquiry-oriented learning activity. The aim of this work is to outline the creation of a WebQuest entitled "Power Generation Plants: Steam and Gas Turbines." This is one of the topics covered in the course "Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer," which is offered in the second year of Mechanical…

This research addresses high school students' understandings of the nature of models, and their interaction with model-based software in three science domains, namely, biology, physics, and chemistry. Data from 736 high school students' understandings of models were collected using the Students' Understanding of Models in Science (SUMS) survey as…

Citizen Science projects offer opportunities for non-scientists to take part in scientific research. Scientific results from these projects have been well documented. However, there is limited research about how these projects affect their volunteer participants. In this study, I investigate how participation in an online, collaborative…

Digital photography energizes students and focuses their attention on their environment. The personal connection to science helps students develop a habit of mind in which everything they see inside or outside of school can prompt them to wonder and investigate. This article describes how first graders explore their school grounds with cameras in…

The Paleo Exploration Project was a professional development program for K-12 teachers from rural eastern Montana. The curriculum was designed to incorporate geospatial technologies, including Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and total station laser surveying, with authentic field experiences in geology and…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of inquiry-based computer simulation with heterogeneous-ability cooperative learning (HACL) and inquiry-based computer simulation with friendship cooperative learning (FCL) on (a) scientific reasoning (SR) and (b) conceptual understanding (CU) among Form Four students in Malaysian Smart…

Featuring an increased emphasis on the way today's changing science and technology is shaping our culture, this Second Edition of "Teaching Science in Elementary and Middle School" provides pre- and in-service teachers with an introduction to basic science concepts and methods of science instruction, as well as practical strategies for the…

Describes a cooperative project that integrates the internet into the peer-review process to enhance student understanding of the nature of science through engagement in socially authentic scientific research and the double-blinded peer review process. Reports the ratings of faculty and students of the online peer review. (Author/YDS)

The teaching of science in the K­-12 classroom has been less than successful. Students typically do not develop science literacy and do not understand the role and relevance of science in society. Inquiry­-based learning is an approach which promises to improve science teaching by engaging students in authentic investigations, thereby achieving a…

Radio telemetry data available via the internet are used to facilitate long-term inquiry projects. Through these projects, students gain a deeper understanding of scientific inquiry and the nature of science, while developing their own questions and procedures and carrying out those procedures before sharing their findings with peers. (Contains 1…