This article discusses a number of aspects of the nature of science that can be illustrated by considering the development of pangenesis, a principle proposed by Charles Darwin to describe the rules of inheritance, explain the source of new variation, and solve other natural history puzzles. Pangenesis--although false--can be used to illustrate…

Publication of the "Next Generation Science Standards" will be just short of two decades since publication of the "National Science Education Standards" (NRC 1996). In that time, biology and science education communities have advanced, and the new standards will reflect that progress (NRC 1999, 2007, 2009; Kress and Barrett…

The link between parental autistic tendency and anxiety symptoms was studied in 491 Taiwanese couples raising biological children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Parental autistic tendency as measured by Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) was associated with anxiety symptoms across all domains. Large effect sizes were found in social phobia and…

An understanding of how genomics information, including information about risk for common, multifactorial disease, can be used to promote personal health (personalized medicine) is becoming increasingly important for the American public. We undertook a quantitative content analysis of commonly used high school textbooks to assess how frequently…

Evolution and inheritance appear in the new National Science Curriculum for England, which comes into effect from September 2014. In the curriculum documents, it is expected that pupils in year 6 (ages 10-11) should be taught to: (1) recognise that living things have changed over time; (2) recognise that living things produce offspring of the same…

Despite implications that stranger fear is an important aspect of developing behavioral inhibition, a known risk factor for anxiety, normative and atypical developmental trajectories of stranger fear across infancy and toddlerhood remain understudied. We used a large, longitudinal data set (N = 1285) including multi-trait, multi-method assessments…

We present a case study of a lesson that incorporates high school students' interests in heredity alongside the requirements of the curriculum. This was done by collecting students' questions in advance and inserting them in strategic places in the biology curriculum, thus creating a "shadow curriculum". The idea underlying the lesson…

Engaging students in the study of genetics is essential to building a deep understanding of heredity, a core idea in the life sciences (NRC 2012). By integrating into the curriculum the stories of famous scientists who studied genetics (e.g., Mendel, Franklin, Watson, and Crick), teachers remind their students that science is a human endeavor.…

Genetics is an increasingly important topic in today's society, and one that permeates people's lives on many levels. Students, teachers, and the general public alike are constantly exposed to this topic through popular television shows such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," political issues like voting on stem-cell research, and the…

The conflicts between nature and nurture are brought to the fore and challenges socio-scientific decision-making in science education. The multitude of meanings of these concepts and their roles in societal discourses can impede students' development of understanding for different perspectives, e.g. on gene technology. This study problematizes…

In this review, we evaluate developmental and personality research with the aim of determining whether the personality trait of conscientiousness can be identified in children and adolescents. After concluding that conscientiousness does emerge in childhood, we discuss the developmental origins of conscientiousness with a specific focus on…

Research shows that students face challenges as they learn about genetic inheritance. The challenges could emanate from the fact that genetic inheritance involves unseen processes at different organizational levels. We explored students' understanding of heredity and related concepts such as cells and reproduction using a Web-based Science Inquiry…

Using the life sciences, this article first reviews essential features of the "NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education" that provided a foundation for the new standards. Second, the article describes the important features of life science standards for elementary, middle, and high school levels. Special attention is paid to the teaching…

In the target article (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011), we provided a social-cognitive framework which identified genetic essentialist biases and their implications. In their commentaries, Haslam (2011) and Turkheimer (2011) indicated their general agreement with this framework but highlighted some important points for consideration. Haslam…

To date, studies of eugenics artificially confine their focus to the movement's application to race, socio-economic status, and the forced sterilization of the so-called feebleminded. However, the segregationist aspect of the eugenics design in the United States brought with it damaging policies toward individuals with physical and mental…