We have argued that science in general, and scientific inquiry in particular, is a human activity and that current models to describe science (either as Scientific Method or as a Body of Knowledge) tend to underestimate the significance of human beings in the phenomenon. Our earlier paper (Bevins & Price, 2016) suggests a model to correct this…

This study aims to investigate textbook tasks in the Norwegian school subject Natural sciences and the views of science that the tasks mediate to the pupils. Natural science is an interdisciplinary subject taught in Years 1-11 that includes chemistry, physics, biology and parts of the geosciences. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of…

In this article, I explore the tension between the current political context in which science needs defending against anti-intellectualism and outright assaults on evidence as a means of decision-making on the one hand and the overzealous scientism that can result from backlash against a perceived lack of rigor in various forms of inquiry. To do…

Young's double-slit experiment is one of the most historically significant works in physics, and one that is easily done in an introductory physics class. It is also an excellent example of an investigation that allows us to infer the nature of phenomena beyond direct observation. Unfortunately, perhaps because of this, it is often also an…

We present an interactive discovery-based approach to studying the properties of real gases using simple, yet realistic, molecular dynamics software. Use of this approach opens up a variety of opportunities for students to interact with the behaviors and underlying theories of real gases. Students can visualize gas behavior under a variety of…

Almost all commercial quadrupole ICP-MS instruments use collision/reaction cells to either attenuate spectral interferences or shift the analyte of interest to an interference-free "m/z" (e.g., by O addition). A laboratory practical was developed to introduce the students to the basic operating principles of ICP-MS using a hands-on…

A single semester molecular biology laboratory has been developed in which students design and execute a project examining transcriptional regulation in "Saccharomyces cerevisiae." Three weeks of planning are allocated to developing a hypothesis through literature searches and use of bioinformatics. Common experimental plans address a…

This study investigated the development of Bhutanese students' views of the nature of science (NOS) as they engaged in an explicit and reflective approach. Seven aspects of NOS were integrated into the chemistry content in two learning units titled "matter and its composition" and "study of gas laws" over a time span of 6 weeks…

Doing science involves the development and evaluation of models. These models are not objective truths but can be understood as explanations, which scientists use to explore and reason about an aspect of the world. Learning science involves students expressing and engaging with models in the classroom. However, this learning should not be seen as…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible associations between preservice science teachers' understanding of nature of science and their learner characteristics; understanding of nature of scientific inquiry, science teaching self-efficacy beliefs, metacognitive awareness level, and faith/worldview schemas. The sample of the…

Despite the importance of scientific inquiry in science education, researchers and educators disagree considerably regarding what features define this instructional approach. While a large body of literature addresses theoretical considerations, numerous empirical studies investigate scientific inquiry on quite different levels of detail and also…

Although nature of science (NOS) and nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI) are related to each other, they are differentiated as NOS is being more related to the product of scientific inquiry (SI) which is scientific knowledge whereas NOSI is more related to the process of SI (Schwartz et al. 2008). Lederman et al. ("Journal of Research in…

This study aimed to explore lower secondary teachers' negotiation of the meaning of laboratory work in a professional development program. A total of 15 in-service teachers participated in the program. In the program, tensions between key ideas concerning traditional way of addressing laboratory work -- with emphasis on subject content and skills…

The purpose of this study was to analyze seven widely used high school biology textbooks in order to assess the nature of science knowledge (NOS) and scientific inquiry (SI) aspects they, explicitly or implicitly, conveyed in the Mendelian genetics sections. Textbook excerpts that directly and/or fully matched our statements about NOS and SI were…

Probably owing to the prejudice that gold is a metal too noble to be used much in chemistry, the chemistry of this element has developed much later than that of its congeners and neighbors in the periodic table. In fact, before and after the time of alchemists, and up to the 20th century, all chemistry of gold was mainly performed in attempts to…