Socially relevant geoscience topics may be difficult for students to learn. For example, connecting hydraulic fracturing to Midwestern US earthquake swarms and using the fossil record to infer past Earth environments may challenge students because of their prior exposures to nonscientific explanations. Sociocognitive theoretical perspectives based…

Although integrating the history of science (HOS) into teaching has long been recommended in science education research, studies have revealed conflicting results on its effectiveness. These are mainly due to the need for more studies in this context. Therefore, this research aimed to explore the impact of HOS teaching on science process skills,…

The polarizing nature of many science-based topics often causes people to engage in a hostile manner with those who have differing perspectives. As the next generation of scientists and industry professionals, students studying in science-based disciplines must understand the value of civil discourse. Additionally, they need the skills necessary…

The most important learning objective in green chemistry education is the ability to identify the synthesis, process, or chemical that is least environmentally harmful. Existing metrics fall short for different reasons. Mass-based metrics fail to assess environmental harm, while life cycle assessment (LCA) is much too complex to insert into the…

Physicists, physics students, and community members come together and engage with physics content through various forms of informal education programming. Our prior work has shown that the landscape of informal physics programs in the United States has a variety of formats, audience demographics, and content. Informal physics programs have many…

This article explores gendered processes in preschool science through Barad's agential realism [2007. "Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics of the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning." London: Duke Universal Press], and as such, the study makes both theoretical and empirical contributions in how it combines perspectives from…

Student interest in plants is lacking. Therefore, we investigated potential drivers of situational interest in cultivated plants and interactions between different dimensions of interest, i.e. topic, context and learning activity. A total of 462 high school students (14-17 years of age) rated two sets of questionnaire items combining eight plants…

This report highlights some of the major findings from the 2018 NSSME+. Six major topical areas are addressed: (1) Teacher Background and Beliefs; (2) Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Professional Development; (3) Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Courses; (4) Instructional Decision Making, Objectives, and Activities; (5)…

A genuine interest in science is an important part of scientific literacy, and thus a critical goal for science education. Recent studies, however, have found that school science has not been effective in meeting this goal, an important reason for which is the lack of knowledge about what makes science interesting (or not) to the students. Using…

College honors courses provide an opportunity to tackle controversial topics in an atmosphere that encourages active learning, critical thinking, and open discussion. This venue is particularly appropriate for examining the debate about teaching intelligent design (ID) in public school science classes. A one-credit honors enrichment seminar taught…

Highlights a workshop with children focusing on the treatment of controversial issues and guidelines typically provided by school districts or organizations. Activities designed to stimulate discussion on three issues (endangered species, acid rain, and predator control) are included. (BC)

Provides a brief discussion of the controversial issue of logging as it relates to the extinction of the spotted owls. Suggests ways to help students understand both sides of the issue. (ZWH)

A five week outdoor summer science class emphasizing student involvement is described. (DE)

This article describes characteristics of students with disabilities with respect to four major domains of school functioning; identifies two major approaches to science education (content-oriented and activities-oriented); and analyzes the interaction of the characteristics of students with disabilities and the curricular approaches with respect…

Describes an undergraduate structural geology course that incorporates field lab time and research. Lectures, outside readings, and in-class experimentation are coordinated with the field work to prepare a scientific report. (MA)