Physicists, physics students, and community members engage with each other through a variety of informal physics programs. These programs differ in format, such as after school programs, public lectures, planetariums, summer camps, and other non-formal classroom environments. These programs also differ in the physics topics they cover, activities,…

Eleven high school students participated in a one-week STEM summer camp focused on designing and building parachutes to deliver fragile objects safely. Using the Engineering Design Process (EDP) as a framework, students explored how canopy size affects performance. They applied physics concepts such as terminal velocity, forces, and acceleration,…

In the secondary and high school science program implemented in Turkey in 2018, the importance of engineering and design skills is underlined under domain-specific skills. The purpose of this study, in which case study method, one of the qualitative research methods, is used to examine the engineering design skills of high school students within…

Informal physics programs bring physicists together with youth and adults from local communities to engage with physics content outside of classroom settings. These public engagement or "physics outreach" programs are a significant endeavor of the physics community; however, we lack a systemic documentation of these efforts, which makes…

While the majority of students that pursue a physics education learn mostly in a classroom setting, hands-on experiences can take their appreciation of physics to the next level. Summer internships offer just that, hands-on learning experiences and a taste of what a career in physics is really like. Many research-oriented institutions offer summer…

The Teacher Academy in the Natural Sciences (TANS) provided middle school (U.S. Grades 6-8) teachers (N = 81) with intensive professional development (PD) in chemistry, geosciences, and physics, with teachers enrolled in one scientific discipline per year. Because some teachers were retained and rotated into different disciplines, the TANS program…

In this article we approach the problem of identification and recognition of argumentation by teacher educators of a physics undergraduate course of a large university in the southeast of Brazil. Our proposed markers criteria, such as "opposing" of ideas and "reciprocal justifications" were partially validated by the…

The current research is to give an example to the inquiry-based science teaching implementations for facilitating knowledge acquisition and retention in a short period of time. Thus, the aim of the research is to transfer of acquired knowledge into different situations using sequential inquiry activities, which have challenging questions for…

The Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) was set up to give science students the opportunity to work on cutting-edge research projects. Teachers and students can access data and equipment that enable them to tackle real-life issues. As a result, not only do students gain in confidence and experience in their scientific work, they are also able…

Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students often participate in programs being evaluated, yet they are generally excluded from being involved in the evaluation process. In addition, the staff of organizations that conduct evaluations are predominately White and often implement research methods that may perpetuate racial biases and unequal power…

Recent and exciting discoveries in astronomy and cosmology have inspired many high school students to learn about these fields. A particularly fascinating consequence of general relativity at the forefront of modern cosmology research is gravitational lensing, the bending of light rays that pass near massive objects. Gravitational lensing enables…

This issue of Clubbers' Guide contains an article written by Liz Carter, Senior Science Technician at the Warwick School, Redhill, Surrey (UK), describing some of the wide variety of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) based activities that her school puts on during an eight-day summer school in the holidays for prospective…

This case study aims to verify the benefits of theme-based project learning for convergent science experiments. The study explores the possibilities of enhancing creative, integrated and collaborative teaching and learning abilities in science-gifted education. A convergent project-based science experiment program of physics, chemistry and biology…

Four science programs at our public urban liberal arts college have struggled to attract and retain majors: physics, environmental studies, geology, and teaching science. The Brooklyn Opportunities in Science and Careers (BOSC) program aims to increase student participation in these majors using a new career-focused strategy to recruit students.…

This article presents lesson plans that incorporate tiered objectives and brainstorming techniques as means for differentiating instruction and ensuring that learners are challenged at levels commensurate with their abilities even though they are developing an understanding of the same physics concepts. A listing of materials and resources…