The exercises described here conveniently exploit the built-in acceleration sensors in smartphones, devices that are becoming ubiquitous if not essential items for most students. This allows each student to have the opportunity for a hands-on experience and to collect their own data, reduces preparation time, and greatly reduces cost by removing…

This article describes the results of using state-of-the-art, research-quality software as a learning tool in a general chemistry secondary school classroom setting. I present three activities designed to introduce fundamental chemical concepts regarding molecular shape and atomic orbitals to students with little background in chemistry, such as…

This exercise demonstrates the principle of parsimony in constructing cladograms. Although it is designed using mammalian cranial characters, the activity could be adapted for characters from any group of organisms. Students score categorical traits on skulls and record the data in a spreadsheet. Using the Mesquite software package, students…

Currently, there are a number of educational applications that allow students to reinforce theoretical or numerical concepts through an interactive way. More precisely, in the field of the analytical chemistry, MATLAB has been widely used to write easy-to-implement code, facilitating complex performances and/or tedious calculations. The main…

We have conducted an education project to communicate the wave energy concept to high school students. A virtual reality system that combines both hardware and software is developed in this project to simulate the buoy-wave interaction. This first-of-its-kind wave energy unit is portable and physics-based, allowing students to conduct a number of…

The development of demonstration experiments plays a key role in modern and efficient teaching of physics, chemistry, biology and several other disciplines. Today's computers and electronic devices allow the use of simple software-based instrumentation to achieve flexible and surprisingly transparent experimentation, however, the professional…

GENIQUEST is a cyberlearning computer program that allows students to investigate biological data using a research-based instructional model. In this article, the authors make the case for using cyberlearning to teach students about the rapidly growing fields of genomics and computational biology. (Contains 2 figures and 1 online resource.)

Continental margins are an important part of the ocean floor. They separate the land above sea level from the deep ocean basins below and occupy about 11% of Earth's surface. They are also economically important, as they harbor both mineral resources and some of the most valuable fisheries in the world. In this article students investigate North…

Presents a computer program which predicts the weather based on student input of such weather data as wind direction and barometric pressure. Also provides procedures for several hands-on, weather-related activities. (JN)

Presents 23 experiments, activities, field projects and computer programs in the biological and physical sciences. Instructional procedures, experimental designs, materials, and background information are suggested. Topics include fluid mechanics, electricity, crystals, arthropods, limpets, acid neutralization, and software evaluation. (ML)

Presents biology, chemistry, physics, and health activities, experiments, demonstrations, and computer programs. Includes mechanism of stomatal opening, using aquatic plants to help demonstrate chemical buffering, microbial activity/contamination in milk samples, computer computation of fitness scores, reservoir project, complexes of transition…

Presents 26 activities, experiments, demonstrations, games, and computer programs for biology, chemistry, and physics. Background information, laboratory procedures, equipment lists, and instructional strategies are given. Topics include eye measurements, nutrition, soil test tube rack, population dynamics, angular momentum, transition metals,…

This study aims at highlighting the collaborative activity of two high school students (age 14) in the cases of modeling the complex biological process of plant growth with two different tools: the "paper & pencil" concept mapping technique and the computer-supported educational environment "ModelsCreator". Students' shared activity in both cases…

Computer programs were developed for a science center nutrition exhibit. The exhibit was recognized by the National Science Teachers Association Search for Excellence in Science Education as an outstanding science program. The computer programs (Apple II) and their use in the exhibit are described. (BC)

The use of computers in classrooms to support and extend instruction is a topic which is being discussed in major educational forums across the United States. Until a few years ago, computer use in schools was the exclusive domain of the mathematics department. Other content areas have now found ways to use computers to enhance their instruction.…