Entropy is a concept with an extreme controversy which many scientists have been trying to explain. Some of the approaches employed in its definition contradict each other, which made it extremely difficult for high school and college students to understand. Boltzmann was the first person who brought a statistical explanation to entropy and…

This article sought to give an overview of different interpretations and characterizations of socioscientific issues (SSIs) by identifying single entities that could form components of SSI and give examples of where single entities were combined to involve SSI in enhancing scientific literacy. Through a narrative literature review, the article…

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is a buzzword in America (Ames, 2013; Woodruff, 2013). With recent pushes from the federal government (Obama, 2013) the educational landscape is changing, with an increased emphasis on STEM (Noddings, 2013; Obama, 2013). However, a clear definition of who teaches each aspect of STEM does not exist…

What is a teacher to do when confronted with a student who says "I understand that theory (e.g., evolution), but I don't believe it"? The purpose of this article is to provide a rationale for answering this question. First we describe the various ways in which the terms "know/knowledge" and "believe/belief" are used and summarize the distinctions…

The following paper is intended as an exercise in "friendly criticism" of one of Harvey Siegel's and Mike Smith's ("Knowing, Believing and Understanding", this volume). I'm in substantial sympathy with the general thrust of their paper and my remarks merely provide some criticism of their discussion's conceptual coherence and clarity and a…