The diversity of scientific methods has received widespread recognition in recent years. The purpose of this review is to analyze the changes in the representation of laboratory work in Chinese senior high school chemistry textbooks in the past 30 years from the perspective of the diversity of scientific methods. This study was based on Brandon's…

Concepts of molecular biology and genetics are difficult for many biology undergraduate students to master yet are crucial for deep understanding of how life works. By asking students to draw their ideas, we attempted to uncover the mental models about genes and gene expression held by biology students (n = 23) and experts (n = 18) using…

This article describes a research project that aimed to classify different types of sustainability-related school tasks in terms of two central approaches in primary school education: action-based and task-based learning. Using a textbook analysis approach, the article clarifies implicit and explicit forms of sustainability education in school…

This article aims to analyze how science is discursively attached to certain parts of the world and certain "kinds of people," i.e., how scientific knowledge is culturally connected to the West and to whiteness. In focus is how the power technology of coloniality organizes scientific content in textbooks as well as how science students…

The phenomenon of industrial melanism (IM) became widely acknowledged as a well-documented example of natural selection largely as a result of H.B.D. Kettlewell's pioneering research on the subject in the early 1950s. It was quickly picked up by American biology textbooks starting in the early 1960s and became ubiquitous throughout the 1970s,…

Homeostasis is a core concept necessary for understanding the many regulatory mechanisms in physiology. Claude Bernard originally proposed the concept of the constancy of the "milieu interieur," but his discussion was rather abstract. Walter Cannon introduced the term "homeostasis" and expanded Bernard's notion of…

Despite inquiry-based teaching was introduced and encouraged as significant tool to develop students' scientific knowledge and habits of mind, its implementation has not been well established in science classrooms in Korea. To understand the challenges and difficulties of the practice of inquiry practical work, this study particularly aims to…

In the 19th century the textbook dominated the curriculum and methods of instruction. The most important textbook was the textbook of reading known as the reader. In the early 1800s science was not established as a separate primary grade subject. The science students encountered in these reading textbooks may have been their only formal science…

This valuable and entertaining compendium of Bill Robertson's popular "Science 101" columns, from NSTA member journal "Science and Children," proves you don't have to be a science geek to understand basic scientific concepts. The author of the best-selling "Stop Faking It!" series explains everything from quarks to photosynthesis, telescopes to…

Textbooks and encyclopedias represent different genres of scientific literature. Textbooks help the students to prepare for their examinations in various subjects taught at schools, such as logic, metaphysic, chemistry. In the 17th Century some Calvinist professors, mostly in Germany, thought that a universal wholeness should be taught for the…

Reports a review of existing texts in which it was found that many textbooks exist which do not make any particular connection between Avogadro's number and the mole. Some books do not mention or use Avogadro's number at all. (DF)

Interviews 10 experienced science teachers about their understandings of the analogical models they use to explain science to their students. Investigates the notion that teaching pedagogy is influenced by the textbooks commonly used in class. Textbook analysis shows that chemistry textbooks used the most models and physics textbooks the least…

Presents a problem on nonstandard concentrations at nonstandard temperature modeled after an example problem on the Nernst equation found in a high school chemistry textbook. Discusses why the problem is incorrect, offering a second problem which is correctly solved. Implications for teaching the Nernst equation are considered. (JN)

Provides information concerning the development and use of the Textbook Questioning Strategies Assessment Instrument (TQSAI). (CP)

Advocates the use of cartoons in science textbooks as a means of presenting scientific concepts in a humorous manner and motivating students. Five cartoons from the Project Physics textbook are presented with descriptive comments. (JR)