Science curriculum and pedagogy offer ideal avenues for teaching young people the critical thinking skills they need to live in a post-truth world. Drawing on the theory of epistemic cognition, we present a selection of research-based pedagogies that have been shown to be effective in developing school students' understanding of knowledge and how…

The Australian Curriculum (n.d.) describes chemistry as having three interrelated strands, Science Inquiry Skills, Science as a Human Endeavour and Science Understanding. It also states "... the three strands of the Australian Curriculum: Science should be taught in an integrated way". This article will explore a model for integrating…

This article presents an instructional strategy called Premise-Reasoning- Outcome (PRO) designed to support students in the construction of scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, the PRO strategy involves identifying three components of a scientific explanation: (i) premise--an accepted…

This article presents an instructional strategy called Premise-Reasoning-Outcome (PRO) designed to support students in the construction of scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, the PRO strategy involves identifying three components of a scientific explanation: (i) premise--an accepted…

Based on our experience of teaching physics in middle and senior secondary school, we have found that students have difficulty in reasoning at the microscopic level. Their reasoning is limited to the observational level so they have problems in developing scientific models of magnetism. Here, we suggest several practical activities and the use of…

In any demonstration to students, producing light and sound usually ensures interest and can enhance understanding and retention of the concepts involved. A guided inquiry (Predict, Observe, Explain: POE) approach was used to involve the students actively in their learning about the explosive combustion of fine flour particles in air in the…

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an important tool in the structural analysis of both organic and inorganic molecules. Proton NMR spectra can yield information about the chemical or bonding environment surrounding various protons, the number of protons in those environments, and the number of neighbouring protons around each…

This paper is a qualitative, practice based study describing the use of the Focus-Action-Reflection (FAR) Guide (Harrison & Treagust, 2000) to address the shortcomings of a pedagogical analogical model in Year 10 Science. The aim of this paper is to present my experience of the FAR Guide in relation to an analogical model that gave rise to…

At noon throughout the year the Sun has a north-south and east-west motion around the meridian. Earliest/latest sunrises and sunsets do not occur at the solstices and the effect is more pronounced with decreasing latitude. This phenomenon is calculated for 25 Australian cities and the following observations are recorded: (1) The latest sunrise…

Investigations that study the effect of heating on ascorbic acid are commonly performed in schools, but the conclusions obtained are quite variable and controversial. Some results indicate that heating may destroy vitamin C, but others suggest that heating may have no effect. This article reports an attempt to resolve this confusion through a…

Extracting DNA from fruit and vegetables provides students with hands-on opportunities to engage with a visualisation of genetic material that can later be supported by ICT and practical model making. Here is a quick, cheap and easy way to extract DNA from strawberries that avoids the mess involved in other DNA extractions, such as from dried…

For the case of objects thrown from an elevated position, students tend to believe an object thrown at an upward angle will always land farther away than one thrown horizontally at the same speed. That this is not always the case comes as a great surprise to many. By analysing the situation of a horizontally-thrown object outdistancing one thrown…

The measurement of solar UV under water is not a simple process. In the underwater environment the difficulty of obtaining useable data is greatly amplified due to the optically complicated and at times unpredictable nature of water itself. The following practical exercise designed for use in the Year 11 and Year 12 Physics classroom aims to…

This paper illustrates a series of activities designed to encourage fourth to sixth-grade students to develop their conceptions of magnets. Through scaffolding activities and facilitation from the teacher, students will be able to generate, evaluate, and refine their explanations for how magnets work. Students can gradually develop sophisticated…

Very often science is taught in schools devoid of the people and events behind the research. Yet there is much that can be discovered about the nature of science when we examine the lives of scientists. Recently I read James Watson's "The Double Helix" and Brenda Maddox's biography of Rosalind Franklin, "Rosalind Franklin The Dark Lady of DNA." It…