It has been widely accepted in the science education research community that scientific literacy as a concept and phrase was introduced by Paul deHart Hurd in 1958. Recent research into the origins of the phrase, however, has shown this to be incorrect. Its first published use can be traced back, in fact, to 1945, and the phrase was frequently…

Understanding the nature of scientific inquiry is considered a critical component of scientific literacy [Michaels, S., Shouse, A. W., & Schweingruber, H. A. (2008). "Ready, set, science!: Putting research to work in K-8 classrooms." National Academies Press]. What do elementary students already know about scientific inquiry? Using…

In this article we offer a conceptual and practical contribution to the field of STEM education by investigating the concepts educators may include in Quantum Technologies (QT) outreach activities. We embed our approach in the discipline-culture (DC) framework, in which we consider the cultural nuances of QT as an important factor which must not…

Social semiotic discussions about the role played by representations in effective teaching and learning in areas such as physics have led to theoretical proposals that have a strong common thread: in order to acquire an appropriate understanding of a particular object of learning, access to the disciplinary relevance aspects in the representations…

Studies on research quality criteria and their application have largely not defined the concept of 'research quality'. This reluctance to define and theoretically position the concept of research quality consigns empirical research to remain descriptive and makes methodological decisions more difficult. This paper aims to propose a theoretical…

Understanding the nature of science is an essential component of scientific literacy. In a technology and media-oriented environment, text-processing algorithms and various artificial learning approaches are crucial and continue to develop. Latent Dirichlet Allocation is a topic modeling algorithm that has been used frequently for many years to…

The complexity of RNA cannot be fully expressed with the canonical A, C, G, and U alphabet. To date, over 170 distinct chemical modifications to RNA have been discovered in living systems. RNA modifications can profoundly impact the cellular outcomes of messenger RNAs (mRNAs), transfer and ribosomal RNAs, and noncoding RNAs. Additionally, aberrant…

The measurement of glucose through electrochemical methods is a great example to illustrate the practical application of electrochemistry. Although many students enrolled in chemistry classes are familiar with the glucose meter, only a few have delved into the underlying principles governing its operation. This experiment aims to address this gap…

As a widely applied theory that has found success across many fields, density functional theory (DFT) is largely taught. Typically, the most effective way to convey DFT concepts is through illustrative examples that are currently lacking in available resources. In this work, we demonstrate total energy calculations for H[subscript 2] using…

We argue that teleological thinking plays a central role in biology and, more specifically, in theory of natural selection, and, therefore, the didactic goal cannot be its unnuanced elimination. In this sense, we will suggest that students' teleological views can be used as the starting point for the construction of knowledge in this area of…

A culinary exploration of the role of CO[subscript 2] in leavening is described. This demonstration substitutes dry ice for chemical leaveners in order to achieve the same pancake fluffiness. Under the universal framework of food and cooking, we developed this activity to bring aspects of phase transitions and chemical transformations to a broad…

The mercury beating heart is a classic demonstration to introduce redox reactions in the classroom. Here we report a new, safer demonstration: the Galinstan beating heart. Galinstan is a commercially available eutectic alloy composed of gallium (68.5%), indium (21.5%), and tin (10%) that has low toxicity. When an iron nail touches the Galinstan…

The Wilson cloud chamber is an apparatus used for detecting and observing the trails of alpha/beta rays or even cosmic rays in saturated gas conditions. The principle of this device is based upon the powerful ionization of the aforementioned rays within the medium. This article will provide instruction for creating a classic version of the cloud…

The statics of fluids may seem simple at first but often poses problems for students when it comes to applying it to concrete cases. Despite its relatively simple laws, some subtleties, mainly related to the elastic characteristics of a fluid, must be noted. This elasticity allows the pressure exerted in a part of the fluid to propagate in its…

The conceptual gambit of this article is to propose that the notion of anti-entropy should be complemented by that of exergy investment or destruction, a term first proposed by Zoran Rant in 1956. It argues that one of Bernard Stiegler's most important interventions into deconstruction is the thermodynamic reformulation of Derridean…