The importance of teaching the Luria-Delbrück experiment to biology students is increasingly recognized by educators, and improved pedagogical methods for teaching the classic experiment have been proposed and tested in the classroom. However, there are still obstacles that impede the proper teaching of the classic experiment. This note proposes…

Scientific literacy not only involves scientific content relative to each branch of science, as a scientifically literate person is also aware of what science is, as well as how it operates in a broader and complex sense. Therefore, in order to develop and implement successful methodologies in the classroom aiming to improve students' scientific…

The central dogma of molecular biology describes the transfer of genetic information from nucleic acids to proteins and stipulates that the system cannot work in the reverse direction. As a fundamental principle in biology, the dogma is as influential as it is controversial. Some commentators have debated the central dogma's empirical accuracy…

Whilst teaching about the nature of science (NOS) is a significant goal of science education, there remains debate about specifying the NOS and appropriate pedagogies and approaches to researching the NOS. A neglected, but conceptually and practically significant, problem is the proliferation of NOS-related learning goals such as NOS beliefs,…

The double-indicator method is often used in the analysis of Na[subscript 2]CO[subscript 3], NaHCO[subscript 3], and NaOH mixtures (carbonate mixtures). In this method, the determination of the volumes at the first and second equivalence points plays a crucial role in analyzing the composition and content of the carbonate mixtures. Here, LabVIEW…

Biomedical data science education faces the challenge of preparing students for conducting rigorous research with increasingly complex and large datasets. At the same time, philosophers of science face the challenge of making their expertise accessible for scientists in such a way that it can improve everyday research practice. Here, we…

The introduction of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT has raised many challenging questions about the nature of teaching, learning, and assessment in every subject area, including science. Unlike other disciplines, natural science is unique because the ontological and epistemological understanding of nature is…

This paper aimed to examine the changes in the representations of nature of science (NOS) in Chinese senior high school chemistry textbooks under the influence of the new curriculum ideas. The study was conducted based on an analytical framework in which the aspects of NOS, the approaches to address NOS, and the content relation of NOS aspects…

Transcription is the critical first step in expressing a gene, during which an RNA polymerase (RNAP) synthesizes an RNA copy of one strand of the DNA that encodes a gene. Here we describe a laboratory experiment that uses a single assay to probe two important steps in transcription: (1) RNAP binding to DNA, and (2) the transcriptional activity of…

The central argument of this article is that abduction as a "mode of inference" is a key element in the nature of scientists' science and should consequently be introduced in school science. Abduction generally understood as generation and selection of hypotheses permits to articulate the classical scientific contexts of discovery and…

This article aims to examine the impact of neoliberal policies on universities, focusing particularly on the concepts of academic capitalism and academic autonomy, and to conduct a comprehensive discussion to understand how scientific knowledge production has been affected by this process. Since the Bologna Process, universities have adopted a…

In recent years, there have been a number of articles published concerning whether or not potential energy ("PE") as defined in mechanics is invariant under Galilean transformation. This essay addresses that issue in a different, more fundamental and elegant way than has been done thus far. It recognizes that a considerable change in the…

Social realist theorising about curriculum and social justice in higher education has emphasised the importance of providing equity of epistemic access to powerful knowledge. However, there has been little discussion about what constitutes powerful knowledge and how students can use it for social good. In the science disciplines, the traditional…

Design activities can serve as a concrete experience to address the similarities and differences between science and engineering, and also demarcate engineering from tinkering. They can lay the foundation for concept development of targeted disciplinary ideas. Minor, but crucial, changes to classroom tinkering activities along with targeting and…

Our purpose in this paper is to put forward an argument about both the need and the value for understanding how the constructs of science identity and the nature of science (NOS) might intersect and intertwine and offer useful insights about science participation in times of crises. Based on our knowledge and understanding of these two research…