This study aims to draw attention to data literacy, which is considered an important skill of the 21st century, and to provide an example activity that would incorporate it into chemistry education. The activity was designed using real data of Robert Boyle's experiment. The activity aims to examine Boyle's data in such a way to support data…

Students were tasked with the creation of videos of ordinary reactions to promote significant learning of complex concepts underlying chemical transformations. Interactive infographics were used to deliver instructions. Afterward, students planned the experimental setup for the reaction execution and video recording using their mobile phones. The…

There has been growing criticism over the aims, methods, and contents of practical work in school science, particularly concerning their tendency to oversimplify the scientific practice with focus on the hypothesis-testing function of experiments. In this article, we offer a reading of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's scientific writings--particularly…

In tabletop games involving dice, it is important to ensure randomness of the dice rolls and to protect other gaming elements from being scattered by rolling dice. One way of ensuring random rolls and protecting gaming elements is to drop dice into a dice-rolling tower ("dice tower"). A dice tower is usually small (20 cm by 20 cm) and…

Magnetism and its various applications are essential for our daily life and for many technological developments. The term "magnetism" is almost always used as a synonym for ferromagnetism. However, the magnetic properties of the elements of the periodic table indicate that the vast majority of elements are not ferromagnetic, but rather,…

This paper describes three methods of measuring the coefficient of restitution (CoR) for two different types of ball-on-ball collision. The first collision type (for which two different CoR measurement procedures are described) is a static, hanging steel ball forming part of a Newton's cradle arrangement, which is then hit by its adjacent…

The use of creativity in science practices is many times lost on secondary students. Creativity is seen as something central to the arts and humanities, but tangential at best in the sciences. However, an examination of many great scientific discoveries and the work of everyday contemporary scientists shows the depth and breadth of the use of…

Recently, there have been many calls for an increase in instruction on the nature of science (NOS) in schools (i.e. NRC, 1996; NGSS Lead States, 2013). These calls recognize the importance of this topic at all levels of science education, but there is little guidance in terms of how to address it effectively in curricula. Similarly, there have…

There are many lab exercises for upper-level school students and freshman undergraduates to measure the value of the local acceleration due to gravity ("g") near Earth's surface. In these exercises, the value of "g" is usually taken to be constant. The approach is often based on measuring the period of a pendulum that is…

The Einstein-First project approaches the teaching of Einsteinian physics through the use of physical models and analogies. This paper presents an approach to the teaching of quantum physics which begins by emphasising the particle-nature of light through the use of toy projectiles to represent photons. This allows key concepts including the…

A number of organisations have provided instructions on how to produce small quantities of liquid oxygen in the classroom using liquid nitrogen and a copper condensation coil (Lister 1995 "Classic Chemistry Demonstrations" (London: Royal Society of Chemistry) pp 61-2, French and Hibbert 2010 "Phys. Educ." 45 221-2). The method…

An astronomy "experiment" composed of three parts is described in the article. Being given necessary data a simple model of inner planets of the solar system is made in the first part with planets' circular orbits using appropriate scale. In the second part revolution of the figurines used as model representations of the planets along…

An activity is described wherein students observe dynamic floating and sinking behavior of plastic pieces in various liquids. The liquids and solids are all contained within a plastic bottle; the entire assembly is called a "density bottle". After completing a series of experiments that guides students to think about the relative…

In this paper we present a system aimed at demonstrating the photoacoustic (PA) effect for educational purposes. PA imaging is a hybrid imaging modality that requires no contrast agent and has a great potential for spine and brain lesion characterisation, breast cancer and blood flow monitoring notably in the context of fetal surgery. It relies on…

The experiment described here is fairly easy to reproduce and dramatically shows the magnitude of ambient air pressure. Two circular plates of aluminum are applied one against the other. How do you make their separation very difficult? With only the help of an elastic band! You don't have to use a vacuum pump for this experiment.